Regional Program Manager, East Africa

Strengthening Rural Youth Development through Enterprise

General Information

TechnoServe (TNS) is a nonprofit international development organization founded in 1968. Its mission is to help entrepreneurial men and women break the cycle of poverty by building businesses that create jobs, income, and economic opportunities for their families, their communities, and their countries.

Our work focuses on identifying promising business opportunities with a positive economic role for and impact on the rural poor.

Our approach is based on hiring high-performing people who share our vision of private sector solutions to generate sustainable solutions to poverty. We believe in hard work, creativity, and leveraging the dynamism of talented people.

We are committed to innovation, learning, and results, with a global team drawn from world-class industry and management consulting firms. We are currently working in more than 20 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

Purpose

• Provide overall management of the regional Strengthening Rural Youth Development through Enterprise (STRYDE) program, which will operate in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.
  
• The Regional Program Manager will work closely with respective country management and TechnoServe’s East Africa regional team, and will be responsible for timely and effective implementation of program activities and achievement of the program’s goal to train 15,000 rural youth to increase their productive economic engagement.
  
• S/he will thus be responsible for program planning and oversight, quality implementation, and delivery of results and milestones as agreed with the donor.

Duties & Responsibilities

Program Management:

• Establish and maintain program management and implementation systems, including a program workplan with clearly defined milestones;
• Ensure STRYDE is implemented with sound managerial, technical, financial, human resource, and overall programmatic practices;
• Ensure that all processes and activities adhere to corporate policy, legal and contractual obligations, and corporate and donor standards;
• Provide coaching, direction, and leadership support to team members to achieve results;
• Manage a regional program budget and monitor country budgets to ensure spending rates are on target;
• Produce narrative and financial reports for internal and external consumption;
• Ensure program targets are achieved;
• Ensure technical training packages are of good quality, are appropriate to a given context, and that trainings are effectively reaching participants.

Regional Coordination and Personnel Management:

• Overall coordination and quality monitoring of STRYDE team’s input and work content;
• Manage a regional program team of technical experts and support country program teams;
• Interface with other country, regional, and HQ staff;
• Ensure information is shared and flows transparently within the program team and to other organizational levels, as appropriate;
• Ensure that lessons learned in one area of operation are applied elsewhere, as appropriate;
• Manage regional stakeholder relationships
• Create, disseminate, and support country-level adaptation and use of standard templates and tools for key program deliverables, including but not limited to: key M&E indicators and templates, selection criteria, training materials, feasibility studies and market assessments, country-level work plans and other management and quality assurance tools;
• Work with program staff to identify TNS technical assistance needs at both regional and country levels;
• Work with country directors to ensure appropriate support for respective teams;
• Facilitate communication of technical program staff with other regional staff;
• Support new business efforts within the region, as requested.

Representation:

• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with donor representatives;
• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with local partners/ contractors in countries of operation;
• Establish and maintain strong relationships with relevant stakeholders in each of the program countries and across the region, including government ministries, private sector companies, business associations, and civil society organizations;
• Identify and lead opportunities to establish TNS as a leader in the sector, as appropriate;
• Represent STRYDE and TNS at internal and external functions.

Requirements

• Qualifications in business-related studies required;
• Strong program management and financial analysis skills;
• Personnel management experience required;
• International development experience, entrepreneurship skills, and experience working with youth training and/or mentorship programs preferred;
• Excellent interpersonal and oral and written communication skills a must;
• Ability to develop well-written, cohesive analyses and reports;
• Track record of building strong client and stakeholder relationships;
• Fluency in English required; Swahili and/or French language skills preferred;
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in business development and management, program design and planning;
• Willingness to be based in Nairobi (or another capital city in the area of operation), ability to travel internationally, and ability to travel to remote rural locations in East Africa.

Reports To: TechnoServe’s Deputy Director for East Africa

Location: East Africa

Click Here to Apply Now

TechnoServe is an equal opportunity employer. Women are encouraged to apply.