Associate Director/Director, Africa Operations

Africa Regional Operations Associate Director/Director

Location: Dakar, Lusaka, Nairobi, or Rabat

About IDinsight

We amplify social impact by partnering with leaders to develop tailored solutions. Our mission is to improve lives with data and evidence. We transform how the world fights poverty.

IDinsight is a global nonprofit that equips leaders with the data, evidence, and technology to improve lives at scale. We partner with governments, NGOs, multilaterals, and funders to support decisions at every stage of their impact journey – from bold pilots to nationwide scale-ups. Our teams bring rigorous evidence and practical insights so leaders can make informed decisions that truly change lives. With our partners, we are pioneering the next frontier of social impact, where data and technology accelerate progress for millions. We help leaders overcome the three main barriers to impact:

1. Figuring out what works
2. Learning and improving
3. Reaching and operating at scale

We work in multiple countries across Asia and Africa. Our work spans a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, education, health, governance, sanitation, financial inclusion, and other areas.

We have expertise in a variety of rigorous approaches and methodologies, which we tailor to each client's needs and constraints. To achieve a positive social impact, we:

• Support our partners with the full ‘data and evidence’ value chain – from primary data collection to data systems, monitoring, evaluation, and learning tools, and data science
• Inform funding decisions – toward high-impact initiatives and away from less effective programs or approaches
• Create cutting-edge AI-for-good products that make the delivery of social interventions and learning tools more cost-effective and scalable.

Our diverse, growing team of roughly 250 outstanding colleagues operates in nearly two dozen countries worldwide. Learn more about our mission, values, and principles at www.IDinsight.org.

About the Africa Regional Operations Director Role

The Africa Regional Operations Director will lead all operations as they grow and ensure that IDinsight’s four African offices have the operating conditions for safe, compliant, cost-effective, locally grounded client delivery. They will report to the Regional Leads for West/North and East/Southern Africa, support the four Africa offices and various remote teams, and collaborate closely with IDinsight’s Global Operations team. IDinsight seeks a self-starter who can manage a wide range of autonomous work streams independently and is looking for a role that emphasizes execution, inspiring leadership, and people management. The role holder will manage a team of multiple full-time administrative and operations staff (potentially hiring more people to the team as needs arise) and work closely with IDinsight client-facing staff, who will dedicate a portion of their time to organization building.

Role Responsibilities

Strategy and Cross-Regional Integration

• Set the strategic direction for Africa Ops, ensuring both regions work toward shared standards rather than solving the same problems independently.
• Translate organizational and regional priorities into Africa-wide Ops operating plans, service standards, and team workflows; identify where ESA and WNA can be better integrated and drive those improvements.
• Represent Africa Ops in global leadership conversations, bringing Africa’s operating realities and priorities into cross-functional planning and advocating for the resources and investments the region needs.
• Spot structural inefficiencies or risks across the Africa office and project footprint before they become crises; build systems and standards that make the function more resilient over time.
• Apply a data-informed lens to assess performance across regions, including service levels, escalation patterns, compliance risks, staffing bottlenecks, and cost drivers, and use those insights to drive improvement.
• Design and maintain a fit-for-purpose Africa operating model that balances standardization, local compliance, responsiveness to client teams, and cost stewardship

Standards, Systems, and Governance

• Own Africa-wide Ops standards, policies, handbooks, compliance frameworks, and operating norms, ensuring consistency where it matters while respecting local legal, regulatory, and cultural context.
• Oversee operational coordination across multiple legal entities and country contexts in Africa, in partnership with local legal counsel, payroll and accounting providers, Finance, and Global Operations.
• Oversee risk management across the Africa portfolio, including compliance, vendor dependency, safety and security, and audit readiness; ensure regional Managers have the tools and escalation paths they need.
• Lead Africa-wide duty-of-case systems, including travel protocols, office and temporary location risk management, incident response readiness, and coordination with the Global Safety & Security function
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement focused on operational effectiveness and staff experience. Identifying where legacy systems need to be challenged and creating space for the team to innovate and iterate.
• Partner with Finance and Legal on Africa-wide financial and compliance decisions, strategic investment decisions and ensure cross-regional resource allocation reflects organizational priorities.

Managing and Developing Regional Ops Managers

• Directly manage the regional Ops Managers for ESA and WNA, providing coaching, direction, and support to help them lead their teams effectively.
• Set clear expectations, develop plans, and create stretch opportunities for regional Ops Managers; hold them accountable for outcomes while protecting team well-being and momentum.
• Coach managers to move from reactive execution toward proactive, strategic ownership, anticipating needs rather than responding to them.
• Serve as an escalation point for sensitive or complex people matters that regional Managers surface; exercising sound judgment, discretion, and consistency with People Ops and leadership.
• Build a strong, cohesive Africa Ops team that fosters collaboration across ESA and WNA, rather than siloed regional operations.

