SEARCH FOR DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC RELATIONS

The Director of Strategic Relations at African Leadership Academy (ALA) is an exciting opportunity for an experienced leader to build and maintain relationships with the CEOs of Africa’s largest corporations and highest net worth individuals for the benefit of ALA.

What is African Leadership Academy?

African Leadership Academy (ALA) seeks to catalyse large-scale change in Africa by developing thousands of transformative leaders for the continent over the next few decades. Our model for change involves three steps: (1) we identify the most outstanding young leaders across Africa; (2) we develop these young leaders through an innovative, life-long program that focuses on hands-on practice; and (3) we foster powerful, life-long networks for these leaders that position them to achieve large-scale impact in Africa. ALA aims to develop the next Nelson Mandela, the next James Mwangi, the next Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and the African Sam Walton, Jonas Salk, and Steve Jobs.

Key Responsibilities

• Join the ALA Senior Executive team and work closely with the CEO to craft long-term strategy and drive overall organizational excellence.

• Lead a team of 5 high-caliber professionals to build and maintain relationships with the CEOs of Africa’s largest corporations and highest net worth individuals for the benefit of ALA.
• Serve as ALA Ambassador at high level forums such as the World Economic Forum (Davos), TED, the Clinton Global Initiative and other engagements that involve forging relationships with top leaders.
• Translate these relationships into concrete opportunities for ALA’s young leaders such as internship and career opportunities, scholarships, career mentors, inspiring guest speakers on campus, etc.
• Drive Corporate Relations team to deliver several million dollars of revenue to African Leadership Academy through sponsorship secured, funds raised and recruitment of fee-paying students.
• Manage team to enhance and build the growing network of ALA’s young leaders, currently at 400 but projected to increase to 6,000 over the next fifty years.
• Lead execution of high-profile events, which bring together top leaders in business and government from across Africa to explore leadership issues.

Personality Profile of the Ideal Candidate

• You are masterful at building and maintaining relationships with senior leaders in business and government.

• You are comfortable speaking in public and to the media, as well as attending high level conferences and navigating existing professional networking forums.
• You are not intimidated by people with power and influence and can engage in meaningful dialogue with them.
• You relish the challenge of ‘selling’ an exciting vision to a wide variety of constituents across the continent.
• You are extraordinarily effective in the management of teams and feel comfortable delegating responsibilities, setting goals, and identifying areas for development. You have excellent interpersonal skills.
• You are a motivational leader capable of eliciting consistently high levels of performance from team members, and you proactively encourage subordinates to reach new levels of professional excellence.
• You are passionate about Africa and thrilled by the prospect of building the infrastructure to support African leaders who have the potential to transform Africa.
• You have a track record of launching new initiatives or programs. You enjoy the uncertainty of an entrepreneurial environment - in fact, you thrive in it.
• You are extremely driven, flexible with your working hours, and comfortable with frequent travel throughout the African continent.
• You are a dynamic achiever and self-starter who enjoys bringing a vision into reality with minimal guidance.
• You are an excellent long-term strategic planner, capable of conceptualizing desired outcomes, evaluating existing programs, and identifying the steps necessary to transform the status quo into an ideal outcome.
• You can communicate well with the media, corporate donors, and community officials. You are an impressive public speaker.
• You are well organized and a strong project manager.
• You embody the type of leader that ALA aspires to create - you are an agent of positive change, and live up to our values of Integrity, Humility, Compassion, Excellence, Curiosity, and Diversity.

Desired Experience

• Extensive experience working in roles that require interactions with senior business leaders and high net worth individuals in Africa (such as investor relations, private banking, corporate relations, management consulting, government relations).

• Experience working closely with Senior Executives to frame and accomplish long-term organizational objectives.
• A nuanced understanding of how to build networks of powerful people across target constituencies.
• Experience managing teams comprised of individuals from diverse ethnic, cultural, and national backgrounds.
• Clear track record of success in launching new initiatives, including long-term strategic planning and project management.
• English language fluency is required. Proficiency in another language, ideally French, would be a plus.

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa but with frequent travel to various parts of Africa (mainly Kenya and Nigeria)

Compensation: A highly competitive compensation package commensurate with experience and performance will be provided.

Start Date: Ideal candidate will be on board by January 2012.

To Apply: Qualified candidates should submit a CV/Resume and cover letter to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .