Associate Director, Strategic Operations & Special Projects

About MSI

MSI Reproductive Choices is one of the world’s leading providers of sexual and reproductive healthcare. We believe that everyone should have the right to choose. From contraception to safe abortion and life-saving post-abortion care (PAC), we are committed to delivering compassionate, affordable, high-quality services for all.

Today, our organisation has almost 9,000 team members working in 36 countries across the world. Our success lies in the fact that MSI teams are locally led, entrepreneurial and results-driven, and are passionate about delivering high quality, client-centred care in their own communities. As a social business, we focus on sustainable delivery, efficiency, and funding models that are built to last, so that the women and girls we serve today will have a choice in the future too.

We know that access to reproductive choice is life changing. For some, it can mean the ability to complete an education or start a career. For others, it means being able to look after the family they already have. For everyone, it means the freedom to decide their own future, creating a fairer, more equal world.

About the Role

You will provide critical support in the areas of strategy development, thought leadership, operational guidance, technical leadership, risk mitigation and management as well as capacity strengthening to drive business integrity and year on year growth in access to high-quality contraception and PAC services in MSI’s largest international country programme, MSI Nigeria (MSIN).  

Funded by a complex portfolio of donor grants, MSIN delivers one third of MSI’s global contraceptive impact in Africa via its Outreach, MS Ladies and Public Sector Strengthening channels, reaching almost 5 million clients a year. MSIN also provides a range of reproductive and sexual health (RSH) services from its network of commercially orientated, high quality centres and sells a range of RSH products via its rapidly growing Social Marketing (SM) business.

Under the guidance and supervision of the COO, and in partnership with the MSIN Country Director, you will ensure that MSIN continues to deliver quality at scale and that it is an organisational leader in demonstrating MSI’s internal standards for service delivery, operational excellence, client-centred care, governance, compliance, project and financial management.

About You

For us, it’s vital that every MSI team member believes in and is committed to our organisational mission, vision and values.

This means that we will only accept applications from candidates who are unequivocally pro-choice.

Our values act as guiding principles, providing us with a clear direction. They set the tone for how we approach our work, interact with others and align ourselves as ‘One MSI’. It’s important that our team members truly resonate with our values and demonstrate them consistently, in all that they do.

We recruit talented, dynamic individuals with diverse backgrounds who share our mission and are focused on delivering measurable results. As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where everyone can participate and contribute meaningfully. We value open-mindedness, curiosity, resilience, and a solutions-oriented mindset, alongside a commitment to promoting equality and safeguarding the welfare of both team members and clients.

We seek exceptional communicators who are self-motivated, solutions-driven, and aligned with MSI’s mission and entrepreneurial mindset. You should be dedicated to driving social change in an environment focused on sustainable impact, both locally and globally, and comfortable working with diverse teams in an ambiguous setting.

To perform this role, you’ll need the following skills:

• Highly developed organisational skills to drive complex change.
• Comfort working autonomously at a senior leadership and strategic level.
• Very strong analytical skills
• Highly developed relationship development, communication (oral and written) and influencing skills.
• Highly developed problem solving, diplomatic, networking and negotiation skills.
• Demonstration of ‘making things happen’, operating at pace and delivering effectively through others.
• Ability to anticipate, identify and address emerging support needs or gaps.
• Ability to align programmatic development with strategic objectives.
• Capacity to constructively challenge established ways of working to better meet needs of country programme and work collaboratively to identity and initiate improvements

To perform this role, you’ll need the following experience:

• Demonstrable experience in developing strategy and implementing change that delivers growth in business objectives
• Proven experience managing diverse teams and in performance management.
• Proven senior management experience at headquarters and field level of complex international organisation.
• Proven experience of driving impact, quality and sustainability in international programmes and improving operational standards
• Demonstrable ability to thrive in a matrix management environment.
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills including influencing, negotiation and coaching and management of junior staff.
• Excellent project management skills related to organisational development projects and international, cross- functional teams with a proven history of delivering results
• Experienced in facilitation and team building skills
• Experience of solving complex issues through analysis, definition of a clear way forward and
• Ensuring buy-in from the necessary stakeholders

Formal education/qualification

• Educated to degree level
• Relevant post-graduate qualification e.g. MBA, MSc, MA (desirable)
• Project Management Training (desirable)

Please click here to view the job framework

Location: London, UK (Hybrid working, 2 office days per week) or Abuja, Nigeria

Full-time: 35 hours a week, Monday to Friday (For UK based team members). 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday (For Nigeria based team members).

Contract type: Permanent, full time.

Salary: £55,200 – £71,550 per annum for UK based candidates. Discretionary bonus + benefits. If you are based in Nigeria, the salary will be aligned to the Nigerian labour market.

Salary band: BG 11

Closing date: 22^nd November 2024 (midnight GMT). Interviews may take place before this date for exceptional candidates.

For internal employees applying from an MSI country programme, the role will be positioned within the existing salary structure of the country. Local terms and conditions of the country will apply.