About Gatsby Africa

Gatsby Africa is a private foundation set up by Lord David Sainsbury that is committed to building stronger economies in East Africa through the transformation of high-potential sectors.

East Africa urgently needs economic transformation – growth with depth that will radically change economies, rapidly create jobs and offer large numbers of people pathways to make a step-change in their income. To address this, Gatsby catalyzes large-scale and lasting change in high-potential sectors in East Africa in order to benefit hundreds of thousands of people over the long term.

They have a portfolio of six sectors across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda: aquaculture, agricultural inputs, textiles & apparel, forestry, livestock and water services. In addition, Gatsby has been supporting work in the tea industry in Tanzania and Rwanda through their partner, The Wood Foundation.

Gatsby takes a rigorous approach that places at the centre the economic viability, competitiveness and commercial dynamics of the industries it supports while setting this in the context of a sector’s political economy. Systems thinking also plays a key role, and Gatsby is ambitious in seeking deep systemic change on a sector-wide basis over the long term. Gatsby uses a range of tools to achieve these goals, including direct investment and investment facilitation, grants, technical assistance and work with governments on policies, strategies, regulations and other facets.

The Role

The Deputy Director Insights at Gatsby Africa has a multifaceted role focused on enhancing the foundation’s ability to share knowledge and influence stakeholders. This includes building strong capabilities to gather insights from their work, sharing these insights effectively, and actively engaging with governments and institutions. The role involves working in specific geographies, collaborating with partners, and providing support, including process management, systems design, sector selection, strategy development, and facilitating training programs and economic transformation discussions.

The ideal candidate for this technical role should have substantial professional knowledge in private sector development, experience with market systems and sector transformation programs, an understanding of economic growth and industrial policy, and knowledge of political economy challenges, particularly in East Africa.

Key Responsibilities:

1.Design and lead the delivery of strategic government engagement projects-

• Lead projects by collaborating with the Insights Team and Country Directors. The goal is to plan and structure projects with key partners, defining goals, deliverables, resource requirements, timelines, and aligning with Gatsby Africa’s objectives.
• Establish critical senior-level relationships, governance systems and ways of working with the target partner to enable effective design and then delivery of the project.
• Oversee project teams, which may include Gatsby Africa staff and external consultants, to ensure effective project delivery. Coach, mentor, and support staff to achieve high performance and successful project outcomes.
• Produce high-quality technical work, including data gathering, analysis, workshops, presentations, and strategy documents. Engage key stakeholders and ensure their support throughout the project, resulting in high-quality outputs.
• Build the capacity of partners to understand and implement GA’s approach and their lessons from elsewhere, facilitate training, work alongside and coach government and other partners’ staff, drawing on wider resources as needed.
• Identify potential co-funders for these projects, build close relationships with the decision-makers and influencers in these funders, providing compelling materials on the opportunities from supporting this work and deepening conversations with those interested.

2. Engage in broader Insights Team workstreams-

• Produce high quality think pieces and communications materials from these projects for sharing internally and externally to highlight GA’s work.
• Conduct research and evaluations for Gatsby Africa’s programs to create informative case studies aligned with key messages for sharing internally and externally.
• Support work by the Insights Team and the Portfolio Team to deepen GA’s thinking on critical areas such as inclusive and resilient growth, environmental issues or sector selection.
• Support funder engagement and fundraising, particularly for the strategic projects where needed, but also across GA as needed.

Required Experience & Qualities:

• At least 10 years’ relevant experience with substantial project management expertise.
• Proven experience of leading aspects of complex private sector development programmes, including market facilitation programmes.
• Experience of leading cross- cultural teams, demonstrating sensitivity to cultural differences.
• A network of contacts across the development and investment sectors in East Africa.
• Experience of working in international development, with in-depth experience in East Africa.
• Relevant higher education qualification at bachelor’s degree level or above.

Gatsby Africa is an equal opportunity employer. Shortlist (www.shortlist.net) is Gatsby Africa’s recruitment partner for this role. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is closed, though early applications are strongly encouraged. If you have any questions concerning the role you can write to Marwa Hossam Eldin at marwa@shortlist.net or Tanya Chhabra at tanya@shortlist.net. If interested please click on the link to apply.