The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The Africa Team works to advance the foundation’s mission across the continent by scaling evidence-based innovations and driving systems-level impact in health, agriculture, and digital transformation. With a presence in five offices - Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa - the team is comprised of about 180 people. Together, we collaborate deeply with country governments, regional institutions, private sector actors, and civil society to drive African-led development through a strong network of partners and programs across the continent.

The Africa Team ensures the foundation’s global priorities are informed by and grounded in local contexts, enabling greater relevance, sustainability, and impact for the communities we aim to serve.

Your Role

The Deputy Director, AI Delivery & Government Partnerships will lead the Foundation’s AI agenda across Africa, translating modern AI capabilities into trusted, practical, and cost-effective programs that measurably improve outcomes for underserved populations in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts.

This is a delivery-first leadership role: building high-trust partnerships with governments and public institutions; strengthening and connecting AI hubs across the continent; and driving priority initiatives that draw on partnerships with platform providers from design through adoption and sustained impact. The role requires equal command of technology strategy and institutional delivery, navigating the political economies and resource realities of African public sectors.

The Deputy Director will manage a focused team and serve as a regional integrator within the Africa Regional Offices (ARO), working across Data & Digital, Health Systems, Public Financial Management (PFM), Product Introduction, and Government Relations functions, as well as with global counterparts, to ensure AI deployments fit institutional realities, budget constraints, and public sector operating models.

The Deputy Director will inherit a strong foundation of AI delivery work already underway across the continent. Current priority workstreams include scaling three established AI hubs and expanding to a fourth in Kenya; operationalizing Rwanda’s National Health Innovation Center (NHIC) model as a potential blueprint for other geographies; moving self-care AI applications into implementation, beginning with HIV programs in South Africa and Malawi and expanding to maternal, newborn, and child health and family planning; and supporting platform partnerships and deployment of tangible use cases with a range platform providers including initiatives such. Beyond these flagship initiatives, the role will oversee global goods development, provide active advisory support to ensure AI integration remains connected to ARO’s broader strategy, and lead internal AI capacity-building across ARO.

Success In This Role Will Be Defined By

• The extent to which governments in priority countries trust the Foundation and its partners to co-design and deploy AI responsibly—enabling the data access, institutional approvals, and operational buy-in required for large-scale adoption.
• Your ability to effectively navigate and engage platform partnerships, such as Horizon 1000, to create structured opportunities for testing use cases, generating evidence, and identifying what works to improve frontline productivity and service quality—while also assessing safety, equity, and scalability.
• Your leadership in establishing strong connections within a network of African AI hubs that can generate reusable assets, shared learnings, and innovative use cases addressing real-world challenges, while accelerating cross-country learning and deployment.
• A demonstrated understanding that AI should be embedded within ARO delivery workstreams including data and digital systems, health systems, public financial management (PFM), product introduction, and government relations—rather than operating as a standalone vertical.
• Your leadership ability to equip partners, governments, and grantees with the confidence and capability to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape—proactively identifying and leveraging emerging opportunities to help Africa leapfrog traditional development pathways and harness AI-driven digitalization to accelerate service delivery transformation across health, education, and agriculture.

This role will report to the Director for Africa. The preferred location is Nairobi, Kenya; however, we are open to placing the successful candidate in any of our offices in Nigeria, Ethiopia, or South Africa.

What You’ll Do

Country Delivery Leadership

• Lead end-to-end design and implementation of AI-enabled programs in African LMIC settings working closely with the Africa Data and Digital team and have a shared understanding of core principles and preconditions necessary for successful AI deployment and data and digitalization maturity levels, with a clear emphasis on institutional adoption, operational feasibility, sequencing, equity of access, and sustainable pathways to scale.
• Translate strategic opportunities into funded, governed programs with clear goals, timelines, budgets, and measurable outcomes, including cost reduction, productivity gains, service quality improvements, user satisfaction, equity performance across languages and demographic groups, with measurable program impact for the Foundation’s three goals.
• Develop practical delivery playbooks built for real-world constraints: low bandwidth, intermittent connectivity, workforce shortages, limited public budgets, and multilingual environments.