Organizational Leadership

• Communicate with executive presence, synthesize complex, cross-regional operational information into clear recommendations for senior leadership and global partners.
• Serve as a trusted thought partner to Regional Directors and global function leads, bringing the Ops lens to strategic decisions from the design through execution.
• Model IDinsight's values, honesty, humility, and inclusivity, and set the tone for how the Africa Ops function shows up internally and externally.
  
  

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 8+ years in operations, people operations, HR, or an adjacent function in international or multi-stakeholder environments.
• Experience managing managers, setting direction, coaching for ownership, and holding teams accountable across geographies.
• Track record of building and improving systems at scale, not just running them, and driving cross-functional integration across complex organizations.
• Strategic thinker who can hold the big picture while ensuring execution stays on track; able to translate ambiguity into clear priorities for their team.
• Strong financial judgment: experience owning budgets, guiding investment decisions, and communicating tradeoffs to senior leadership.
• Experience overseeing statutory compliance, external audits, and operational coordination across multiple legal entities or country contexts
• Experience with safety, security, travel risk, or duty-of-care systems in complex operating environments.
• Data-informed decision-maker who uses analysis to shape strategy, not just track activity.
• Executive presence in written and verbal communication; able to represent the Ops function credibly in senior forums.
• Sound judgment and discretion in handling sensitive people and organisational matters.
• Travel regularly across Africa offices, likely 25%, depending on business needs
• Familiarity with MS Office, Google Docs, and ideally other relevant systems such as BambooHR, Asana, and Slack.
• Fluency in English required; Professional French strongly preferred.

Nice-to-Have

• Passion for global development and social impact.
• Working knowledge of compliance contexts in Kenya, Zambia, Senegal, and/or Morocco.

Behaviors and mindsets

• Calm under ambiguity and able to bring structure to fast-moving environments;
• Low-ego, high judgment leader who can influence across functions and seniority levels;
• Strong cross-cultural manager who builds trust, accountability, and inclusion across distributed teams.
• Self-starting team player

• Deep alignment with IDinsight's mission and a stewardship mindset.
  
  

Professional development

Skill and career development are core to IDinsight's values and long-term impact strategy and have been noted as highlights of teammates’ experiences. IDinsighters receive significant mentorship from IDinsight leadership and support from talented peers and are given considerable autonomy when ready. They maintain professional development plans and are given "stretch" opportunities designed to strengthen a variety of skills. Real-time feedback is embedded in our culture, and a formal structure enables maximum professional growth. Additionally, teammates have access to an annual professional development stipend, which they are encouraged to use to explore their career interests and develop their skills.

Nuts & bolts

Location

This position can be based in any of IDinsight’s Africa offices. It is not eligible for remote work.

Start date

This position
will start in June
2026, with a preference for candidates who can start immediately. We expect a two-year minimum commitment, regular professional development conversations, and the potential for a long-term career at IDinsight.

Compensation & benefits

Compensation and benefits are commensurate with the qualifications and experiences IDinsight is hiring for and are competitive within the global development sector. We are especially proud of our people-focused benefits, including comprehensive international health insurance, mental health coverage, paid vacation, sick and parental leave, relocation benefits, a travel stipend, technology and work-from-home stipends, a professional development budget, and more.

Please note that, as a non-profit, we cannot provide compensation comparable to that of leading private-sector organisations.

Work Authorization

IDinsight will prioritise candidates who have work authorisation in any of our Africa offices.

How to Apply

Please click the "Apply for this job online" button on the top right. The application will ask various questions to get to know you and will require a CV and cover letter. Please note that only candidates selected for the interview will be contacted.

Please ensure that your CV includes relevant professional and personal experience, as well as details of academic qualifications. CVs can range from one to two pages. Please note that headshot photographs, parental details, birth dates, marital status, and other personal information not relevant to the application do not need to be included in your CV.

More information, including details on IDinsight’s hiring process and frequently asked questions, is available on IDinsight Careers. Any questions should be directed to careers@IDinsight.org.

IDinsight’s commitment to reducing power asymmetries

IDinsight is committed to non-discrimination in our recruitment, employment practices, and organisational culture, regardless of people’s age, disability, gender, gender identity, genetics, national origin, race, colour, religion or belief, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic or status protected by applicable law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.