Gates Foundation
Deputy Director, AI Delivery & Government Partnerships-Africa
🇰🇪Nairobi, Nairobi County, Kenya2 months ago
ExecutiveFull TimeEN
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.Application Deadline: 19/4/2026
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
A). 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.
B). 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.
C). 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 tangible problems and use cases
Ensure deployments are genuinely fit-for-purpose: user-centered design, integration with existing tools, clear operational guardrails, and continuous improvement informed by frontline feedback.
Build the partner ecosystem necessary for delivery i.e., implementers, training institutions, local innovators, and digital platforms, while proactively managing delivery risk.
D). Cross-ARO Integration
Co-lead delivery with ARO functional teams to ensure AI is embedded in core institutional agendas rather than operating as a parallel vertical:
o Data & Digital: data readiness, interoperability, governance, and
responsible data use, using the foundation established principle to ensure government ownership, sequencing and sustainability and ensuring that founda- tional reforms are not distracted with hype.
o Health Systems: service delivery workflows and operating model
integration
o PFM: value-for-money cases, costing, fiscal pathways, and bud
get integration
o Product Introduction: implementation discipline, learning loops,
and partner coordination
o Government Relations: work with foundations government rela-
tions teams to do stakeholder engagement, executive access,
and policy windows
Drive “one-plan” approaches with country teams so AI investments reinforce, rather than fragment, broader reform and delivery agendas.
Ensure effective and critical triage of investments and partners with a keen eye on costs, duplication of efforts and a focus on strengthening local ecosystems.
E). Ecosystem Building & Pan-African Engagement
Strengthen and connect AI hubs across priority countries (including Senegal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya, and support the engagement in Ethiopia) enabling shared assets, cross-country learning, and scalable models.
Lead regional and pan-African engagement with Smart Africa, the Africa AI Council, AFDB and relevant AU/REC bodies to shape practical standards, shared public goods, and responsible AI adoption frameworks.
Identify and support bottom-up innovation – including community-based AI hubs and local-language service delivery – and connect emerging models to national-scale mechanisms.
F). Responsible & Equitable AI
Embed equity-by-design across all deployments: participatory co-design with local partners, language inclusion, accessibility, harm minimization, and transparent documentation.
Ensure each deployment includes clear protocols governing data use, informed consent, privacy, and safety, alongside ongoing monitoring for benefit, equity, and safety across demographic subgroups, with particular attention to women and girls.
Establish accountability mechanisms and incident response pathways appropriate for public sector environments.
G). Portfolio Management, Measurement & Learning
Manage a portfolio balancing scale-ready execution with disciplined experimentation, applying stage gates for evidence, adoption readiness, cost-effectiveness, and safety.
Produce regular delivery reviews and learning syntheses that equip teams and leadership to decide what to scale, stop, or redesign.
Build reusable assets – playbooks, governance frameworks, evaluation methodologies, and training approaches – that accelerate responsible adoption across the continent.
H). Team Leadership
Manage and develop a focused team of program teams, technical advisors, and implementation partners—setting clear goals, building delivery cadence, and investing in talent growth in this fast moving discipline.
Foster a high-performing, collaborative culture grounded in measurable impact, strong partnerships, and a commitment to learning.
Navigate matrixed working relationships across ARO and global teams; clear blockers efficiently and maintain clear accountability.
Create a strong partnership with the foundation India country office and exchange knowledge and practice accelerating innovation introduction and adaptation.
Your Experience
12+ years of progressive leadership experience in large-scale digital, AI, or data-enabled programs, with demonstrated results in LMIC settings and public sector delivery contexts.
Proven ability to translate complex technology into institutional adoption: governance design, workflow integration, change management, workforce training, and measurable performance improvement.
Demonstrated track record of building and sustaining partnerships with governments and public institutions—navigating political economy, incentive structures, and operational constraints to achieve results.
Strong program leadership capabilities: defining OKRs, managing multi-stakeholder budgets, building delivery plans, and generating credible evidence of impact.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to produce crisp decision memos, executive briefs, and compelling narratives for senior government and donor audiences.
Practical AI literacy—able to assess where AI adds genuine value, identify risks, and implement safely and pragmatically in resource-constrained environments. Deep AI research credentials are not required.
Deep AI technical expertise with experience deploying technology under low-resource constraints: limited connectivity, device access, multilingual contexts, and frontline workforce capacity limitations.
Other Attributes
Familiarity with data governance, interoperability standards, and public-sector system integration.
Experience building value cases and costing models with Ministries of Finance and PFM stakeholders, including fiscal sustainability and budget integration pathways.
Experience engaging regional and pan-African platforms – including Smart Africa, the Africa AI Council, and AU/RECs – and translating regional commitments into actionable country programs.
Cross-sectoral experience in health, education, agriculture, or government service delivery, applying a common delivery and governance approach across domains.
Ability to communicate in French a plus.
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
We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we’re happy to help. Please contact HR@gatesfoundation.org with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.
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.
