Operations Director Kenya

Position Overview

Educate!, an award-winning non-profit social enterprise, is seeking an Operations Director to lead operational excellence across our programs and support functions in Kenya. This is a leadership role ideal for someone who loves managing people and projects to seamless execution and is driven to maximize impact through excellent management practices, processes, and attention to detail. The right person for this role will have a history of achieving results through teams and experience managing projects (including budgets and support functions).

You are the right fit for this role if you;

• Are a strategic thinker who can move deftly from vision to execution—perceiving emerging opportunities, building a goal-oriented strategy, aligning internal and external stakeholders around a shared vision, and driving implementation.
• Ability to thrive in dynamic and fast-changing environments, comfortable with uncertainty and change
• Have experience managing teams to execution and helping a team that is scaling or in the early stages of scale.
• Ability to manage goals, guide others through major changes, encourage teamwork, develop team capabilities, and motivate team leads to meet deadlines.
• Professional and interpersonal skills with the energy, vision and drive to succeed in a fast-paced, high-performance culture.
• Must be able to help the team set up systems, identify those needs, using and optimize those systems.
• Ability to deeply understand a complex strategy, ability to make choices that support that strategy.
• Demonstrated financial acumen, a good understanding of budgeting, and experience drafting proposals and building systems

Sound like you or someone you know? Read below, visit our careers page to learn more about Educate!,

About Educate!

Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined.

At Educate! we're obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent.

Educate! prepares youth in Africa to learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by:

1) introducing an employment-focused school subject into secondary, and

2) delivering livelihood boot camps for out-of-school youth, with a focus on marginalized rural girls and young women.

To date, more than 390,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya, and along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa.

Educate! is a team of over 250 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations, and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.

We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Big Bang Philanthropy, #startsmall, Generation Unlimited, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.

Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year. By 2025, we aim to scale our annual reach by 4x and measurably impact over 400,000 new youth.

Performance Objectives

Operational Excellence & Efficiency (45%)

• Team Leadership:

  • Lead and manage a high-performing team across Finance, Administration and Procurement.
  • Provide ongoing coaching and development opportunities.

• Process Optimization:

  • Lead relevant managers in developing cost-effective, efficient office management, inventory management, procurement, communication, human resource, finance and staff collaboration systems to streamline workflows.
  • Oversee managers in optimizing operational processes, workflows and systems

• Procurement Management:

  • Oversee quality procurement services by the procurement department
  • Ensure supply chain systems support Educate! programs, enhancing client satisfaction through strong collaboration, motivation, and compliance with office and field systems, while innovating for efficient delivery from office to field.

• Office Management:

  • Oversee the Operations Manager and in implementing and maintaining effective administrative systems and procedures.
  • Ensure a safe and productive work environment for all staff.

• Field Logistics Management:

  • Oversee the development and lead the implementation of logistical strategies to ensure the smooth and efficient delivery of program resources to field locations.
  • Oversee the management of transportation, warehousing, and inventory control for field operations.

Financial Oversight & Strategic Management (35%)

• Financial Leadership:

  • Provide oversight to financial operations, ensuring finance remains dynamic & relevant to programs & operational delivery while ensuring adherence to budget constraints and best practices.
  • Embody and promote values of timeliness, accuracy, continuous learning, and data-driven decision-making in every financial operation.
  • Coordinate periodic country budgeting processes between MD, Finance Manager and Budget Managers, providing strategic recommendations on process, spending, investing and associated financial management culture
  • Collaborate with the Finance Manager to periodically review the internal control framework so as to manage risk and create a strong ethical environment
  • Exercise diligent leadership in approving payments and transactions, ensuring every decision reflects our commitment to financial integrity while safeguarding the organization’s financial health
  • Analyze financial data (quarterly reports, budgets) to identify trends and optimize cost-effectiveness.

• Compliance & Risk Management:

  • Minimize legal risks by understanding current and proposed legislation, enforcing regulations, recommending new procedures, and complying with legal requirements.
  • Develop and oversee the implementation of robust compliance management strategies to ensure all departments adhere to regulatory requirements, and organize presentations and meetings to enhance awareness of compliance protocols and external requirements within our industry.
  • maintain an updated comprehensive checklist of legal statuses and progress, shared quarterly with the Managing Director.
  • Manage all legal aspects of the organization, including contracts, agreements, and legal disputes. Liaise with external legal counsel, auditors, and taxation lawyers as needed.

Strategic Planning, Programmatic Alignment & Support – 20%

• Strategic Planning & Communication

  • Collaborate with the MD & DCOO in the development of the country's operational plan, aligning with organizational goals and priorities.
  • Communicate operational performance metrics and progress reports to senior leadership.

• Programmatic Alignment & Support

  • Collaborate with program teams to understand operational needs and ensure alignment with overall program goals.
  • Identify opportunities to improve program delivery through efficient resource allocation.
  • Develop and implement systems and processes that enhance communication and collaboration between program and operational teams.
  • Foster a customer-centric culture within the operations team to enhance service delivery while anticipating and mitigating risks.
  • Develop and implement operational efficiency-related initiatives & training programs within the operations team to ensure the team is dynamic and delivering to efficient standards.
  • Collaborate with departments to implement and assess compliance with the Child Protection and Safeguarding policies

Qualifications

• Dynamic experience highly preferred, with demonstrated ability to operate well in complex and fast-changing environments
• 8+ years of work experience, with 5+ years of operational management and/or leadership experience
• Experience managing medium to large-size teams and balancing multiple priorities
• Financial integrity and budget management experience
• Passion for Educate!’s mission is a must, but past work in education or youth development is not required. We value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from people with a variety of backgrounds.
• Fits our Five Cultural Tenets (see What is Educate! About? below); Learn more by looking at Educate!’s culture deck here

Terms

• Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with experience
• Benefits include medical insurance
• This position will be based in Kenya

What Is Educate! About?

We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.

1. We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed - We never forget that Educate! exists to impact youth. We are purpose-driven. We obsess over impact daily and if it doesn’t lead to impact, we want nothing to do with it. We prioritize interacting with and listening to youth. We design and manage the organization to ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences that youth value.
2. We Exceed Expectations - We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results. When we know what needs to be done, we do it. We don’t wait to be asked and we don’t stop at what is asked of us. We look for solutions as much as we identify problems.
3. We Are Always Learning - We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded. We know there is always another way and we are excited to learn about it. We continuously look for resources of all kinds from multiple disciplines. We try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
4. We are One Team, Many Views - We say what we think while treating each other well. We believe that all people have the same inherent value and that diverse ideas and open dialogue fuel excellence. We constantly strive to create an environment where everyone can and does express themselves freely. We support and respect each other as people and colleagues. We act as one team: We prioritize the organization's mission and goals over team or individual goals.
5. We have the Startup Mindset - We will always keep innovating to grow our impact. We aspire to be game-changing. We never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.” We question the status quo in our industry. We move fast and embrace change to move towards our long-term vision. We’re not afraid of failure. We interrogate anything that slows us down.

Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do.

Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

Child Safeguarding: Educate! is committed to child-safe/youth-safe recruitment, selection, and screening. Our recruitment and selection procedures reflect our commitment to the safety and protection of children in our programs. The successful candidate will be required to provide a satisfactory Certificate of Good Conduct as a condition of employment. We reserve the right to decline to offer employment to an individual or terminate an employment contract with an employee that may pose a risk to children and youth.