THE ROLE
Context for the role:
Financing Alliance for Health seeks to appoint the Chief of Staff. This is an exciting opportunity for the right candidate to expand the reach of pioneering a highly reputable organization, dedicated to pushing the envelope on how to finance community health as part of an integrated health system towards Universal Health Coverage.
The Chief of Staff will serve at a senior cross-cutting level whose responsibilities will include management of the Office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Executive Leadership Team, Board, key stakeholder engagement, and special projects.
Within the Office of the CEO, the Chief of Staff will organize, prioritize, and clarify the CEO’s objectives, schedule, and communicate with all stakeholders, including a wide range of external contacts, strategic partners, Board members and members of the Financing Alliance for Health staff. The Chief of Staff will be responsible for facilitating the CEO’s decision making by identifying and arranging pertinent information, responsibilities, opportunities, and risks, as provided by FAH staff and others. In addition, the Chief of Staff will serve as a thought partner and sounding board to the CEO on a wide range of topics while working across FAH functions and external constituents.
The incumbent will also play a critical role in partnering with the Executive Leadership team to formulate and manage the strategic agenda of the Executive leadership team. Additionally, the Chief of Staff will partner closely with the CEO on engagement with the Board, founder, and other key stakeholders.
The Chief of Staff will be tapped to lead or contribute to various special projects or initiatives deemed most critical for advancing the FAH’s objectives.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Manage Office of the CEO (40%)
Ø Set and execute strategic objectives for the office of the CEO, including internal and external priorities, in partnership with the CEO.
Ø Maximize the CEO’s time and attention by triaging and prioritizing invitations and demands for the CEO’s attention, including elevating opportunities most critical for advancing the FAH’s objectives.
Ø Coordinate agendas and attend or identify other attendees to attend CEO meetings; record and distribute key learnings, decisions, and commitments. May represent the CEO as appropriate.
Ø Ensure coordination between CEO, members of the Executive leadership team and other key staff members.
Ø Serve as a strategic thought-partner to the CEO by helping her to think through decisions, gathering additional information where necessary.
Ø Oversee communications from the Office of the CEO
o Draft reports, articles, speeches, and presentations for CEO, working closely with the Communications team. Help lead meetings and contribute to event preparation.
o Foster clear, complete, and actionable communications by the CEO across all FAH staff using various channels
o Draft internal and external communications for the CEO and Executive Office, coordinating across staff and teams/ departments across the FAH.
Ø Model effective information-framing, appropriate decision-making protocols and progress-tracking.
Ø Participate in the creation and revision of systems, policies, and processes to improve the organization’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Facilitation of the Executive Leadership Team (20%)
Ø Co-create and manage the Executive leadership team’s (ELT) strategic agenda and priorities in partnership with the CEO and Executive Leadership team members.
Ø Manage ELT meetings onsite, including determining the cadence, setting agendas, coordinating materials and working with colleagues on follow-up.
Ø Manage ELT office hours to ensure cross-team and staff-wide engagement and access to the ELT as appropriate.
Ø Lead the ELT support team to drive operational effectiveness for ELT-level activities and provide context and coaching where appropriate.
Board and Key Stakeholder Engagement (20%)
Ø Manage overall execution and effectiveness of Board meetings, including determining the agenda, working with team members to prepare high-quality reading and presentation materials, and coordination and execution of meetings.
Ø Continuously evaluate and adapt Board-related processes, working with CEO, Board members and relevant staff.
Ø Partner with the CEO and other staff members for Founder and Board related communications and engagement.
Special Projects (20%)
Ø Lead or contribute to special initiatives and projects most critical for advancing the FAH’s objectives, as determined in coordination with the CEO, members of the ELT, and appropriate staff.
Ø Contribute to the development and strengthening of the FAH culture, values, brand, and fulfillment thereof across the FAH and beyond.
Ø Where appropriate, participate in strategic and operational planning, improving accountability and alignment.
CANDIDATE SPECIFICATION: KEY SELECTION CRITERIA
Professional Experience
Ø Minimum 10+ years of executive-level administration or operational experience.
Ø Degree from an accredited university. Advanced degree preferred.
