Job Opportunities at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change

Role Summary

• At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), we work at the highest levels of government to help leaders go further and faster to make their citizens’ lives better. Moving the dial on the great global challenges of our time requires engaged, incentivised, focused, and motivated leaders. When political leadership is relentlessly deployed, at the highest levels, incredible things can be achieved.
• Using our distinctive expertise and global outlook and guided by the unique insights and perspective of our Executive Chairman Sir Tony Blair, our dedicated experts and embedded teams advise governments all over the world in strategy, policy and delivery, underpinned by technology. 
• Our functional offers include Strategy: supporting political leaders to identify the barriers to progress, Policy: finding the right solutions, Delivery: making change happen, and harnessing the transformative power of Technology to support leaders to engage with forward-looking opportunities.  Sectorally, we work on the topics at the top of political agendas from economic prosperity, climate change and energy, health and education, to peace and security.
• The New Operations Strategy Manager is an exciting role in within New Operations Strategy, under the global New Operations and Performance team, which oversees the set-up of new country operations worldwide. The role will focus on working with the Senior Director of New Operations Strategy on systematising TBI’s entry into new geographies during a period of rapid growth, to ensure a rigorous approach to investment decisions; understand the opportunities and risks in a whole portfolio approach; and collaborate effectively across the organisation to enable visibility and consistency. 
• The role is unique blend of political advisory and analysis, business development, strategy and planning. It also offers an excellent opportunity to work at the global level with broad exposure to all TBI’s Advisory work and responsibility to shape and enhance its quality.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain high-quality products that support TBI’s systematic approach to new country entry and activation, such as project plans, templates, Handbooks, codified Standard Operating Procedures, toolkits, checklists, and FAQs
• Manage internal reporting and coordination mechanisms, overseeing key reporting products such as dashboards and weekly updates, as well as implementation of automated workflows and approval platforms
• Support the overall management of the New Country Entry Fund, including analysing and working with Finance to ensure forecasts are aligned with expansion pipeline
• Contribute to capturing/sharing/incorporating lessons learned across countries in the New Country Entry portfolio to improve the quality of our work
• Play a hands-on role in supporting opportunity scoping and relationship building to enable timely progress and establishment of new country opportunities
• Lead proactive analysis of industry trends, data sources, and developments to inform new country entry opportunities, including management of external consultants and analysts
• Develop tools and marketing collateral to support Regional Directors scope and pitch TBI consistently across new geographic opportunities
• Lead the development of products and processes that improve TBI’s approach to pricing, prioritisation, and ensuring quality throughout the project lifecycle
• Manage and run internal meetings, with a focus on driving team work flow cadence, planning​, and communication Collaborate with cross-functional teams, acting as a thought-partner to other managers across the Institute

Person Specification  

The successful candidate should demonstrate the majority of the following:

• Significant years’ experience in a manager position in a consulting/advisory firm, multilateral organization, or a private sector organization supervising and executing across multiple workstreams simultaneously
• Experience in public sector, multilateral institutions, consulting, economics, and finance are highly relevant. Technology experience is not required but is an asset.  What is required is a personal passion for politics and strong political acumen
• Experience in new market entry, generating new business and developing an organization
• Direct experience working in multiple countries is an asset
• Experience in working in entrepreneurial and matrixed environments, comfortable working in ambiguity while closely collaborating with global functional and geographic teams
• Insatiable curiosity for data, with a proven ability to process it with attention to detail
• Strong time management skills and a demonstrable strength in project management
• Demonstrable experience of being an entrepreneurial self-starter
• Demonstrable strengths in structured problem solving, top-down communication, portfolio thinking, and financial planning
• High EQ and excellent communication skills, from executive office level through to technical level, and who is adept at speaking to senior leadership, knows how to navigate ambiguous environments and is comfortable at managing up and beyond hierarchy  

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Role Summary

• We are looking for a Senior Manager to be responsible for supporting TBI’s Africa regional management. This role is a new management role that has come up following TBI’s growth in the Africa region.
• This role will work closely with the Managing Director and Executive Director, Africa & senior regional leadership in delivering the OKRs set by the Senior Executive Team. The Senior Manager role will provide assurance that regional project requirements, deadlines, and schedules are on track. The post-holder will also bring consulting methodologies to provide high-quality implementable advice to the way the regional management team operates.

