Representative Africa

Position: Representative Africa

Team: Programme Team

Reports to: Chief Programme Officer

Based in: Nairobi

Salary range: KES 874,584 – KES 1,202,544 per month

The Representative Africa is a senior leadership role responsible for developing and strengthening the Foundation’s emerging portfolio in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Foundation’s Africa portfolio is at a crucial stage, with a mix of developing and more established partnerships, and a growing set of engagements across the region. The Representative will be responsible for managing this evolving portfolio while building it into a coherent regional partnership strategy over time.

Based in Nairobi, the Representative will serve as the Foundation’s main point of contact in the region and will work closely with partners across government, philanthropy, civil society, and business. The role combines strategic leadership, partnership development, grant management, and field-building, with a strong emphasis on learning, scale, and long-term systems change.

Partnerships and portfolio development

• Serve as the Foundation’s representative in Sub-Saharan Africa, acting as the primary point of contact for partners across the region
• Manage a diverse portfolio of partnerships, including both mature and developing relationships, ensuring quality, scale, and impact
• Build and strengthen partnerships that:
• Advance early childhood development and parental wellbeing at scale
• Contribute to the development of the early childhood field in the region
• Identify, develop, and secure new partnerships, including exploring opportunities to collaborate with other philanthropies and regional actors to increase leverage, learning, and long-term commitment
• Shape and evolve the portfolio into a coherent regional strategy, building from existing investments toward greater scale and integration.

Grantmaking and programme oversight

• Lead and oversee a portfolio of grants and programmes, including:
• Designing and negotiating new grants
• Monitoring implementation, budgets, and sustainability
• Reviewing progress, results, and risks
• Ensure that programmes are designed with a view to scaling through a coherent regional strategy, partnerships and institutionalisation
• Provide strategic guidance and support to partners to strengthen delivery and impact
• Coordinate access to the Foundation’s support offer, including technical assistance, executive education, and peer learning.

Monitoring, evaluation, and learning

• Promote a strong culture of learning and reflection across the portfolio
• Work closely with MEL colleagues and partners to strengthen measurement of: reach, leverage, parental wellbeing, feedback and learning
• Ensure that all partnerships have robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems in place
• Use data and insights to guide strategy, improve implementation, and inform decision-making
• Contribute insights and lessons from Africa to the Foundation’s global knowledge base.

Regional ecosystem building and representation

• Represent the Foundation in regional and international fora, including conferences, convenings, and policy discussions
• Build relationships with key stakeholders across the ecosystem, including: governments and municipalities, philanthropies and multilateral organisations, civil society and academia, private sector
• Contribute to strengthening the early childhood and parental wellbeing field in the region
• Identify opportunities to position the Foundation as a thought partner and catalyst in the region.

Leadership and internal collaboration

• Manage and support a small team and consultants and collaborate with programme and support teams across the Foundation
• Work closely with the Programme Support and Learning team to ensure alignment and quality
• Advise the Chief Programme Officer on regional developments, risks, and opportunities
• Contribute to cross-foundation priorities and strategic initiatives beyond the Africa portfolio.

Inside the Foundation: Programme Team and all Foundation staff

Outside the Foundation: Philanthropies, governments, technical partners, multilateral organisations, and business

• Excellent leadership, strategic planning and management skills
• At least 10 years of relevant experience in philanthropy, social policy, government, or related fields (private sector candidates with strong partnership-building experience also considered)
• Strong experience in building and managing multi-stakeholder partnerships, ideally across multiple countries
• Demonstrated ability to manage both established and emerging programmes or portfolios
• Experience working in or across Sub-Saharan Africa; strong understanding of regional dynamics
• Proven ability to operate in complex, evolving contexts with a high degree of autonomy
• Specific expertise in early childhood development, urban development or both is an advantage
• Strong experience in monitoring and evaluation
• High degree of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and empathy
• Comfortable working under pressure and on a wide range of tasks
• Experience working in an international organization in which team members around the world collaborate remotely
• Ability to communicate effectively verbally and in written English, regional language (s) a plus.

Van Leer Foundation Competencies: Teamwork, Learning ability, Result-oriented

Job Specific Competencies: Networking, Leadership, Negotiating, Entrepreneurship

The Foundation aims to contribute to inclusive societies where all children and communities can flourish. We do this by bringing people together with different perspectives and supporting them to achieve large-scale impact. Our work covers three main activities:

A Good Start. Giving all children a good start in life sets the foundation for inclusive societies. Through our flagship programme on early childhood development, we work globally to improve the wellbeing of babies, toddlers, and their caregivers. We provide investment and knowledge to help leaders develop and scale effective policies and services.

Van Leer Institutions. We believe the human sciences and the arts are powerful tools to promote inclusive societies because they can help make space for divergent views and mutual understanding. This underpins our support for the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Jerusalem Film Center. We support both through recurring annual grants.

The Endowment. We rely on our endowment to finance our philanthropic activities and do not raise funds. The endowment invests in a highly diversified portfolio of public market equity and debt and has a substantial allocation to private equity. The full portfolio is screened to meet ESG criteria. We also have an allocation for mission-related investments (MRI) through which we invest in funds aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals closest to our work on early childhood development.

Our team consists of 40+ professionals representing more than 20 nationalities. We have offices in Brazil, India, Israel, Jordan, and the Netherlands. The team has a wide array of expertise including in early childhood development, urban planning, effective philanthropy, public policy, executive education, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy, strategic communications, impact investing and financial management.