Project Director (Malawi)

Deadline: 4 March 2016

Location: London, UK

Organization: Girl Effect

The Project Director will be part of a small team based in Malawi that will be tasked with setting up a branded media property in the country.  With a scheduled launch in December 2016, the team will have to move rapidly from design to implementation.  Other team members include a Brand Director and a Brand Strategy Manager, as well as a local creative partner. 

Key Responsibilites

Project Management:

• Manage the project on the ground, with particular focus on operations, commercial and partnership development and stakeholder management to complement the skill sets of the Brand Director, Brand Strategist and local creative partner capabilities;
• Develop and oversee the delivery of detailed project frameworks and timelines, with multiple streams of work and interdependencies;
• Maintain regular communication with GE headquarters as the operation gets established to provide visibility to and secure input from key technical staff across the organisation, helping to deliver across the project plan as required.  

Operational Set Up: 

• Establish Girl Effect as an operation in Malawi (either as a hosted or registered entity), including developing and overseeing detailed budgets, financial management and reporting, partner due diligence, and all legal and operational requirements. 

Partnerships and Stakeholder Relations:

• Act as the lead representative with government and development partner stakeholders to secure and maintain license to operate in Malawi and develop mutually beneficial partnerships with others investing for girls in Malawi;
• Provide regular updates to the Scale Partnerships team on project progress and produce quarterly partnership reports for PEPFAR in Malawi and Washington.
• Foster a strong relationship with key development institutions, in particular USAID and the extended PEPFAR eco-system as well as the broader HIV/AIDS community (including implementers), to ensure the GE brand strategy maximises the potential of working together and reinforces DREAMS’ shared goals, programme focus and targets; 
• Explore future opportunities with these development institutions, working within their existing adolescent girl strategies, planning cycles and procurement systems, to support GE programme objectives (e.g. connecting with partner programmes for distribution or to link with supply-side services) and for on-going business development objectives;
• Identify, design and negotiate (in tandem with the Brand Director) key partnerships and contractual relationships with creative and media partners, promotional partners and suppliers. 

Skills and Experience 

Girl Effect is looking for an experienced project director with a strong track record of delivering results within newly launched programmes in close partnership with other development actors.  The suitable candidate will already have extensive experience of large-scale and complex projects in the development field, ideally within media or girl-centred programming.  They will need to be a self-starter used to running with their own initiatives.

Project Management: 

• A diverse set of project management skills (from strategy to operations);
• Experience managing complex projects from conception to delivery and coordinating across multiple teams and work streams.

Operational set-up:

• Good working knowledge of how to set up a project or organisation in country (ideally with experience of Malawi);
• Experience carrying out strategic, due diligence, ethical and value for money assessments.

Stakeholder management:

• Experience managing government partnerships in a development context (ideally with strong working knowledge of the Malawi government);
• Experience negotiating multi-stakeholder partnerships and contractual agreements;
• Strong stakeholder engagement experience with proven experience of working with a range of partners (internal and external) to broker complementary activities and goals.

Donor engagement:

• Previous experience of working with donors – in particular reporting on project progress against logframes, and budgeting;
• A proven track record of winning new business, in particular through writing proposals and business cases.

Communications:

Excellent communication and outreach skills: a strong presenter who can achieve high-level buy-in for objectives and rally partners for support.

General:  

• Ability to engage, inspire, and influence others;
• A collaborative team player;
• Culturally aware and respectful - curious and sensitive about the cultures in which we operate;
• Ability to work effectively in multicultural teams with varying expertise, skills and backgrounds;
• Adaptable - able to work in complex, unfamiliar and changing environments;
• Resourceful, solution-seeker, self-starter - confident and proactive in generating and leading new initiatives;
• Excellent critical analysis and thinking skills;
• Positive, energetic, can-do attitude;
• Clear interest in working in developing countries;
• Commitment to realising the potential of girls and to the vision and values of Girl Effect.

Click to apply