Director, Policy & Partnerships (Government Affairs – Bilingual English & French Position) needed at NewGlobe

About the Role

• As the Director, Policy and Partnerships, you’ll oversee an entire program’s large-scale, government-led, system-wide education transformation within all new locations. You are responsible for building and managing diverse stakeholder relationships, and focussed on account management and sustaining our work and operations in the territory. You own the government engagement with the diverse stakeholders and the many moving parts involved in our work in the territory. You are the first point of call for any communication between the program, the Government and other key stakeholders in the territory.
• You’ll be taking over existing relationships from the Policy and Partnerships Programme Development team and other Executives, and make these your own to ensure close collaboration and on-time execution of the program.
• This entails significant relationship management, as well as project management in ensuring data and approvals needed to pass between the government and program do so in a timely way for program deadlines. You will ensure that the government partners understand the program, and support its implementation.
• This will require coordination of stakeholder sessions, government workshops, and government public events and celebrations.
• During government workshops, there will be a need for careful engagement and collaboration on programme details — to be successful in this role, you must learn about all aspects of our programming, and what can be negotiated and what cannot to ensure we deliver on what the government requires of us — improved learning outcomes. You will need to be diplomatic and have discretion; know when to speak and when to listen.

What You Will Do

• Report to the Senior Director, to help build partnerships, relationships and execute strategies to sustain our goals across the newest upcoming program.
• Work closely with the Programme Development counterparts and leadership, be responsible for overseeing key government relationships and programming. To do this, you’ll lead government engagement, training and stakeholder meetings.
• Ensure creation of governance committees according to core programming guidelines, and establish a regular meeting schedule.
• Ensure thorough weekly and monthly reporting to the government begins and is continued under permanent programme leadership.
• Manage and oversee all Policy and Partnerships program staff (focussed on Programme Management).
• Manage the diverse strategic stakeholder management across multiple Government departments and levels within those departments; with prominent education ecosystem stakeholders, including but not limited to the local and national teacher labour unions; and important ‘influencers’ to ensure the successful and popular launch of the government’s new programme.
• Establish and implement short- and long-range goals, objectives, policies and operating procedures for the government relations support function; monitor and evaluates program effectiveness; effects changes required for improvement;
• Map all key government officials, and create a plan for management of each;
• Work with key stakeholders on consultative efforts to drive reforms in delivery of education to underserved communities;
• Utilize lead management techniques and maintain a detailed and dynamic database of these key influencer communities while tracking progress of programme launch

What You Should Have

• Bachelor’s degree with superior academic performance;
• Over 12 years’ experience in government program delivery or working in account management or as an engagement manager;
• In depth experience building and systematically managing key complex relationships and accounts to ensure program delivery in a complex, multi-stakeholder program or project;
• Previous experience working with a Ministry of Education on program delivery, preferred; If not within education, experience with another government delivery program or project, such as in health or ICT;
• Confidence, authority, and level-headed decision making needed as the leadership voice for the program;
• Knowledge of local, state and federal government issues related to the provision of primary education in the country would be preferred;
• Ability to balance commercial interests and social benefits – a blend across business and political acumen, but also high emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills;
• Experience acting as an on-the-record spokesperson;
• Highly capable and thoughtful problem-solving skills; able to act as an intermediary and a solutions driven lead, to ensure effective collaboration and communication between the Government client and our organization;
• Prior experience within a fast-paced, high-growth, metric-driven operational organization will be an advantage;