We’re a creative non-profit empowering girls to change their lives. Started by the Nike Foundation, we are experts in media, tech, brand and international development: a unique mix of skills that we use to solve global problems in a different way.

Who We Are

Girl Effect builds youth brands and mobile platforms to empower girls to change their lives.

We are a creative non-profit empowering girls to change their lives. Started by the Nike Foundation, we are experts in media, mobile, brand and international development: a unique mix of skills that we use to solve global problems in a different way.

We work across the world in places where girls are marginalised and vulnerable. We create youth brands and mobile platforms for young people in ways they love and interact with. We deliver these through the media and mobile tech they use every day – from apps that build skills, to TV dramas that explore vital issues, to magazines written by girls.

Context of the Role

Ethiopia is one of Girl Effect’s key markets and we are in the process of expanding our work in-country. Girl Effect Ethiopia (GEE) has locally sourced funding from several organizations including UNICEF, Unilever, and with plans for globally sourced funding for Girl Effect Ethiopia from Nutritional International and Gavi, the global vaccine alliance. Girl Effect Ethiopia has an established youth brand, Yegna, and an impressive reach through its core media product which is currently TV. Yegna has several other digital media and analog products in place with plans to move increasingly into the digital space as this opens up for girls in Ethiopia. Country Director will lead a multifunctional team, with a reporting structure to global functions, to implement programs to bring positive changes to the lives of adolescent girls through the use of Yegna and other touchpoints. S/he will be the face of Girl Effect in Ethiopia, manage relationships with a wide range of stakeholders including, but with limited to, public sector officials, donors, service providers, and other development nonprofit organizations. The Country Director will work very closely with functional leads in the global head office in designing country strategy and programs, leading the delivery of the programmes in the country and providing the leadership to the GEE team.

What You’ll Do

• Collaboration with the global functional leads to designing the country strategy. Take the lead in implementing the above via multiple programmes and projects with the support of global functions and the local team.
• Lead the donor engagement in Ethiopia, identify fund mobilization opportunities and develop new business proposals to maximize fundraising (including both locally-driven fundraising and links to global level fundraising efforts that include Ethiopia and/or draw lessons from Ethiopia)
• Collaborate with the global programme team to design country relevant programs whilst ensuring full engagement of the Ethiopia team and global technical inputs.
• Ensure the delivery of programme commitments for Ethiopia with maximum impact, efficiency, and innovation.
• Develop an implementation partnerships strategy to maximize opportunities with service providers, media owners, clubs and girl networks
• Network and represent Girl Effect Ethiopia (GEE) externally with multiple stakeholders, including NGOs, donors, service providers and the relevant ministries of the government of Ethiopia
• Lead the country office in a matrix functional reporting structure where the country functions would be reporting to global functions.
• Work closely with the GE global team and other network offices, to generate ideas, ensure work streams are well aligned, and rapidly update and share learnings to maximize the potential for demonstrating behavior change across our work
• Collaborate with the Safe Guarding team to ring fence all programmes as per Girl Effect’s Safeguarding policies
• Forecast, track and report on programmes and partnership activities for Girl Effect teams in Ethiopia and globally, as well as keeping donors up-to-date with the impact of our work
• Oversee budget development and tracking of spend with the support of local and global finance teams.
• Responsible for ensuring a robust control environment to manage to spend with the support of the global finance and operations team
• Prepare for and represent GEE and Girl Effect at conferences and other external engagements inside and outside Ethiopia as and when required
• Keep abreast of changes in local, national and global policy and programme arena which have implications for Girl Effect Ethiopia
• Lead on the development and updating of collateral for partnerships – for example, capacity statement, brochures etc.
• Effectively capture, track and record all approaches, meetings, contacts, correspondence and agreements on the Partner Portal (Salesforce CRM), and other communications channels, and ensure that other team members are brought in to conversations where necessary
• Support global efforts to develop new programme management processes, systems, and tools and ensure they are implemented effectively in Ethiopia
• Ensure the smooth running of office operations in collaboration with HR and Finance teams

Who You Are

• You are a senior leader with experience within the development space ideally at Senior Programme Manager level
• You have significant experience running an office and team of professionals; ideally, you have experience of managing and motivating staff from multi-disciplinary backgrounds
• You’re skilled at implementing programmes as well as project management, reporting to donors, and packaging information for internal and external audiences
• You have an extensive network of contacts within Ethiopia’s private sector, development sector, donors and senior government officials
• You have experience in applying to consortiums and running programmes
• You have experience of programming on Economic Empowerment, and SRH and/or social and behavioural communications
• You’re a proactive team player who actively goes out to identify opportunities
• You’re financially literate and are confident in matters of budget development with experience of managing significant annual budgets (more than a million USD)
• You’re driven and able to deliver against key timelines and deadlines, through prioritisation and organisation
• You enjoy taking the initiative and making decisions as part of a complex and varied workload
• You can demonstrate a commitment to realizing the potential of girls and to the vision and values of Girl Effect
• You’re able to work with others at a distance and use systems for sharing information to support this
• You’re confident at developing presentations and public speaking to be able to externally represent the work we do with passion and energy
• You’re fluent in Amharic and English, with an extremely high level in writing in both languages. Additional local languages are a plus
• You’re educated to degree level (minimum), ideally within a relevant field of expertise
• You’re willing to travel extensively within Ethiopia as required, and outside Ethiopia occasionally

What Else You Should Know

As we continue to scale and grow – we are hugely ambitious for our future and we are looking for people who are driven by this to change the world for girls.

Our teams are a diverse mix across sectors (non-profit and commercial) and specialisms (from Brand and Creative through to Gender and Insight). You’ll learn and grow in an environment that will challenge you to think and work with a fresh perspective.

At Girl Effect, you can expect to work somewhere where you will be stretched and developed in your role, a place where you can build your career and work with talented, engaged people committed to our cause to create a lasting impact.

This role is being recruited on a 12 month contract basis.

Ability to travel for extended periods of time – up to 40% of the time is essential