COO

Responsibilities:

• Assume full accountability for the end-to-end delivery of projects managing all workstreams, with explicit accountability for budget adherence, timeline management, and quality assurance standards.
• Develop a replicable operational framework that enables the organization to deploy project infrastructure.
• Design and implement institutional operating infrastructure - encompassing the finance-operations interface, procurement systems, human resources and administration, vendor management, and data governance - that confers the credibility of a structured institutional partner rather than a project-based entity in the eyes of donor and government counterparts.
• Develop the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and programmed reporting backbone required to translate field-level activity into timely, auditable, and consistent evidence for engagement with partners.
• Establish risk management and compliance discipline appropriate to regulated-sector and public-funds engagements, encompassing procurement integrity, safeguarding, data protection, and financial controls.
• Build, structure, and manage the delivery function as the organisation scales, with responsibility for workforce planning, organisational design, and performance management systems.
• Represent the organisation's operational capabilities directly to donor due-diligence teams, government technical committees, and commercial partners in contexts where demonstrated implementation credibility, rather than strategic vision, is the primary basis for evaluation.

Requirements:

•  Demonstrated experience managing multi-site logistics, infrastructure deployment, or health program delivery across a minimum of five states or regions, or 200 or more sites, concurrently.
• Direct professional engagement with ministries of health, regulatory agencies, or public-sector bodies, with practical understanding of procurement processes, regulatory approvals, and government planning and political timelines.
• Proven experience designing or managing the compliance, MEL, and programmatic reporting systems required by USAID or its successor agencies, United Nations agencies, philanthropic foundations, or Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) as conditions of continued funding.
• A verifiable track record of building teams, institutional policies, and operational systems from an early-stage base (fewer than 30 staff) to a structured mid-scale organization (100 or more staff or field agents).
• Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Public Health (MPH)
• Master of Public Administration (MPA), or an equivalent postgraduate qualification is preferred
• A compelling and demonstrable operational track record at the appropriate level of seniority may be considered in lieu of formal academic credentials.
• Commercial and Financing Structuring Exposure (Advantageous):
• Working knowledge of asset financing, receivables financing, inventory financing, or analogous structured-finance instruments relevant to commodity-chain ventures. This competency is advantageous but not mandatory.
• Certification in project or programme management (PMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent) is regarded as an additional qualification and is not a prerequisite for consideration.

Key Leadership Attributes:

• Dual Fluency: Demonstrably fluent in both strategic discourse and operational execution.
• The successful candidate will engage credibly in boardroom settings and technical field-operations environments within the same professional context, without a reduction in effectiveness in either domain.
• The "Builder" Mindset: Demonstrates a verifiable track record of building organizations and systems from early-stage foundations.
• Organizational experience derived exclusively from large, pre-structured institutions, absent direct founder-stage or early-phase building experience, constitutes an insufficient proxy for the requisite competency.
• Pragmatic Accountability: Constructively challenges unrealistic delivery commitments. The COO is expected to hold executive and senior leadership accountable to operational reality, including formally contesting timelines or resource assumptions that are not achievable programme management.