TITLE: Executive Director
REPORTS TO: Board Chairperson
LOCATION: Kigali, with frequent travels to the field
POST TYPE & CONTRACT LENGTH: Full time & Open contract
About AKA:
AKA is a registered National Non-Government Organization (NGO) operating under the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) certificate No 66/RGB/NGO/2016. AKA’s mission is providing Rwandan youth with employability skills, capital and support to take advantage of economic opportunities. Currently, AKA is implementing multiple donor’s projects
To fulfill its mission, AKA would like to fill in the position of Executive Director which responsibilities are displayed below:
Summary: Reporting to the Board of Directors, the Executive Director (ED) will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for AKA staff, programs, expansion, and execution of its mission. S/he will initially develop deep knowledge of field, core programs, operations, and business plans and its operationalization.
Essential functions include [but are not limited to]:
Leadership & Management:
- Ensure ongoing local programmatic excellence, rigorous program evaluation, and consistent quality of finance and administration, fundraising, communications, and systems; recommend timelines and resources needed to achieve the strategic goals
- Actively engage and energize AKA volunteers, board members, event committees, alumni, partnering organizations, and funders
- Develop, maintain, and support a strong Board of Directors: serve as ex-officio of each committee, seek and build board involvement with strategic direction for both ongoing local operations as well as for the national rollout
- Lead, coach, develop, and retain AKA’s high-performance senior management team Ensure effective systems to track scaling progress, and regularly evaluate program components, so as to measure successes that can be effectively communicated to the board, funders, and other constituents
Program Management and coordination
- Program design and project proposal formulation in AKA’s priority
- Manage program activities, oversee and/or implement AKA’s Action
- Manage the organization development (OD) process specific to roles and functions of AKA
- Supervise staff engaged in implementation of activities, work with experts and manage Consultancies commissioned by
- Develop medium and short term strategic and operational plans with necessary details and ensure realization of such
- Perform any other function at strategic or managerial level necessary for realization of AKA Mission and
- Develop terms of Reference for volunteers, interns, and consultant and perform induction function and have them productively
- Overall coordination activities
- Manage the strategic public relations strategy for AKA including dissemination of
- Conceptualize and transform broad AKA Vision, Mission and objectives into workable concepts, programs and project
- Strategic development of corporate image &
- Provide strategic guidance to the staff and ensure that all engaged staff work towards organization’s
Fundraising & Communications:
- Lead resource mobilization strategy and ensure appropriate use of the organization’s resources;
- Expand revenue generating and fundraising activities to support existing program operations and expansion while simultaneously retiring financial dependency
- Deepen and refine all aspects of communications—from web presence to external relations with the goal of creating a stronger brand
- Use external presence and relationships to garner new opportunities
Planning & New Business:
- Design the national expansion and complete the strategic business planning process for the program expansion into new markets
- Begin to build partnerships in new markets, establishing relationships with the funders, and political and community leaders at all level
- Be an external local and national presence that publishes and communicates program results with an emphasis on the successes of the local program as a model for regional and national replication
Qualifications and Requirements:
The ED will be thoroughly committed to AKA’s mission. All candidates should have proven leadership, coaching, and relationship management experience. Concrete demonstrable experience and other qualifications include but not limited to:
- Advanced degree, ideally in MBA, Project Management, Development Studies, Education, Social Sciences or any related field with at least 7 years of senior management experience; track record of effectively leading and regionally and/or nationally scaling a performance- and outcomes-based organization and staff; ability to point to specific examples of having developed and operationalized strategies that have taken an organization to the next stage of growth
- Unwavering commitment to quality programs and data-driven program evaluation
- Excellence in organizational management with the ability to coach staff, manage, and develop high-performance teams, set and achieve strategic objectives, and manage a budget
- Past success working with a Board of Directors with the ability to cultivate existing board member relationships
- Strong marketing, public relations, and fundraising experience with the ability to engage a wide range of stakeholders and cultures
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; a persuasive and passionate communicator with excellent interpersonal and multidisciplinary project skills
- Action-oriented, entrepreneurial, adaptable, and innovative approach to business planning
- Ability to work effectively in collaboration with diverse groups of people
- Passion, idealism, integrity, positive attitude, mission-driven, and self-directed
How to apply: Only soft copies are accepted. Those interested, please send your application cover letter + CV with 3 references only not later than 23rd July, 2021, 5pm Kigali time; at info@akazikanoze.org with a copy to eugene1m@yahoo.com and specify in subject line: Application to Executive Director Position@ AKA. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.
