West Africa Regional Director at DAI

About The Job

Objectives and Duties:

• The West Regional Director is a key member of the ATI delivery team and will support USAID’s Africa Bureau's ATI program in boosting trade and investment across the continent of Africa, with a particular focus on West Africa. The Regional Director will be primarily responsible for client management, oversight of buy-in design and implementation process and strong delivery on expected outputs, outcomes and overall development impact. The Regional Director manages Activity Managers, Specialists and Associates under ATI’s West Africa Portfolio. Tasks include, but are not limited to:
• Manage client relationships with USAID missions, regional economic bodies, and other key stakeholders in West Africa to develop and oversee the implementation of buy-in activities.
• Provide technical insight to USAID programming, as requested by USAID Missions
• Serve as management lead to support ATI buy-in implementation from the development of buy-in scopes of work (SOWs), to activity design, and implementation. This will involve close collaboration with ATI functional teams (i.e. grants, procurement, MEL, communications, finance/operations, systems & quality) and budget-related negotiations with current and potential buy-in clients.
• Supervise and manage a team of ATI Activity Managers in the West Africa Portfolio to ensure quality delivery of the technical activities within the portfolio and facilitate coordination with functional teams.
• Manage the resourcing of buy-in implementation by identifying resources needs (LTTA and STTA) to new and existing buy-in activities, in close coordination with project leadership.
• Plan, assign, and direct Activity Team work, including addressing and resolving problems.
• Ensure client satisfaction from buy-in design through implementation and timely delivery of deliverables and milestones in the West Africa Portfolio. This will include providing inputs and overseeing the design of buy-in SOWs, SOWs for procurements and grants.
• Work closely with USAID missions and grants/partnerships team to engage a broad spectrum of private sector actors to expand programmatic interventions. Where promising interventions are identified, support ATI Leadership to replicate impact through new partnerships and engagements both regionally and continentally.
• Support procurement and technical teams on final subcontractor SOWs and deliverable schedules, utilizing standard deliverable metrics, pay-for-performance, and catalytic funding contractual frameworks and support deliverables review in the West Africa Portfolio.
• Work with Grants Managers to in drafting of Annual Program Statement Addendum and other grant/procurement mechanisms in line with client priorities.
• Work with the Activity Team to provide capacity building and guidance to subcontractors and grantees in the West Africa Portfolio, as needed, to ensure that new and underutilized partners to USAID are given opportunities to build their familiarity with working with USAID effectively and advance the goals of USAID localization
• Lead strategic analysis and early identification of trade and investment opportunities and develop high-impact partnerships with businesses and institutions to identify/overcome key business environment constraints hindering trade and growth.
• Support ATI leadership in planning and implementation of the project workplans, quarterly/annual reporting and regular communications products to report on West Africa MEL outcomes.
• Ensure that the entire regional team is focused on tangible development impact and client satisfaction.

Reporting:

• The West Africa Regional Director will report to the ATI Senior Technical Director – Africa.

Qualifications;
Required Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in economics, business administration, social sciences or related discipline and 10+ years of relevant work experience specifically on trade and/or investment.
• Experience managing donor-funded international development programs with private-sector-led approaches in Africa; (Regional program implementation experience is preferred)
• Able and willing to work in a rapid pace/extremely demanding environment, and able to multitask.
• Experience engaging the private sector, corporations, and other strategic business stakeholders.
• Experience with grant and subcontract management.
• Experience with activity design, development, and implementation.
• Complete fluency in written and oral English.
• Excellent writing and presentation skills.
• French language skills highly preferred