Senior Project Manager – Northern Nigeria at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) Africa – Our partner, Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, is an advisory and research organization focused on advancing and applying behavioral science in the Global South, in pursuit of poverty alleviation. They work with organizations to build behaviorally-informed solutions to help scale their products, programs, and policies. Their rigorous approach to experimentation has generated impact in a broad range of fields from financial inclusion to health and early childhood development.

They are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Senior Project Manager – Northern Nigeria

Location: Nigeria
Start Date (Earliest): 4th October, 2021
Start Date (Latest): 30th November, 2021
Length of Commitment: More than two years

About the Role

• The Senior Project Manager manages large projects within the advisory arm of Busara by leading the execution of Busara projects. As the primary project manager, a Senior Project Manager quickly gains an expert understanding of the project, challenges, relationships, and research questions and uses best practices and tools, both within and outside Busara to execute to the highest degree, with careful consideration of timelines and budget.
• The Senior Project Manager works directly with partners and takes ownership over overall project outputs. They directly manage other project staff that work on their project as well as liaise with other teams and are expected to coordinate and manage staff effectively. This includes strong upward management skills to engage the Project Division’s vice presidents on substantive components of the project.
• The Senior Project Manager is expected to have a deep understanding of the social, cultural, and political context in Northern Nigerian states and must be an excellent communicator in both English and Hausa languages.
• Specific project responsibilities for this role will be provided during onboarding onto the project but will largely involve the responsibilities below.

Key Accountabilities / Responsibilities

• The Senior Project Manager works closely with Busara leaders and directly with researchers and partners to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to:

Project Oversight and Leadership:

• Maintain an understanding of the high-level engagement, the goals of the clients, partners, and teams within Busara, and continually push the project teams to realign around those goals.
• Manage the most sensitive or complex projects, typically of medium to large-scale, end to end, with minimal supervision or support.
• Execute the core project responsibilities with the highest degree with respect to creativity, rigor, relevance, detail, and timeliness.
• Engage the leadership team and align on substantive components of the project
• Engage in large-scale research and advisory projects.
• Work closely to lead or support other Associates to fulfill engagement requirements.

Project Management:

• Develop project plans, budgets, work plans, and task schedules
• Manage resources, schedules, financials, and adhere to the project plan throughout the full project life cycle.
• Monitor, track, and control outcomes to resolve issues, dependencies, and critical path deliverables.
• Manage project kick-off, on-boarding, and off-boarding for knowledge management.
• Responsible for project timelines, deliverables, reports, and staffing.
• Monitor and review project team performance.

External Relationship Management:

• Manage higher-level conversations and partnerships with clients and partners.
• Plan, manage and execute external and internal engagements from start to finish with minimal supervisory engagement.
• Serve as a point of contact for clients and partners and effectively manage the needs of stakeholders through proactive communication and troubleshooting.
• Identify opportunities to deepen engagement with clients and partners.
• Present at conferences, networking events, or client meetings.
• Contribute to the design, execution, and dissemination of Busara internal research projects.

People Management and Organizational Engagement:

• Contribute to skills-building for projects’ teams and other teams as required.
• Manage performance and serve as mentors to Associates, Analysts, and Project team members, as required.
• Serve as champions for the projects team, manage the team and bring forward all relevant and actionable requests to the leadership team.
• Maintain team morale and organizational alignment
• Coordinate hiring and onboarding of Analysts, Interns, and new Associates as needed.
• Coordinate across teams to ensure healthy work relationships are maintained. Mediate and escalate (to supervisors, HR, or wellness teams) any issues that require attention.
• Communicate across organizational teams to ensure a healthy and functioning organization.
• Assist with internal initiatives where necessary.
• Perform any other duty as may be assigned by the project supervisor.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience: Minimum Requirements

• A Bachelor’s Degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or related fields.
• Extremely strong project management skills.
• 2 – 3 years’ previous work experience in managing projects in a related field
• Extensive experience managing large-scale projects in developing countries.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-level relationships with partner organizations.
• Excellent management and organizational skills.
• Flexible, self-motivating, able to manage multiple tasks efficiently, and a team player.
• Interest and experience working in a fast-paced working environment.
• Fluency and excellent communication and writing skills with a mastery of English and Hausa.
• Based or has been based in Northern Nigeria for at least one year (Busara will not reimburse moving expenses)
• Willing to travel (COVID and other health and safety permitting) to other states in Northern Nigeria. (All travel done on behalf of Busara will be reimbursed)

Desired Qualifications:

• A Master’s Degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or related fields is strongly preferred.
• Experience in working in programs within the agriculture or nutrition sectors
• Experience managing or mentoring staff.
• Technical understanding and practical experience of quantitative and qualitative research techniques.
• Strong academic behavioral science background.
• Experience in applying behavioral science to real-world problems.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note: As applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the vacancy is filled, you are encouraged to submit your application soonest possible.