Senior Manager - Digital Health & Government Partnerships at Living Goods

The opportunity 

• mHealth is the biggest health transformation of our lifetime. All around the globe, mobile phones are making a difference between life and death. They allow families to call for medical help in emergencies, help rural pharmacists locate lifesaving drugs during stockouts, and enable health workers to track potential pandemics. In developing countries, mobile phones have also transformed community health at the grassroots level. 
• Living Goods is rapidly transforming into a digitally-led business to better serve our communities and other stakeholders. Our belief in the power of technology, mobile phones, and phone apps is not unique. We have created tools, fine-tuned them, and used them to equip over 9000 Community Health Workers and hundreds of supervisors to deliver high-impact, low-cost community health services. We truly believe using data for decision-making is transformative. 
• We now want to take it a notch higher by strengthening our Digital Health team to enable us to customize and build high-performance and scalable mHealth systems. As such, this is an excellent opportunity for a driven candidate to take on a leadership role where you would be committed to building and maintaining a highly productive software engineering team instilled with the ethos of delivering quality solutions. In return, you will enjoy an exciting, innovative environment supporting flexible and agile work. You will lead one of the most important digital health interventions in Kenya which is targeted at revolutionizing the community health landscape in the country. You will report directly to the Chief Digital Health Officer (CDHO) with a close working line to the Kenya Country Director.

We are looking for someone who can: 

• Be a part of the Core Digital Health Leadership Group and work closely with the Chief Digital Health Officer (CDHO) and Kenya Country Director to oversee the implementation and provide advisory support for Electronic Community Health Information System (eCHIS) in Kenya for maximizing the health impact as well as sustainable scaleup across various regions as per organizational priorities.
• Develop and execute a clear and holistic eCHIS blueprint from a digital perspective in close collaboration and alignment with various departmental units including DH, Programs, and Kenya Country Team for supporting the eCHIS program.
• Establish and inculcate a strong partner ecosystem with external partners (Government, Technology, and Implementing partner) involved with the eCHIS design, development, implementation, and scaleup workstreams.
• Represent LG in external eCHIS forums and provide clear, effective, and strategic thought leadership for the larger eCHIS initiative in Kenya.
• Lead and manage the development, work planning/resourcing, mentorship, and upskilling of the team involved with the eCHIS program including career goals and organizational future needs. 
• Be a leader who has built effective teams that deliver results, technical experts, managers, and future leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop a holistic roadmap for eCHIS design, development, implementation, and scaleup as per organizational priorities with a specific focus on technology readiness as well as the Government priorities and vision.
• Provide digital thought leadership and active representation/participation for LG on eCHIS in external forums including but not limited to Government-led Steering Committees and Technical Working Groups in Kenya to positively contribute and support with proper decision-making to realize the vision of national scaleup of eCHIS in Kenya which will generate high impact on the ground.
• Support with the design and development of the key ecosystem elements and aspects essential for successful and sustainable implementation and scaleup of eCHIS including both internal LG initiatives as well as the collaboration with external partners. This would include the readiness assessment on key aspects of policy framework, technology ecosystem (software and product roadmap, devices, infrastructure – hosting, network, security, etc.), skillset availability, institutional structures, long-term sustainability on both program and financial fronts.
• Oversee and guide the establishment, growth, and refinement of the TA model for eCHIS by driving collaborative partnerships with government stakeholders as well as other development partners and donors.
• Set project structures, and teams and establish alignment with key stakeholders within LG while providing the strategic direction on eCHIS technology roadmap while working closely with external stakeholders specifically the government stakeholders.
• Develop and execute annual work plans for community health digitization workstream for LG with a specific focus on eCHIS Kenya.
• Undertaking regular SWOT reviews and risk assessments for identifying gaps and areas of support from eCHIS implementation and scaleup standpoint.
• Partnering with LG’s Programs and Advocacy team for generating awareness and seeking support from key stakeholders in the system on important ecosystem aspects related to eCHIS implementation and scaleup.
• Ensuring adoption of best practices needed for effective program delivery including project management practices, proper knowledge documentation, report-outs, etc.
• Organizing and coordinating meetings and discussions with key stakeholders to eliminate blockers and ensure efficient project delivery.
• Providing overall ownership and compliance on eCHIS finance/grant management
• Providing day-to-day direction and guidance to the eCHIS project team to ensure work plans are executed within the defined timelines.
• Collaborate with the Global Software Engineering (GSE) team in LG and external Tech partners to design, develop and implement reliable, robust, scalable, efficient, and secure systems for eCHIS.
• Engage and collaborate with senior management stakeholders (Government, Partners) in the external eCHIS ecosystem for technical discussions with appropriate and timely decision making.
• Provide regular and periodic reports, updates, and insights to CDHO for necessary decision-making and owning the risk register on the eCHIS roadmap.

Qualifications 

• BS/MS in Computer Science Engineering / ICT, or related field.
• 10+ years of professional experience across the ICT domain and/or management consulting domain with a specific focus on public health programs.
• Prior experience of engagement with Government agencies and stakeholders for national scale program design and implementation would be accorded a higher weightage.
• The candidate must possess at least 5+ years of leadership experience including hands-on experience in one of the following:
  • Program Management Support and/or Implementation of at least 03 large-scale digital / ICT programs involving service delivery, beneficiary coverage/outreach, process automation/workflow digitalization in any sector with direct government engagement.Or
  • Program Management Support and/or Implementation of 01 large-scale digital / ICT program involving service delivery, beneficiary coverage/outreach, process automation/workflow digitalization in any sector, and 02 small-scale / pilot digital health projects with direct government engagement.Or
  • Program Management Support and/or Implementation of at least 01 large-scale Digital Health program in the space of Community Health with direct government engagement.
• Prior professional work experience in Africa and particularly East Africa is desirable.
• Prior experience working in the development sector is desirable.
• Prior experience in matrix reporting in a large global organization is desirable.
• Prior experience in managing a team of at least 3-5 team members is desirable.

Skillsets

• A strong understanding of the technology systems, platforms, frameworks, and digital ecosystems including the software development lifecycle is essential.
• A deep understanding of evolving digital health and community health landscape particularly in Africa, including opportunities and challenges and commonly adopted digital health solutions and platforms used in low-resource settings is desirable.
• A good understanding of government systems, stakeholder engagement, and general functioning is strongly desirable.
• A good understanding of the public health ecosystem and a detailed understanding of the community health program & landscape is desirable.
• Strong interpersonal skills to inculcate and develop strong professional relationships with key stakeholders and experience in successfully delivering in a multi-stakeholder environment with a deep understanding of working and engaging with external ecosystem stakeholders at a strategic level to identify correct and workable solutions for given problem statements specifically when there are diverse opinions.
• Ability to engage with stakeholders with diverse backgrounds specifically at the senior management level and act as a bridge/translator to explain the technical aspects in simple language including the use of basic data analysis for enabling the right decision-making
• Willingness to work in a dynamic work environment and manage ambiguity as part of decision-making processes.
• Service-oriented leadership and teamwork approach to support across business teams and diverse partners to deliver optimal solutions that meet organization and partner objectives
• Desirable to have good experience in advocacy and policy development around digital interventions.
• Excellent communications skills, both orally and written specifically with respect to the usage of MS Word Suite including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint tools.