Bridge International Academies is recruiting for fulltime Vice President, Schools.

Bridge International Academies is the world’s largest and fastest-growing Ed-Tech organisation. With investors such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, we’ve built more than 500 schools to serve 100,000 pupils in Kenya, Uganda Nigeria, Liberia and India. We leverage experts, data, and technology in order to standardize and scale every aspect of quality education delivery, from how and where academies are built to how teachers are selected and trained, and how lessons are delivered and monitored for improvement.

 

The Bridge Offer

With plans to enrol ten million students ten years from now, Bridge International Academies offers a tremendous opportunity to grow with one of the world’s most exciting, ambitious, and socially conscious organisations, with leadership roles available across a number of competencies and geographies.

About the Role

At Bridge, we aim to make life-changing education to every child in every corner of the world. This ambitious mission is only possible if we have an amazing team and engagement tools at every one of our schools.

That’s where you come in.

You’ll lead a small super-team of global research and design experts and together with the Director of Schools in each country you will create and iterate on the tools, training, programmes and everything else. Ultimately, you will aim to drive student growth at each of our schools and you’ll do this by zooming in on five key focus areas –

• Academic excellence;
• Parent engagement;
• Community integration;
• Operational leadership;
• Team building.

The Vice President, Schools will report to the Chief Experience Officer and manage a small global team. He/she will be based in Nairobi, Kenya or Lagos, Nigeria preferred; New Delhi, India  possible. 25%-75%+ travel will be required, depending on location.

How We Work

Bridge is a collective of leaders. We expect each person to drive and own their work. In your role, you’ll be expected to own the strategic vision of your team and to develop and execute projects that create measurable impact. When you start at Bridge, you’ll receive a lot of support with the expectation that eventually you will become independent. 

From our teachers and Academy Managers to the software developers in charge of building our tech platform, Bridge aims to recruit, hire, and retain the most talented people who share our vision, philosophy, and mission of democratizing education making a lasting difference in the lives of children, families, and communities by providing access to high-quality education and the opportunities the need to succeed.

What You Will Do

• Set the global vision, strategy, overall research and design approach, budget, and timelines for school management against each of your key performance indicators (academic excellence, parent engagement, community integration, operational leadership, and team development)
• Lead human centered research, design, piloting, and iteration to strategically develop systems, processes, tools, and other interventions to aid schools, staff, programmes, and parents. We design all interventions for scale. Regardless of type, we need to work with extreme efficiency and standardization, yet offer some flexibility per community, at scale
• Think end-to-end. Solutions can come in the form of recruiting, training and professional development briefs, operations systems and tools, accountability measures, community and parent programmes, or any other part of the school development process
• Collaborate with the Schools teams in all operational countries as well as global Academics, Operations, Technology, and Launch departments

JOB REQUIREMENTS

MIN REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

10 year(s)

MIN QUALIFICATION:

Bachelor's Degree/HND

DESIRED COURSES:

Not Specified

OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

What You Should Have

• Passion for Bridge’s vision of democratizing the right for all children to succeed
• 10+ years relevant experience including extensive experience in front-of-house retail operations, systems design, human-centred design and/or operations innovation.
• An ideal candidate will have experience growing and/or innovating in a rapidly scaling (potentially multi-market) business or business unit.
• Experience growing an existing organisation is a major asset; Prior experience working with a chain preferred
• Experience working in developing countries and/or with low income customers
• Bachelor's degree in relevant field (business, management, sales, retail management, organisational behaviour), graduate degrees preferred

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A true collaborator – You want to work with a team. You have experience working with a network of teams in a matrix organization and have demonstrated experience collaborating and getting things done while building buy-in for key Schools Management priorities.
• Comfortable with Ambiguity – Bridge is an incredibly fast moving company. At times, you might not have all the information you need and there will be ambiguity. To excel in this role, you are comfortable with going with the flow and adapting as you get more information.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand. Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.
• A customer advocate – Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and value.
• A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• Data driven: When making decisions, you don’t rely your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyse it and make decisions with clear justifications.

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