Key Responsibilities

Leading performance reviews and measurement of impact  

• Be accountable to the Managing Director for supporting the strategic direction of the Institute, specifically the annual strategy setting and quarterly review process, playing a supporting role in workstream design, based on TBI’s mission and approach.
• Support TBI team members in Africa to develop new strategic opportunities with counterparts. 
• Monitor and report to the Managing Director the implementation status of the OKRs, ensuring workstreams are on track against project requirements and schedules. 

Support the planning and evaluation cycle to regularly assess whether the strategy is ‘working’ and adapt rapidly in response to new challenges and opportunities.  Including:  

• Ensure there are clear Objectives and Key Results (OKR) framework for regular monitoring, using the organizational Theory of Change and impact tools. Lead regular project performance reporting, including the quarterly review process
• Deploy a strategic approach to review project progress, consider alternative approaches and re-set workstream objectives accordingly (within the OKR framework), with approval from the Managing Director
• Prepare status reports and establish effective project communication plans to key stakeholders (e.g., governments, donors etc)
• Support the regional team to conduct post project evaluation and identify successful and unsuccessful project elements
• Act as a thought partner to the Managing Director on development of the commercialisation strategy.  This includes design and monitoring progress towards achieving set targets
• Africa Advisory leadership focal point for the Advisory Performance and Quality team
• Work collaboratively with colleagues and perform other duties as reasonably required to achieve the goals of the Africa team and the Institute

Support the Executive team to build and manage a high performing team.

• Challenge ways of working in the team to drive impact and maintain delivery quality with a high bar towards performance
• Where appropriate, coach TBI technical experts to problem-solve delivery issues and unblock bottlenecks in the above-mentioned technical areas and workstreams
• Role-model TBI’s culture, living and representing TBI’s values. 
• Contribute analysis, lessons learnt, case studies and/or policy papers as necessary 

Lead special projects.

• Oversee special projects and initiatives on behalf of the Executive team
• Ensure projects are in line with our strategic objectives and are delivered on time, within budget and to the required quality

Person Specification

• We are looking for an outstanding individual with high levels of enthusiasm, drive, resilience, a can-do attitude, and ability to consistently achieve results in a fast-paced environment; an individual with a proven track record of leadership and delivery in the public or private sector; with a solid background in public/civil services worldwide; strategy consulting; relevant industry experience; private equity, finance, or international development.  

The requirements that should be met are:  

• Significant experience in government advisory or management consulting, chief of staff setting and comfortable working in a fast-paced environment
• Experience in the development and implementation of project management and/or matrix frameworks and being an all-rounder with ability to adapt and read the room quickly
• Have strong political acumen; being able to develop an understanding of the needs of senior officials and manage & motivate internal stakeholders towards common goal
• An ability to work independently, think strategically and translate strategies into concrete and implementable plans and present that comfortably in easy-to-understand manner
• Exceptional problem-solving and analytical skills, including sound knowledge of data analysis, strategic planning, and project management tools
• Ability in influencing, coaching, and delivering change through others with a can-do attitude
• Excellent inter-personal skills and ability to work both independently and as part of a wider team 
• Experienced people manager and effective motivator of high performing teams 
• High quality communication, drafting and presentation skills
• Ability to set and maintain a safe and secure culture and professional environment
• Strong sense of ethics, discretion and perseverance required
• Experience of living and working in developing countries is strongly desirable
• Fluency in English is a must, fluency in additional language an advantage