Senior Business Development Manager - East & Southern Africa

Job Description

Business Development Lead, East and Southern Africa

Oxford Policy Management’s (OPM) has an exciting opportunity for a skilled Senior Business Development Manager to join our growing team of around 450 in-house staff spread across 10 countries. The Business Development Lead for the region will lead in developing our portfolio of work in Eastern and Southern Africa, building on a track record of winning and implementing development projects for major funders such as the UK Government (FCDO), the UN, World Bank, EC and foundations. We are looking for someone with a strong proposal development skills, entrepreneurial and able demonstrate successes across the variety of donors that we are looking for.

This is an exciting time for OPM in the region. We have been delivering impactful projects there for the last 40 years through a mixture of national and international expertise. Following recent investments in setting up national offices, and a regional support function, we are now looking to expand our regional footprint further, and develop our national and regional staff base, to develop our offering to funding agencies. This role is critical to that process helping us identify new opportunities to grow our business at scale.

The position will be based in Kenya and will work closely with teams and consultants in the region (especially via staff in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Africa), and sector teams globally (based all over the globe) to develop a multi-year pipeline of work. Specific sectors we are looking to expand in the region include, climate change, health, education, social protection and public financial management.

Main accountabilities for this role will include but are not limited to:

• Lead on strategy to grow OPM’s pipeline in the region, assessing market trends and where OPM should focus, reflecting its comparative strength.
• Develop relationships with regional clients and those partners (i.e. other firms, funders) who are engaged in the region
• Build up a network of consultants for existing and future work opportunities.
• Support OPM’s sector teams in intelligence gathering, and helping prioritise which tenders to go for
• Lead pre-positioning efforts on high value bids
• Where required, support the coordinating the tender capture process
• Lead regular regional business development meetings and coordinate/collaborate as needed with other areas in OPM, including global Commercial and Acquisition teams
• Ensuring that business development is a continuous learning process for teams involved in the regions

To be successful in this role, candidates will need to be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience:

Qualifications & Skills

• Educated to post-graduate level ideally in economics, international development, politics, business or other relevant field.
• Demonstrated ability to write winning proposals, and strong knowledge of tendering requirements, legalities, and guidelines of relevant clients.
• Demonstrated experience of developing networks in East or Southern Africa
• Demonstrated experience of successfully marketing to clients including FCDO/DFID, EU, World Bank, UN, USAID and Foundations.
• Demonstrated commitment to OPM’s core values of integrity, ingenuity, and investment in people.
• MS Office, particularly advanced levels of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Strong written English language ability, and copy writing skills.
• Right to work in Kenya is essential.

Person Specification

• Business development, networking and stakeholder management skills in an international development related field.
• Pro-active and flexible approach to work: Ability to work independently and under their own initiative with good strategy thinking, excellent organisation skills, attention to detail, strong time management / prioritisation skills
• Numerical confidence, with the ability to analyse budgets, excellent financial and commercial acumen
• Research, analytical, and project management skills.
• Ability to proofread large technical documents with strong written English language, and copy writing skills.

About the Organization

We are an international development consultancy committed to helping low- and middle-income countries achieve growth and reduce poverty and disadvantage through public policy reform.

Working in all areas of social and economic policy and governance, we seek to bring about lasting positive change through analytical and practical policy expertise. Through our global network of offices, we work in partnership with national decision makers to research, design, implement, and evaluate impactful public policy in over 100 countries.

We draw on our local and international sector experts, alongside a network of expert associates and dedicated support staff, to provide the very best evidence-based support