Job Description

Devex is currently assisting a non-profit organization dedicated to building a sustainable distribution platform for products designed to fight poverty and disease in the developing world, in their search for a Deputy Country Director.

Introduction

Do you want your work to matter? Do you want to use your advocacy skills to make a difference, not just a living? Do you want to improve millions of lives, including your own?

The organization works to reinvent how we improve the lives of the under-served. We think big but operate lean and nimble. We train community health workers to bring health services and products life-saving to people’s doorsteps. Services like prenatal assessments and well-baby visits. Products like medicines, fortified foods, and modern contraceptives.

We also transform community health through mobile phones. We teach community health workers how to assess maternal and child health with mobile phone apps and to treat common illnesses like pneumonia, malaria, and diarrhea. We also create predictive algorithms to make the best use of their time. And we test new tools like paperless referrals to clinics and biosensors to monitor infant and child growth.

At the organization, you will have the chance to apply your ideas and creativity every day. If you work well in a dynamic collaborative culture, set high standards, and meet challenges with determination and a sense of humor, you’ll thrive in the organization.

The organization has a team of 180 employees in Uganda and will grow to 400 in the next four years. This year we will serve 5 million Ugandans. In four years we’ll serve 15 million. We’re growing because we have a proven model and a powerful mission: to ensure that every mother and child has basic healthcare in their community.

Your Charge

To succeed in our work, the organization needs a great operations team at headquarters and in the field – known as Direct Operations.

In Uganda, the Direct Operations team coaches community health workers, opens new branches, and identifies ways to improve areas like accounting, supply chain management, employee recruitment and engagement, and marketing.

And like every great team, our direct operations team needs a great captain.

Lead growth. You will work with the country director and your team to develop the strategy for expanding direct operations to improve community health. The strategy will include Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), programmatic areas, and best-in-class policies in areas such as management, accounting, last mile delivery, and marketing.

Ensure excellence. Identify systems and processes for effective field operations in areas like logistics, supervision, technology, human resources, and incentives. You will work with other teams to develop solutions and will monitor the excellence in execution through the field operations team.

Motivate the troops. You will be the general of a 100+ person team. In your first year, you will directly manage a Deputy Director, Field Operations and an Expansion Manager. You will also build a positive, collaborative culture – one that encourages help team members to learn from and support each other.

Monitor money. Work with the Country Director and finance department to develop direct operations budgets and to monitor and control costs.

Your background

• Field operations experience. You have 12+ years experience leading multi-functional and multi-site field operations for a for-profit company or large non-governmental organization. You’ve been managing KPIs in a fast moving environment and have an amazing track record or constantly improving them. You have an MBA, MPH, or other relevant masters degree.
• Collaborative management skills. You have experience motivating and guiding field-based teams in multiple locations. You have a gift for helping the people your team members learn and improve. You know how to create high performing teams.
• Multitasks. You’re able to juggle multiple tasks at once while ‘keeping calm and carrying on.’ You think strategically, handle ambiguity and work well in a multicultural environment.
• Problem-solving skills. You know how to identify problems and find solutions. You like to get things done in a structured, methodical way.
• Lives our values. You can thrive in our culture – you can demonstrate inclusion, integrity, innovation, quick footedness, collaboration, and accountability.
• Committed to our mission. You have a demonstrable commitment to international development and global health.
• Get our model. The organization is a hybrid model. We’re a nonprofit organization with a private sector minded approach. We use private sector practices to achieve social goals. Candidates with for-profit and nonprofit experience preferred.
• Team player. You play well with others enjoy seeing the impact of our work as a team.