Vice President, Policy & Partnerships at NewGlobe Full Time

Job Title: Vice President, Policy & Partnerships

Location: Lagos, Nigeria

Policy and Partnerships

• The Policy and Partnerships team engages with visionary political and Government leadership to help shape policy, strengthen delivery, and impact complex education systems through comprehensive technical support. The team works to ensure that there is an enabling environment for governments to work with technical assistance partners to enact large-scale system transformation.
• Policy and Partnerships, ensures close collaboration, communication, and engagement with our government partners whom we serve in existing programs, to ensure we deliver on the promise of our program. The team ensures the government sees solutions coming to the fore, is participating in the work, and recognizes the impact taking place.
• The Policy and Partnerships team, In support of the government program, may also engage with other dynamic influencers (NGOs, think-tanks, academicians, and bi/multilateral agencies) to unlock additional support for our government programming and children in underserved communities.
• It is the Team’s responsibility to ensure that the program we deliver is understood by our government partner, and to negotiate any changes or updates or new needs in the program as it evolves, including its expansion and renewal, based on successful track-record and measured improved learning outcomes and positive impact.

About the Role

• As the Vice President, Policy & Partnerships, you will provide partner relationship oversight to all our programs across NewGlobe. You are responsible for building and managing diverse stakeholder relationships, and focused on account management in sustaining (and expanding) our work and operations.
• You’ll be taking over existing relationships from the Partnerships Development and Partnerships Launch teams or other Executives, and make these your own to ensure close collaboration and on-time execution of the programs.
• This entails significant relationship management, as well as project management in ensuring data and approvals needed to pass between the government and programs do so in a timely way for program deadlines.
• You will ensure that the government partners understand the programs, and support its implementation. This will require coordination of stakeholder sessions, government workshops, and government public events and celebrations.
• During government workshops, there will be a need for careful engagement and collaboration on program details — to be successful in this role, you must learn about all aspects of our programming, and what can be negotiated and what cannot to ensure we deliver on what the government requires of us — improved learning outcomes.
• You will need to be diplomatic and have discretion; know when to speak and when to listen.

What You Will Do

• Lead, manage, and drive the performance of all Policy and Partnerships Regional Directors and Directors across NewGlobe Programs to secure strategic relationships, build partnerships, and execute strategies to sustain our goals across each specific program. This will Include directly supervising and engaging closely with your team of Account Management Directors, and involving yourself in leading or overseeing key government relationships, engagements, workshops, events and stakeholder meetings as required.
• Establish and implement short and long-range goals, objectives, policies and operating procedures for the Policy and Partnerships (Account Management) function across programs
• Support the Group Managing Directors and Program Managing Directors, by ensuring the following is executed by the Account Management teams (in collaboration with Program Executives), across all our Programs:
  • Mapping of key government officials and stakeholders, and creation of robust stakeholder management plans for each;
  • Management of diverse strategic stakeholders across multiple Government departments and levels within those departments; with prominent education ecosystem stakeholders, including but not limited to the local and national teacher labour unions; and important ‘influencers’ to ensure continued success and positive sentiments towards the program.
  • Creation of governance committees according to core programming guidelines, and establishment of regular meeting schedules.
  • Weekly/Monthly reporting to our Government Partners
• Within the broader NewGlobe organization you will be a key leader collaborating across multiple internal teams including marketing, communications, corporate affairs, academics, schools, technology, finance, measurement & evaluation to provide input, feedback and get the support required to sustain positive Partnership relationships.

What You Should Have

• Deep experience and leadership role in building and systematically managing key client relationships and accounts to ensure delivery in a complex, multi-stakeholder program/project or large-scale government partnerships/contracts.
  • Experience or exposure across multiple countries especially in any of the countries/regions where we currently have programs would be beneficial.
  • Experience working with chief executives of governments, senior government officials, as well as demonstrated ability to work across the full spectrum of  bureaucracies.
• Highly capable and thoughtful problem-solving skills; able to act as an on-the-record spokesperson/intermediary and a solutions-driven lead, to ensure effective collaboration and communication between the Government client and our organization;
• Ability to balance commercial interests, social benefits and political dynamics – a blend across business and political acumen, but also high emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills;
• Ability to build and manage a high performing multi-location team
• Superior academic track record and strong presentation skills
• Other preferable but not mandatory requirements:
  • Prior experience within a high-growth, metric-driven operational organization will be helpful in settling into the organization’s culture
  • Experience in primary/secondary education or working knowledge of government issues related to the provision of basic education is a nice-to-have. But regardless, you have the demonstrated ability to learn a new area or industry.

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 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 from prior experience in various countries, 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, NewGlobe works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate – The children we serve and teachers we empower 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 benefit, experience, and value.
• A malleable 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.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely on your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.