Ø Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Ø Superb organizational and project management skills
Ø Demonstrated management experience
Ø Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of context-switching
Ø Comfort working across different issues, at strategic to tactical levels, with a variety of stakeholders
Ø Team player with experience working cross-functionally across multiple levels of staff.
Ø Knowledge of Office products, ERP systems, a plus.
Ø Willingness and ability to work occasional evenings and weekend days is preferred.
Ø Humility and a sense of humor required
Ø Passion for and experience in social impact/change
Personal Qualities
Ø Outstanding team leadership, communication, and relationship building skills.
Ø Strong delivery focuses approach and can-do attitude
Ø A collaborative style with the ability to inspire a shared mission throughout an organization, ensure continuous development and empowerment.
Ø A structured approach where efficiency, consistency, performance, and accountability are prevalent
FINANCING ALLIANCE FOR HEALTH OVERVIEW
Financing Alliance for Health (FAH), partners with the government on all steps of financing to strengthen, and sustain community health systems, leveraging primary health care to attain universal health coverage. (FAH partners long-term with Ministries of Health and Ministries of Finance teams to develop different and changing financing sources). FAH draws on private sector knowledge of financial structuring and access to private sector and development finance opportunities to increase and diversify funding options for governments to scale and sustain community health systems.
The aim of our work is to increase access, coverage and utilization of quality primary health services at household level, in a culturally appropriate manner so as to reduce morbidity and mortality. Community health systems have a proven track record of economic, social and health impact through the thousands of jobs created for predominantly female, marginalized and young community health workers (CHWs).
In early 2015, UN Special Envoy Ray Chambers and Prime Minister Hailemariam of Ethiopia convened a high-level group to assess financing and scale-up of Community Health Worker (CHW) programs in Africa. At the Financing for Development event in July, the group launched a report that outlined the case for investment in CHWs, existing and new CHW financing mechanisms, pathways for financing CHW programs, and principles of best-practice CHW systems.
The report recommended creation of a ‘financing support unit’ (now called the ‘Financing Alliance for Health’) to help countries access financing for health systems (and community health in particular), given the complexity of the funding landscape, the challenges of utilizing domestic resources, and the difficulty of capitalizing on available funding opportunities. This Financing Alliance would also be charged with identifying and tapping into private sector financing and developing new, creative and ‘out-of-the-box’ models of ‘blended’ financing that combine domestic and international support with private sources of capital, including from corporations.
The FAH (through support from its partners) soft-launched its activities in January 2016 in the four anticipated “business lines” of the Alliance: (1) Country support: the team launched a pilot project in Liberia, which culminated in a set of recommendations to the Ministry of Health of Liberia in December. In addition, the Financing Alliance is supporting work in Sierra Leone, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa and has been asked to consider supporting a number of additional developing countries (2) Analytical toolkit: Refining toolkits to support country costs, investment cases, and financing pathways. (3) Financing products/modalities: Cataloging existing options while building new tools; and (4) Market building/awareness and education: developing funding baseline, country case studies, and advocacy.
Our Core Values
● Respect and trust as the basis of our relationships
● Challenging and disrupting the status quo for impact
● Curios, passionate and effective in our approach
● Driven to support the well-being of communities
AFRICA FRONTLINE FIRST INITIATIVE OVERVIEW
The Africa Frontline First (AFF) Initiative is a collaborative initiative that supports the scaling and strengthening of integrated and sustainable community health delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Under the leadership of H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Financing Alliance for Health, Last Mile Health, Community Health Acceleration Partnership, and Community Health Impact Coalition are currently the key driving partners of AFF. Through unique partnerships between governments, donors, implementers, and technical allies, AFF will support ten countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in building high-functioning, resilient, country-led community health service delivery systems. These systems will include an expanded and institutionalized workforce of 200,000 community health workers across the 10 countries by 2030. AFF works cross three pillars:
● Financing: Advocate, design and support implementation of sustainable funding mechanisms that enable transformed financing
● Political prioritization: Cultivate regional political will and champions to support accelerating community health reforms, including domestic financing
● Community leadership: Partner with countries to ensure that financing mechanisms contribute towards achieving national community health goals
Anchored within their local context and health reform journey of each participating country, this support from AFF will help them:
