Job Opportunities at Bridge International Academies

Overview:

We are seeking an Academic Director to oversee and implement all aspects of the academic program in Kenya.

The Academic Director will be ultimately responsible for learning outcomes across Bridge International Academies in Kenya.

What You Will Do:

Advocating for learning outcomes and serving as an in-country academic consultant for other departments

Leading execution and interdepartmental coordination of the core academic program
Providing feedback to the Curriculum team, in order to improve learning outcomes and culturally contextualize what is taught
Representing Bridge with key national stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education and other government education officials
Conducting necessary market and regulatory research to inform instructional systems and policies (timetable, teacher specialty configurations, retention policies, exam policy, placement policy)
Managing the Academics team based in Kenya: Curriculum, Field Work, Measurement and Evaluation (M&E), Instructional Leadership, Innovation
The Academic Director, Kenya, will report the Country Director and Global Academic Director.

What You Should Have:

The Academic Director, Kenya must be a data-driven individual with experience developing and managing cultures of high performance and high expectations. You must be a great academic leader who understands exceptional instruction and can motivate and support others in realizing a vision of academic excellence. Ideal candidates have worked in organizations with a proven track record of generating large learning gains.

In addition, the Academic Director, Kenya must:

• Have a Bachelor`s degree in Education or related field, graduate degrees preferred.
• At least 8 years’ experience working in the Education sector; 2 or more years’ experience of teaching experience with evidence of outsized student learning gains is an added advantage.
• Be an effective, articulate communicator who can represent Bridge to external audiences
• Be a self-starter and problem-solver, who thinks three and four steps ahead.
• Be hard working and collaborative, with the tenacity to plow through challenges and an appreciation for teamwork toward achieving a shared vision.
• Be both detailed and results-oriented, driven by the data that will allow us to know what is working and what isn’t working for kids.
• Be humble, ready to “roll up your sleeves” to get things done

The Academic Director, Kenya will be based in Nairobi, Kenya.

You’re also

A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done, with at least 5 years of post-graduate school experience. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
A networking mastermind– You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates. You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network in Nigeria from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business sectors.
A creative problem-solver– Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand. Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.
A customer advocate– Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and value.
A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.

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The Bridge Offer

With plans to enrol ten million students ten years from now, Bridge International Academies offers a tremendous opportunity to grow with one of the world’s most exciting, ambitious, and socially conscious organisations, with leadership roles available across a number of competencies and geographies. With headquarters in London, we also operate out of Boston and DC.

About the Role
At Bridge, we aim to make life-changing education to every child in every corner of the world. To do this, we need to open schools in every corner of the planet.

That’s where you come in.

You will design the tools, processes and general systems to launch new Bridge International Academies and Bridge Partnership Schools starting from the day we break ground on building a new location and continuing through the first month we’re open. You answer questions like – how to we identify and engage key stakeholders in our communities, what is our community and parent outreach strategy in a particular country or region, how do we recruit top quality teachers and school leaders and how do we get the most children into our schools from the very start?

This is an incredibly important role. Historically, we have seen that the number of pupils we admit during our launch window has a significant impact on the number of pupils we serve even two years later – that means more children benefitting for a life-changing education and the opportunities that follow on day one as well as years later.

How We Work
Bridge is a collective of leaders. We expect each person to drive and own their work. In your role, you’ll be expected to own the strategic vision of your team and to develop and execute projects that create measurable impact. When you start at Bridge, you’ll receive a lot of support with the expectation that eventually you will become fairly independent.

What You Will Do

• Set the global vision, strategy, overall research and design approach, budget, and timelines for the School Launch department.
• Lead human centered research, design, piloting, and iteration to strategically develop systems, processes, tools, and other interventions to community influencer
• identification, teacher and school leader recruitment, prospective parent outreach, and pupil admissions.
• We design all interventions for scale. Regardless of type, we need to work with extreme efficiency and standardization, yet offer some flexibility per community, at scale
• Think end-to-end. Solutions can come in the form of improving recruiting of our Bridge Ambassadors, providing better training and professional development, creating new systems and tools, developing accountability measures, or any other part of the school launch process
• Collaborate with the Schools teams in all operational countries as well as global Academics, Operations, Technology, and Schools Management departments
• What You Should Have
• Passion for Bridge’s vision of democratizing the right for all children to succeed
• 8+ years relevant experience including extensive experience in expansion, retail growth innovation, design, and/or operations experience required
• Experience growing and/or innovating in a rapidly scaling (potentially multi-market) business
• Experience with human centred design (prior work examples will be requested)
• Experience working in developing countries and/or with low income customers
• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field (business, management, sales, retail management, organisational behaviour), graduate degrees preferred

You’re also
A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
A true collaborator – You want to work with a team. You have experience working with a network of teams in a matrix organization and have demonstrated experience collaborating and getting things done while building buy-in for key Schools Management priorities.
Comfortable with Ambiguity – Bridge is an incredibly fast moving company. At times, you might not have all the information you need and there will be ambiguity. To excel in this role, you are comfortable with going with the flow and adapting as you get more information.
A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand. Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.
A customer advocate – Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and value.
A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
Data driven: When making decisions, you don’t rely your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyse it and make decisions with clear justifications.