Operations Manager at Lively Minds Ghana

About the role
Reporting directly to our COO the postholder will be at the forefront of leading our organisation through this exciting phase of growth and will serve as the right hand of the COO in driving operational excellence organisation wide. We have recently grown our team from 45 to nearly 100 FTEs. We are developing new systems and processes to ensure that our government partners are able to deliver to quality standards at scale, and our staff are enabled to provide them with highquality technical support.
Main duties and responsibilities
Systems optimisation

• Our goal is for our team, located across multiple locations, to be a well-oiled machine at scale andable to expand operations to new countries. As such, we need streamlined, centralised internaloperating systems (I.e., finance, HR, IT) that can be customised for context and ultimately enable us to work together as a global team. This role will be responsible for supporting the COO and other Senior Management Team members to optimise our current operating systems and design, build and implement new systems.
• Support evaluation and optimisation of current internal operating systems
• Support design, development, testing and implementation of new internal operating systems
• Manage a log of internal operating systems, uptake, risks and lessons learned and ensure evaluation is translated into actionable improvements

Programme Operations and Quality Management

• The Lively Minds Programme is mainly delivered by government partners, with Lively Minds staff performing as master trainers and providing technical support to government (capacity-building training and coaching). We must ensure that delivery by both LM staff and government staff is to quality and that the right systems and tools are in place to support implementation excellence. This role will be responsible for supporting the COO and Implementation Teams to optimise the programme execution rhythm and quality assure the programme delivery.
• Support Country teams to develop termly implementation schedules
• Support Country teams to schedule workforce effectively using automated IT tools
• Ensure process maps for all programme activities are optimised and kept up to date
• Provide technical expertise to the COO and work with Head of M&E to develop and implement programme quality assurance and reporting systems and tool
• Ensure implementation action plans are kept up to date and support Country teams to
• maintain these, monitoring compliance and progress
• Maintain the risk register: ensure effective actions are put in place to manage risks
• Proactively identify risks in the operations of the programme in consultation with the COO and Country Directors and facilitate problem solving discussions.
• Provide training/coaching to Country teams on quality assurance systems.
• Monitor compliance to organizational policies and escalate compliance risks to COO and policy owners.
• Analyse processes in programme activities and look for opportunities to improve our systems and processes using data and in-depth analysis.

Other

•  May be asked to deputise for the COO or Country Director Ghana or other members of SMT at external events with key stakeholders.

To succeed in this role, you:
To succeed in this role, you will need….

•  to be an analytical and strategic thinker - with an irrepressible ability to see challenges as opportunities and to find creative solutions
•  to be a fast and self-driven learner – you will need to quickly get yourself up to speed with new ideas, approaches, best practices
• to work productively and produce excellent quality work with minimal supervision at pace
•  to be a leader - you will need to collaborate well with other team members, and to drive high performance in others

Technical abilities
Essential

•  Minimum of 3 years’ experience of operations management or change management
•  Excellent communication (English), both oral and written
•  Professional Project Management certification (i.e., Prince 2, Six Sigma, PMP, APM, PMQ)
•  Experience of analysing and reviewing data
•  Experience in creating user-friendly tools and processes to support project and quality management
•  Experience using Microsoft 365 package including Visio, PowerPoint, with advanced Excel skills
•  Tech savvy – ability to learn new tech tools efficiently
•  Experience coordinating others
•  Ability to manage a complex and varied work load and to work under pressure
•  Excellent interpersonal skills

Desirable

•  Experience designing internal operational systems (I.e. finance, HR, IT)
• a Experience of working in the global south