Director, Program Operations and Planning - Mastercard Foundation

Reporting to Chief Programs Officer, the role will lead and coordinate programming excellence across programs and will oversee and integrate program-wide performance management, monitoring, tracking and reporting, program planning, and quality assurance in coordination with the Heads of Program Operations in Human Capital Development, Pan-African Programs, and Country Programs and all interfacing enabling functions.

The successful candidate will be based in any of our listed offices in Africa; Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya.

WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

• Manage Program-wide annual-18 months rolling calendar of priorities and activities.
• Monitor, track and guide:
  • (i) strategic program and portfolio planning at all programs level (individual planning at program/country team level).
  • (ii) Coordinate with finance (lead) on all program's financial forecast planning and program budgeting - including managing annual program planning cycle.
• Tracks and collates program-wide portfolio implementation plans, progress and status.

• Coordinate with the Chief Programs officer and Executive Directors of the various delivery platforms to support consistent quality in scaling of the Foundation’s programs to help generate dignified work for more young people.
• Manage the program implementation processes, policies, guidelines and standards ensuring quality, coherence and alignment of all program processes post final design and integration of IPIA-E2E.
• Take ownership of guidelines, tools, processes, templates to ensure standardization in coordination and consultation with OE.
• Manage and govern revisions to all programmatic processes, policies, guidelines in coordination with OE, SO, other core relevant cross functional departments.
• Monitor the implementation of program-wide processes, policies, guidelines and standards and d lead the development and implementation of changes to ensure continued coherence and alignment to the evolving programming needs.
• Play the central aggregator role on planning and implementation of programs across the delivery platforms, ensuring programs operations meet Foundation values and priorities and have no duplication of efforts.
• Collating data, preparing dashboards across programs (forecasts, targets, commitments, disbursements, impact metrics etc.) - in coordination with impact, finance, BI and research
• Preparing Management performance reports, key analysis and trends reporting.
• Prepare management performance reports, key analysis, and trends reports across all the delivery platforms including EleV.
• Provide the Chief Programs Officer with regular status update/Executive reports on program-wide performance in consultation with the Executive Directors.

WHO YOU ARE

• A University degree, preferably in business administration or a related field is required; a Master's Degree will be advantageous.
• Project Management experience Change Management
• Fifteen (15) years of experience driving strategy and program delivery success within organizations across multiple countries in Africa. 
• Six (6) years of leadership and management experience of which at least four were gained in a multi-country environment in Africa, with a preference for private sector experience.
• Experience supporting program operations for a large-scale transformative initiative across multiple geographies or similar levels and scope of experience.
• Experience in public policy within nonprofit organizations, international NGO and/or learning institutions is also helpful.
• Build experience, an asset – building and growing new teams and new organizational units/departments.
• Mastery of Microsoft Office suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).
• Strong coordination and project management skills.
• Excellent organizational and prioritization skills; demonstrated attention to detail and ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Exposure to strategic systems thinking with an ability to understand and engage with stakeholders in different ecosystems and design programming that addresses root causes and critical needs.
• Substantive knowledge of key issues and emerging trends and barriers in youth and work across Africa.
• Excellent English written and spoken communication skills, proofreading skills with a high attention to detail.
• Strategic and critical thinker with strong Programmatic experience
• Strategy and planning experience.
• Skilled at cross-functional coordination and collaboration.

• Process improvement implementation experience.
• Familiarity with Foundation processes and policies yet unafraid to innovate and redefine them.
• Strong partnership mindset and able to align stakeholders across different roles toward common goals.
• Advanced competencies in program reporting, and synthesizing key decisions required.
• Skilled communicator and influencer, from executive through to technical levels and external constituencies, know how to navigate ambiguous environments and are comfortable at managing up and beyond hierarchy.
• Excellent multi-stakeholder management skills with senior Foundation colleagues and senior levels of external stakeholders.
• Demonstrated financial management experience including preparation and management of budgets and contracts.
• Fosters a positive spirit of collaboration in a complex, and rapidly evolving environment.
• Results drive/orientation, an eye for detail and pragmatic decision-maker.
• Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity that exemplify the Foundation’s values.
• Demonstrate a commitment to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.