Job Vacancies at Rockefeller Foundation

Position Overview

The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) is seeking an Executive Assistant & Team Coordinator (EA) for the Africa Regional Office Team on a one-year renewable term role, based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The EA will play a key role in the Foundation’s Africa Regional Office to advance and influence the agenda and execution of the Foundations strategy in the region. The EA will receive direct day-to-day supervision from and be accountable to the Vice President, Africa Regional Office and will support the entire Africa Regional Office team in an administrative capacity and support team operations and contribute to the success of the work. This position requires reliability, organization, the ability to anticipate the needs of the VP and the team, and above all, a desire to learn and grow. To be effective in this role, the candidate must be able to advance work independently, maintain confidentiality, and work across a complex organization with high-profile internal and external partners.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Maintains calendar for VP and other directors, including identifying key deadlines /milestones in team plans and flag follow-up.
• Manages VP’s correspondence as delegated including drafting and responding to VP’s emails as appropriate.
• Anticipates organizational needs to ensure smooth team operations. Assisting in composing and preparing office correspondence related to team needs.
• Organizes and executes events on behalf of the VP’s Office as well as organizing, executing, and attending team events for the Africa Regional Office.
• Organizes and facilitates meetings for both Foundation staff and external partners, including coordinating meeting logistics and preparing meeting materials, and interacting directly with attendees.
• Coordinates both domestic and international travel arrangements ensuring tight schedules and well-articulated itineraries; creates and modifies travel itineraries; informs and plans actions based on the itinerary with appropriate parties.
• Schedules appointments and organizes transfer and accommodation details for visiting Foundation staff.
• Ensures the VP and team’s office has the technology and any tools or equipment required to successfully and flawlessly perform their work is operating effectively.
• Assists in creating high-level presentations and any other documentation required on an ongoing basis. This includes but is not limited to Board Presentations, budgets and forecasts, white papers, complex schedules and events, and travel and expense documents.
• Organizing and maintaining an internal contact details database for RF partners and grantees. Also maintains a proper filing system – physical and electronic e.g. on Box and Salesforce.
• Prepares and processes expense reports, vendor invoicing paperwork, and purchase requisitions, including monthly expense reconciliation and on-demand expense reports.
• Processing and renewal of work permits.
• Accompany VP to meetings and take notes and prepares action and follow-up items.
• Support preparation of documents for internal communications (quarterly reviews, reports) and external convenings (event organization, briefing reports, talking points, input into speeches, etc.) as needed.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• A bachelor’s degree in Business Administration or a related field is preferred.
• A minimum of 5 years of proven executive level administrative experience in supporting an Executive Leader.
• Experience in a complex, fast-paced, and highly professional role at a global or regional organization with multiple offices and with a strong mission and focus on people, or a related role in a not-for-profit organization focused on a highly dynamic, evolving organization and work environment.
• Direct experience in managing sensitive and confidential matters with a high level of professionalism and grace under pressure.
• Strong execution and organization skills and demonstrated experience in prioritizing and executing multiple priorities seamlessly with excellent attention to detail.
• Demonstrated proactive problem-solving skills with strong decision-making capability.
• Identifies, prioritizes, and manages agendas, employee communications, high-level presentations, and documents and is comfortable multi-tasking in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills and is effective in developing positive and productive relationships with all levels of staff and management across the organization.
• Proven experience working effectively as part of a team and autonomously.
• Proven excellent project management and organizational skills with a demonstrated ability to deliver high-quality, accurate work on time.
• Demonstrated technical proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and the ability to learn new applications quickly.
• Must have experience booking and managing international travel. International work experience is a plus as well as intercultural competence.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Bias for Action: Takes on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm.
• Communicates Effectively: Develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences.
• Decision Quality: Makes good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward.
• Strategic Learning: Actively learns through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder.
• Values Differences: Recognizes the value of different perspectives and commits to inclusion, equity, and diversity in every aspect of work.

go to method of application »

This position requires frequent work with confidential information including employee information, compensation, and benefits. The Director of HR will be responsible for providing strategic advice to hiring managers, counseling managers and employees on labor, leading recruitment for departments, expanding recruitment sources, facilitating compensation policies to managers, overseeing the performance management process, managing benefits plans and programs, supporting learning and development programs, supporting career development plans for staff, ensuring regulatory compliance, and supporting the roll-out of new HR systems. The position will supervise administrative staff.

