Head of Marketing & Communications Job in Nairobi Kenya

Head of Marketing & Communications 

Location: Nairobi, Kenya 

About Bridge International Academies 

Bridge International Academies is a startup revolutionizing education across Africa with a truly unique business model and instructional program. 

The company has launched a large-scale, franchise-like network of ultra low-cost, for-profit private primary schools in Kenya, and will expand across Africa. Our schools profitably deliver high-quality education for less than $4 per child per month. 

Local school managers are able to operate their school businesses profitably, while creating a highly successful business at the central level. This ensures that the school is not dependent on the vagaries of donor funding, but will rather continue to serve the communities as long as parents value the educational service we provide. 

To ensure the delivery of high quality education, Bridge International writes its own curriculum using Direct Instruction methodology. We also train and support our own teachers. 

With 22 schools operational, we are already the largest chain of private primary schools on the Continent, and we plan to rapidly scale the company to serve more than 1 million families in Africa and beyond. 

About the position 

We have and are continuing to develop one of the most sophisticated instructional and operational approaches to providing affordable education to MILLIONS of children in one of the most challenging environments in the world! 

These systems, tools and approaches are our “School in a Box.” The key to our School in a Box model is that it enables the standardization of high quality operations across all facets of the school - including marketing. 

The Head of Marketing & Communications will lead the effort in refining/developing our “School in a Box” model with respect to school marketing, parent relations and problem management, as well as being responsible for all of our corporate marketing/branding. 

A good candidate will have hands-on experience and acumen in: 

• Conducting qualitative research and mining for insights
• Converting insights into actionable strategies – in terms of content and placement, appropriate training programs, and more
• Creating marketing materials – with basic writing and design skills
• Analyzing current strategies and performance – putting quant surveys into the field and tracking results

Some specific parts of the job include: 

• Refining Bridge’s “Marketing in a Box” program. While every school manager is responsible for marketing their specific school, Bridge provides each school manager with a detailed training on sales and marketing, a variety of marketing materials, and a step-by-step guide on when and where to use them. The Head of Communications & Marketing is responsible for optimizing this program and making sure that all best practices are standardized.
• Growing the Bridge brand on a regional level, including SMS campaigns, billboards, radio, community, partnerships, etc.
• Further developing, standardizing, and automating Bridge’s parent relations programs and its problem management system.
• Developing the Bridge brand overseas, including managing Bridge’s website and social media presence, putting together press packets, and finding ways to bring more talent to Bridge.
• Spearheading other related projects that could benefit the Bridge brand locally in our markets or globally.
• Leading the research, strategy, rollout, and analysis required of all of these projects

This position is part of our senior management team that is based in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Since we are still a start-up company, the Head of Communications & Marketing must be incredibly hands-on. This is to say that, at least to start, you will be a dept of one – all of the research, planning, analysis, design, writing, data-crunching, etc will be done by you. 

About You 

• You are based in or willing to relocate to Nairobi, Kenya.
• You are one of those rare multi-talented people who is both deeply creative and analytical.
• You are able to lead the strategy, execution, implementation, and analysis required of the position, as listed above.
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit that thrives in a fast-paced informal start-up environment where constant change is the norm and the bar for quality is set high.
• You have leadership experience juggling several projects and managing interdisciplinary teams at the same time.
• You have spent time in the developing world and are comfortable working in slums.
• You love data, are comfortable using it and performing basic analysis and believe that using and analyzing data is the key to making good marketing decisions.
• You have at least 5 years experience working in marketing, communications, or a related role. Brand planners, strategist, human factors specialists, etc are encouraged to apply.
• You have demonstrated success in marketing in new or challenging environments, in which there are many constraints, including different types of customers, severe budgetary constraints, etc.
• You have a Bachelors degree, a Masters is a plus. Degree in Sociology or Anthropology a plus.
• Familiarity/Fluency with Swahili would be a big plus.

Our team has a passionate belief that basic primary education is critical to the development of every child, family, community and nation. 

We believe that it is possible to address this critical need for poor families through new and innovative approaches leveraging the private sector, and that by providing low-cost but high-quality primary education, we will give millions of children the opportunity to accomplish their dreams. 

We are looking for people who want to join us in this rewarding task. 

Interested candidates should send their application letter and CV to mmunoz@omidyar.com 

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