Government Partnerships & Trust-Based Adoption

• Serve as the Foundation’s senior Africa-facing partner to Ministries and public institutions (including ICT/Digital Economy, Health, Education, Agriculture, Finance, and subnational authorities), building the trust required to unlock data access, workflow integration, and sustained institutional use.
• Establish effective governance mechanisms with government counterparts: clear roles and accountabilities, data safeguards, human-in-the-loop protocols, incident response pathways, and transparent documentation standards.
• Support countries to move from pilots to scale through structured adoption pathways: training, change management, procurement readiness, and integration with national digital systems.

AI Platform Partnerships – Africa Execution Owner

• Lead testing and implementation of AI platform partnerships across Africa, enabling frontline health facilities to leverage AI-enabled tools that improve workflows, including clinical documentation support, local language access, triage optimization, and knowledge accessibility. Initial deployment includes Horizon 100 across Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa.
• Support testing and implementation with other AI platform provider partnerships focusing on solving tan

• Lead end-to-end design and implementation of AI-enabled programs in African LMIC settings working closely with the Africa Data and Digital team and have a shared understanding of core principles and preconditions necessary for successful AI deployment and data and digitalization maturity levels, with a clear emphasis on institutional adoption, operational feasibility, sequencing, equity of access, and sustainable pathways to scale.
• Translate strategic opportunities into funded, governed programs with clear goals, timelines, budgets, and measurable outcomes, including cost reduction, productivity gains, service quality improvements, user satisfaction, equity performance across languages and demographic groups, with measurable program impact for the Foundation’s three goals.
• Develop practical delivery playbooks built for real-world constraints: low bandwidth, intermittent connectivity, workforce shortages, limited public budgets, and multilingual environments.
• Serve as the Foundation’s senior Africa-facing partner to Ministries and public institutions (including ICT/Digital Economy, Health, Education, Agriculture, Finance, and subnational authorities), building the trust required to unlock data access, workflow integration, and sustained institutional use.
• Establish effective governance mechanisms with government counterparts: clear roles and accountabilities, data safeguards, human-in-the-loop protocols, incident response pathways, and transparent documentation standards.
• Support countries to move from pilots to scale through structured adoption pathways: training, change management, procurement readiness, and integration with national digital systems.
• Lead testing and implementation of AI platform partnerships across Africa, enabling frontline health facilities to leverage AI-enabled tools that improve workflows, including clinical documentation support, local language access, triage optimization, and knowledge accessibility. Initial deployment includes Horizon 100 across Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa.
• Support testing and implementation with other AI platform provider partnerships focusing on solving tan

• AI strategy and delivery
• Government partnerships
• Technology strategy
• Institutional delivery
• Navigating political economies
• Resource realities of public sectors
• Team management
• Regional integration
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Platform partnership engagement
• AI hub networking
• Capacity building
• Change management
• Procurement readiness
• Data governance
• Human-in-the-loop protocols
• Incident response
• Documentation standards

• 12 years of experience
• Executive level experience
• Command of technology strategy
• Command of institutional delivery
• Ability to navigate political economies and resource realities of African public sectors
• Ability to build high-trust partnerships with governments and public institutions
• Ability to strengthen and connect AI hubs across the continent
• Ability to drive priority initiatives with platform providers
• Ability to manage a focused team
• Ability to serve as a regional integrator
• Ability to work across Data & Digital, Health Systems, Public Financial Management (PFM), Product Introduction, and Government Relations functions
• Ability to work with global counterparts
• Ability to ensure AI deployments fit institutional realities, budget constraints, and public sector operating models
• Ability to co-design and deploy AI responsibly with governments
• Ability to navigate and engage platform partnerships
• Ability to establish strong connections within a network of African AI hubs
• Ability to embed AI within ARO delivery workstreams
• Ability to equip partners, governments, and grantees with confidence and capability to navigate the AI landscape
• Ability to proactively identify and leverage emerging opportunities