Senior Officer, Advocacy

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 enable the foundation's ambitious goals of scaling evidence-based interventions that target a range of diseases and socio-economic conditions which are endemic across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The team executes its responsibility through direct country engagement to deploy interventions and delivery models, and by building the partner architecture to replicate successful interventions and models across multiple countries.

Application Deadline: November 12, 2025

Your Role

As a Senior Officer, Advocacy - Health Product Introduction for Women and Children's Health, you will connect innovation and impact. Your role ensures that lifesaving maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) products are accessible, accepted, adopted, and sustained within government-led systems. You will work closely with the Maternal, Newborn, Child & Nutrition Health (MNCNH), Family Planning (FP), and Women's Health Innovation (WHI), and Immunization Program Strategy Teams (PSTs), Country offices (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal), and the Advocacy team to support strategically aligned country-level investments, and lead advocacy efforts to promote the introduction of priority MNCH innovations at the country level—shifting from fragmented, product-specific advocacy efforts to coordinated, systems-level approaches.

By collaborating with governments, implementing agencies, regional institutions, implementing organizations, and advocacy partners, you will unlock domestic and external financing, expedite regulatory and policy pathways, and build the evidence and messaging needed to foster political will, while embedding innovation into national strategies and delivery systems in a way that is efficient, equitable, and sustainable. You will focus on MNCH priority countries for product introduction (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Senegal, Mozambique, Kenya (POCUS), plus others as needed) and report to the Deputy Director, PAC ARO.

You are a creative, thoughtful, and curious leader who identifies as a problem solver, trusted business partner, mentor, and subject matter expert for policy/advocacy. You have an in-depth understanding of country-level advocacy and policy and financing needs and can effectively communicate complex advocacy/policy solutions.

What You'll Do

• Co-develop advocacy strategies addressing financing and policy barriers to accelerate high-impact MNCH product scaling in priority geographies like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal, DRC, and others.

• Coordinate with governments, development partners, and advocacy stakeholders around prioritized MNCH innovations, ensuring alignment with national health strategies, optimizing domestic and external financing, and expediting regulatory approval processes.

• Oversee and lead detailed micro-planning analysis to guide country scale up approaches, ensuring evidence informs policy and financing decisions.

• Serve as a senior advocacy resource on new and emerging interventions and products for MNCH, linking international research and scientific expertise with national MNCH priorities and SDG 3 achievement plans.

• Identify, negotiate, and oversee complex, performance-based contracts and grants that support advocacy for MNCH product introduction, ensuring high quality execution and accountability.

• Manage partnerships and grantee relationships to develop collective learning, advocacy impact and accountability, including conducting site visits, convening meetings with key collaborators, and being responsible for and evaluating grant components).

• Collaborate across foundation teams, and work streams to align product, policies and financing and leverage cross-sector opportunities to amplify advocacy impact between product, policy, and financing. Manage grants and partner relationships at the regional and country level to facilitate advocacy for product introduction, including building a local evidence base for effective policy and financing advocacy. Collaborate with foundation colleagues in related program areas to take advantage of cross-sector grant-making opportunities.

• Collaborate with key foundation workstreams to ensure real-time alignment among product, policy, financing, and program implementation. Enhance the readiness of the national health system and its integration across the MNCH innovation agenda and ensure product introduction strategies are adapted to local contexts.

• Facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration of partners across countries.

• Use Foundation voice, leadership, and grant-making strategically at the country level, working closely with country offices to amplify political commitment, accelerate adoption and eliminate bottlenecks in regulatory, procurement, and financing pathways.

• Represent the foundation to key government health leaders, platforms, and working groups at state, national, and regional levels.

• Produce regular reporting and strategic presentations to internal partners, summarizing key developments, risks, and opportunities related to MNCH product advocacy and financing.

• Support Foundation leadership preparation for high-level engagements, including developing talking points, strategy memos, and partner coordination to drive aligned messaging and influence policy agendas.

Your Experience

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience with an advanced degree in medicine, public health, health economics, public policy, or similar fields

• Exceptional knowledge, experience, and expertise in technical advocacy and communications related to products and commodities, particularly in the FP, MNCH ecosystem, and an understanding of the end-to-end pathway for product introduction to scale and the pathways for impact.

• Experience communicating around policy and advocacy efforts specific to product introduction and scale, and working with governments, academic institutions, NGOs, the private sector, and professional associations preferred. Hands-on experience including interaction with senior-level policy makers, coalitions, and private sector partners.

• Experience advising government, donors, implementing agencies, and other national-level partners in developing countries\Experience in commodities adoption and scale in LMIC settings is an asset

• Understanding the region's health systems and the economic, social, and political factors influencing health outcomes.

• In-depth experience in broader public health with a strong development orientation backed by excellent management capabilities.

• Experience building partnerships and working collaboratively to meet shared/joint objectives, both internally and externally. Ability to orchestrate effective decisions across various issues and partners, assess progress, analyse gaps, and make vital changes.

• Ability to navigate complexity and ambiguity effectively: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems – especially in managing relations.

• Consistent track record of working with flexibility, efficiency, and subtlety in a complex, fast-paced environment.

• Strong communication skills: Ability to develop and deliver communications that convey complex situations clearly and concisely to a broad and diverse audience.

Other Attributes

• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behaviour with a diverse range of people and a deep commitment to development issues and high standards of personal integrity.

• Ability to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally.

• Competency 1: Demonstrated track record in supporting country-level MNCH product advocacy strategy implementation

• Competency 2: In-depth knowledge and understanding of MNCH product advocacy

• Competency 3: Proven experience supporting projects that require internal and external collaboration

• Competency 4: Ability to identify game-changer interventions, advocacy smart buys, and advocate internally for investment.

• Competency 5: Demonstrated ability to work efficiently and diplomatically, particularly as part of a team effort, as well as flexibility and ability to adjust to changing circumstances.

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.

---