This role is located in Nairobi, Kenya and valid Kenya work authorization is required.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Serve as the HR thought partner to the MD, Africa, and regional staff.
• Manage recruitment activities for regional staff and on-boarding new staff. On-boarding includes ensuring new staff is briefed on all policies and procedures, structure, history, and work of the Foundation, with appropriate introductions made. Coordinate professional staff’s NY orientation with the NY HR team.
• Manage and coordinate visa and work permits for international staff.
• Manage the selection of benefits for local staff, working with the MD ARO and the NY HR team (for Benefit Committee approval when necessary).
• Manage benefits administration – enrollment, renewals, and troubleshooting issues for staff.
• Manage all employee requests and needs related to Human Resources policies and procedures.
• Maintain up-to-date policies and ensure these policies are updated in the Employee Handbook and distributed/communicated to staff.
• Work with the NY HR team to manage annual merit increase processing for the regional office.
• Identify training needs of staff through the annual Performance Appraisal process and ongoing discussions with staff, and coordinate the appropriate training for each staff member, partnering where useful with NY HR.
• Prepare the annual HR budget working and manage the budget use and expense throughout the year.
• Assist managers and employees with compensation and pay-related issues to ensure fair and equitable application of compensation policy; oversee the performance management cycle and ensure all employees receive formal and written annual reviews.
• Provide employees with advice and coaching on employee relations Works with senior leadership in the regional office and MD Compensation to develop compensation strategies to support the short-term and long-term needs of the business.
• Design and implement broad-based, equity and executive compensation programs.
• Partner with business partners, talent management, talent acquisition, and other HR areas to ensure that compensation programs are aligned across HR.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in a related field, Master’s degree highly desired.
• Generally expected to have ten years of related HR generalist experience with three to five of those years in a managerial role.
• Experience working in a matrix environment.
• Experience working in an organization with both local and international staff.
• Experience hiring and managing HR processes for staff in multiple countries/jurisdictions including understanding labor laws, benefits, taxes, etc. in those jurisdictions and advising hiring managers on requirements.
• Experience managing reorg/restructuring environments as relates to HR.
• Knowledge of compensation administration and design.
• Experience managing employee relations.
• Demonstrated experience in supervising staff and/or managing small teams.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Strong analytical skills and detail orientation, as well as the ability to prioritize tasks, manage projects, and meet deadlines.
• Excellent judgment and decision-making skills.
• Ability to work with all levels within the organization and with a diverse employee population.
• Excellent computer skills, including proficiency in MSWord, Excel, and HRIS/HRMS.
• Ability to handle confidential information.
• Experience administering performance review processes.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Balances Stakeholders: Anticipates and balances the needs of multiple stakeholders.
• Develops Talent: Develops people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
• Directs Work: Provides direction, delegating, and removing obstacles to get work done.
• Manages Complexity: Makes sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
• Values Differences: Recognizes the value of different perspectives and commits to inclusion, equity, and diversity in every aspect of work.

go to method of application »

The Africa Food Initiative team is offering an internship for Kenya-based candidates who combine solid academic credentials with curiosity, creativity, and passion for social impact.

We value our Interns and want to invest in and mentor future leaders who will grow personally and professionally and create an impact in the philanthropic sector. As an Intern at The Rockefeller Foundation, you will have the chance to contribute to our initiatives by engaging in meaningful work assignments. 

Please Note:

• This position is open to graduate students only. 
• Submission of a cover letter is required. 
• This internship, which is a paid program, will run for 3 to 6 months, with exact dates to be determined. 
• This position will be based in the Nairobi office, so authorization to work in Kenya is required.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

The Intern will learn how to develop innovative solutions to improve nutrition security in resource-poor settings through cross-sector and multidisciplinary approaches involving nutrition, agriculture, business, environmental science, information technology, data science, and other fields. Specifically, the intern will:

• Support the Foundation's work of advancing a more nourishing and sustainable food system with innovative breakthroughs in science, technology, and cross-sector engagement.
• Review and synthesize literature in nutrition, agribusiness value chains, and supply chain innovations to inform decision-making.
• Assist the Food team in the design, implementation, and ongoing management of the Foundation’s new programs and further engagement with grantees and partners.
• Provide technical support to initiative staff, grantees, and partners in Monitoring Evaluation, Research & Learning. 
• Capture notes and clear next steps during the Food team’s engagement with partners in the areas of food system transformation, energy access, and poverty reduction.
• Participate in field visits to current and prospective grantees and synthesize field trip reports.
• Assist in any other roles as assigned by the Foundation.

Education, Experience, and Skills

• Currently enrolled in a graduate program in one of the following areas: Business Administration, Commerce, Entrepreneurship, Agribusiness, Economics, Econometrics, Statistics, and other fields of study with strong quantitative analysis. 
• Minimum of 2 years of work experience required
• Experience in global health, nutrition, epidemiology, agricultural economics, business, environmental science, or related fields will be an added advantage
• Experience working in the nonprofit sector will be an added advantage
• Strong research and analytical capabilities; able to think strategically about opportunities to advance The Foundation’s policy and advocacy work 
• Strong writing and editing skills in technical and scientific areas; strong attention to detail. 
• Dexterity with large data sets and capabilities to interpret qualitative and quantitative data.
• Collaborative, innovative, eager to learn, and interested in how the Foundations create and execute strategies working alongside partners.  
• Must be a proactive self-starter. 
• Able to multi-task and work well under pressure in a fast-paced environment. 
• Must be authorized to work in Kenya. 
• A team player with a self-drive in providing solutions to demanding tasks with tight deadlines. 
• A strategic problem-solver, capable of steering cross-functional collaborations and producing high-quality deliverables.
• Strong communication skills.

Qualifications and Competencies

• Bias for Action: Takes on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm.  
• Communicates Effectively: Develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences. 
• Decision Quality: Makes good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward. 
• Plans and Aligns: Plans and prioritizes work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals. 
• Values Differences: Recognizes the value of different perspectives and commits to inclusion, equity, and diversity in every aspect of work.