Managing Director Job at Bridge International Academies

Bridge International Academies is the world’s largest and fastest-growing chain of primary and pre-primary schools with more than 400 academies and 120,000 pupils in Kenya and Uganda. We democratize the right to succeed by giving families living in poverty access to the high-quality education that will allow their children to live a very different life.

We are recruiting to fill the positions below:

Job Position: Managing Director
Location: Lagos
Job Summary

• We are seeking a Managing Director to take over leadership of our Nigeria program and continue the ambitious and successful expansion in Nigeria.
• The Managing Director will learn the full spectrum of business operations and business methods from the outgoing Managing Director as well as from the extended global team.
• The Managing Director should expect to work as an intrepreneur in Lagos.
• While the Managing Director will have full corporate support and benefit from the lessons learned and processes developed over 9 years from the operations of the company as well as from being in operation in Nigeria for 2 years, this is a role that will require fearless, dogged, entrepreneurial spirit.
• There will be no job harder than this, as the breadth of functions needed to operate a vertically integrated education system is staggering, and the challenges of accessing and serving the bottom of the pyramid are well known.
• Great challenge is where there are great rewards – the opportunity to be the person who innovates across every step of multiple industrial value chains to succeed in radically altering the future of hundreds of thousands of children in the country.

What You Will Do

• There is no pre-determined previous work experience for a Managing Director. This person may have been in operations of a large corporation, strategy consulting, business development, or even from a PhD.
• Refine and create highly-structured, insightful processes, systems and recommendations with a data-driven approach alongside the in country senior leadership team, to continue expansion and to support operations at
• Project manage the moving parts of the day to day operation by ensuring each function is operating on time, on budget and on
• Learn every step of the lifecycle of producing an operational Bridge International
• Lead on and be prepared to do every job in the entire Bridge lifecycle, to some No job is too big or too small.
• The experience of having started a company previously would be an advantage and the experience of having started a company previously in the specified expansion country is an advantage.
• The most important qualities of a successful Managing Director are ambition, organization, drive, intellect, tenacity, problem solving and respect for others.
• Drive continued market expansion in Nigeria, including managing a team of 600+ staff and growing which is needed to execute in-country strategy and operations
• Work with and leverage team support from the global teams and support offices across the 7 countries we operate in to ensure in-country operations are aligned to global processes and systems
• Refine and execute country strategy to ensure sustainable operations at scale and deliver the maximum learning impact to the children of

What You Should Have

• Passion for Bridge’s vision of democratizing the right for all children to.
• Prior full time work experience in the specified country
• Prior experience starting a start-up; secondarily, prior experience as an early hire at a start-up who remained with the company through to profitability, acquisition, or
• Work experience in a highly political industry, where ideological conflict is common and strategy, ingenuity, negotiation and persuasion are necessary for
• Ability to manage a very broad scope of work; front office, back office, development, regulatory
• Willingness and comfort working in a Global matrix, willingness to learning and input from the global functional
• Record of strong academic performance from a leading undergraduate and graduate institution.
• At least 10 – 15 years of post-undergraduate, full time work experience
• At least one work experience that required highly independent work in an exceedingly challenging environment
• Work experience at top corporations (in emerging markets and the US or UK) balanced by a demonstrated interest in entrepreneurship and data-driven decision-making, including the ability to flourish in dynamic, ambiguous environments
• Strong business network with senior executives in private business, government and civil society spheres in the specified country

You’re also:

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done, with at least 5 years of post-graduate school experience. You’re organized and responsive.
• You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in volatile, low-resource communities and runs on fees averaging just $6 a month per pupil. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand. Every dollar you spend is a dollar our customers, who live on less than $2 a day, will have to pay for.
• A customer advocate – Our customers – these families living on less than $2 a day per person – never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their customer benefit, experience, and
• A life-long learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed.
• You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth
• A networking mastermind – You excel at meeting new people and turning them into advocates. You communicate in a clear, conscientious, and effective way in both written and oral speech. You can influence strangers in the course of a single conversation. Allies and colleagues will go to bat for your ideas. You have an existing network in Nigeria from prior experience in the country, preferably in the regulatory, education, or business