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Maliasili
Maliasili is a dynamic and innovative organization that is taking a different approach to drive locally-led conservation impact in Africa. We find the best local African conservation organizations and make them better by strengthening their organizational performance, leadership, and resourcing so that they can achieve greater impact. Our partner portfolio includes outstanding local and national organizations at the forefront of wildlife conservation, land restoration, and coastal fisheries. Our partners are pioneering conservation approaches grounded in community and indigenous land rights, generating economic opportunities from nature-based businesses, and restoring ecosystems across many of Africa’s most important landscapes.
Since its founding over a decade ago, Maliasili has built a portfolio of roughly 55 partners working across over 64 million hectares of critical landscapes and ecosystems in seventeen countries. We have helped our partners generate or leverage more than $27.3 million in funding for their work, developed a growing set of tools to help improve their organizational performance, and supported many of our partners to grow their impacts in the field significantly. Our goals are to build a portfolio of Africa’s best local conservation organizations, help them collaborate and learn from each other, and scale up their community-based conservation work on the ground and their leadership capacity within the conservation field.
We are now accepting applications for a Portfolio Manager position to support community-based organizations in Southern Africa. The position will be based in Zambia, Botswana or Zimbabwe. This position will require approximately 30% travel within the region. This position will work under Maliasili’s Senior Portfolio Manager, Southern Africa. Applicants should be proficient in spoken and written English. Another language spoken in Southern Africa is an advantage. Maliasili is unable to sponsor work or residence permits for the successful applicant.
Portfolio Managers lead and facilitate our organizational development support to our partners to help them become stronger organizations and achieve their goals and missions. Understanding the functional elements of an effective organization is at the core of Maliasili’s work, and managers should have command of these elements and the characteristics of a highly effective organization, be able to diagnose organizational challenges, and design plans to implement solutions and catalyze behavior change in our partner organizations.
The Manager will be responsible for the following:
Managing relationships with the leadership of partner organizations, providing thought partnership, and collaborative problem-solving.
Working with partners to diagnose and develop joint plans to address major organizational needs and priorities.
Design and lead effective organizational development interventions in areas such as strategic planning, work planning, strategic fundraising, financial management, monitoring & evaluation systems, and human resource management and recruitment.
Design and facilitate workshops with partners to make progress toward broader organizational development goals.
Improving organizational development expertise and staying at the cutting edge of organizational development and community-based conservation.
Coordinating service provision from other Maliasili team members or external experts as a component of overall partner support.
Managing relationships with partners and third-party funders or key collaborators, including overseeing contractual obligations, reporting requirements, and deadlines.
Cultivating relationships with other organizations and developing a pipeline of potential partner organizations in Zambia and Botswana.
Working with Maliasili’s team to connect partners to appropriate networks, contacts, and resources within Maliasili’s wider networks.
Supporting efforts to secure partner co-financing
Supporting Maliasili efforts, including but not limited to strategic planning, communications, and monitoring & evaluation.
Collaborate with the Maliasili team to support the implementation of a leadership program, facilitating workshops and engaging with the emerging leadership cohort.
Working with their supervisor to secure co-financing for all their partners.
In some instances, a supervisory role.
Key attributes of the successful candidate will include:
Strong experience, skillset, and technical understanding of organizational development, oversight of complex programs and/or business development. We are looking for someone who understands the challenges and imperatives in building effective, high-performing organizations and has a proven track record in doing this as either a manager or consultant or, ideally, both.
Strong organizational diagnostic and analytical skills – the ability to quickly and accurately understand an organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and priorities in a developmental sense.
Strong understanding of land rights in Southern Africa, and the interconnections between land rights, community voice, and community-led natural resource governance and conservation
Experience and comfort in designing and facilitating effective meetings
Proven ability designing and leading collaborative and transformative initiatives
Excellent problem-solving ability, capable of diagnosing problems and designing solutions.
Strong capability to absorb and synthesize data and information.
Outstanding interpersonal skills in communications, relationship management, team processes, and facilitation, including strong written and verbal communication.
Outstanding ability to manage multiple processes in a dynamic environment, prioritize, multitask, and deal with problems adaptively and with a sense of humor.
Passion for Maliasili’s mission to contribute to the development of organizational excellence and impact in African natural resource management and community led conservation organizations.
Strong intellectual curiosity – we are looking for people who are interested in learning new things and expanding their knowledge.
Team player who enjoys engaging with and supporting colleagues but can also work autonomously when necessary.
Broad and perceptive technical grasp of major issues in community-led natural resource management, rural development, and land tenure in southern African countries.
Strong written and oral communication in English. Knowledge of another language spoken in Southern Africa would be an advantage.
Experience working in KAZA countries (Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe) is desirable
Master’s degree, approximately ten years of work experience, including management responsibilities.
The Portfolio Manager reports to the Senior Manager, Southern Africa, and may supervise area based Portfolio Associates and Consultants
