Summary: Vice President - Research Advisory & Practice, Nairobi, Kenya

Job Details

  • Company: Busara Center for Behavioral Economics (Busara)
  • Location: Kenya

Job Description

Vice President - Research Advisory & Practice, Nairobi, Kenya

Organization

Busara Center for Behavioral Economics (Busara)

Country

Kenya

City

Nairobi

Office

Busara in Nairobi

Vice President - Research Advisory & Practice

Research, Advisory and Practice - Advisory /

Full-time /

Hybrid

What does Busara do

Busara implements research for organizations around the world

ranging from qualitative in-depth studies to lab experiments to

large-scale randomized controlled trials. In addition, Busara's

advisory arm works with governments, non-profit organizations and

private sector enterprises on improving their policies and

products.

Through incorporating insights from behavioral economics, we

help organizations understand decision-making and enable them and

the people they serve to make better and more informed choices.

As Busara continues to grow, we are strengthening our practice

areas, expanding our partnerships, and building the capabilities

required to translate our expertise into greater and more

sustainable impact.

Role Purpose Statement

The Vice President, Practice is a senior executive responsible

for leading Busara's Practice areas and ensuring the delivery of

high-quality, scalable, and financially sustainable impact.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the VP, Research, Advisory &

Practice holds enterprise-level accountability for research

advisory & practice strategy, business development, delivery

excellence, and leadership development across sectors, geographies

and portfolios. The role ensures that Busara's Behavioral science

expertise is consistently translated into effective programs

strong partnerships, and enduring institutional capabilities.

This is a leadership role that combines strategic vision with

operational execution, requiring the ability to drive growth

oversee complex delivery portfolios, and build the systems and

teams necessary for long-term success.

Who We're Looking For

We are looking for a leader who has successfully operated at

scale and can lead across strategy, business development, delivery

people, and organizational development.

You will be someone who is comfortable building where there is

ambiguity, creating systems without creating unnecessary

bureaucracy, and bringing different teams and portfolios together

around a shared mission. You will combine strong commercial and

operational judgment with intellectual curiosity, a deep

understanding of behavioral science, and the ability to build

trusted relationships with senior stakeholders.

Most importantly, we are looking for someone who can help Busara

move from strong individual practices and portfolios toward an

increasingly integrated, scalable, and sustainable

organization.

Key Accountabilities/Responsibilities

The Vice President, Research, Advisory & Practice will

provide enterprise-level leadership across Busara's practice areas

with responsibility for translating strategy into sustainable

growth, high-quality delivery, strong partnerships, and

organizational capability. The role will work across practices

geographies, and functions to ensure that Busara operates as an

integrated organization and continues to deliver meaningful impact

at scale. The key areas of responsibility include and not limited

to

Strategy and Practice Leadership

  • Define and lead Busara's overall research, advisory &

practice strategy across sectors and regions in alignment with

Busara's overall organizational strategy

  • Ensure coherence and integration across practices, geographies

and portfolios

  • Identify and develop new practice areas, service lines, and

strategic opportunities in development and adjacent sectors.

  • Translate research, delivery experience, and learning into

scalable tools, frameworks, and approaches to strengthen

institutional adoption

  • Design and model the norms that ensure different portfolios

operate as a unit towards a singular mission

  • Ensure the overall sustainability of every practice area

measured against revenue, margin, utilization, share of practice

partnerships and overall contribution to Busara's mission.

Commercial Leadership and Partnerships

  • Own revenue growth, margin performance, utilization, and

renewal targets across practice areas

  • Oversee the full business development lifecycle, including

pipeline management, forecasting, and conversion

  • Lead or support the development of major proposals

partnerships, and contracts

  • Build and maintain senior relationships with funders

governments, multilaterals, and implementing partners

  • Strengthen commercial discipline, including pricing

opportunity selection, and portfolio balance

  • Coach and support senior leaders in business development and

account management

  • Allocate resources strategically across practices.

Delivery Excellence and Impact

  • Hold overall accountability for the quality, rigor, and impact

of program delivery

  • Strengthen and enforce quality assurance systems across all

projects and portfolios

  • Improve delivery reliability, including timelines, staffing

models, and execution consistency

  • Monitor portfolio performance and address delivery risks

proactively

  • Strengthen implementation capability across teams and

geographies

  • Build and maintain knowledge management systems to support

learning and reuse

  • Drive continuous improvement based on performance data and

feedback

Leadership and Organizational Development

  • Lead, coach, and develop senior leaders across practices and

portfolios

  • Build a strong leadership pipeline and succession plans for

critical roles

  • Clarify roles, decision-making structures, and accountability

across teams

  • Strengthen management capability, including performance

management and delegation

  • Partner with the People function on recruitment, retention, and

talent development

  • Partner with Director Voice on designing and co-creating impact

strategies that are rooted in practice area relationships but can

be supported with voice outputs

  • Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and

continuous learning

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience

Experience

  • 12-15+ years of experience in global development, consulting

research, or advisory environments with at least 5 years at the

senior executive level

  • Proven track record of leading strategy, business development

and delivery at scale

  • Experience managing complex, multi-country portfolios or

programs

  • Demonstrated success in building partnerships with funders

governments, or multilaterals

  • Experience leading and developing senior teams
  • Deep familiarity with applied behavioral science, psychology

economics, or a related discipline.

  • Experience working across Africa and South Asia strongly

preferred; lived or worked

Skills and Capabilities

  • Strategic thinking with operational discipline - able to hold

the long arc and the near-term simultaneously.

  • Deep commercial acumen, including revenue growth, margins, and

pipeline management

  • Entrepreneurial builder - comfortable creating structure where

none exists, and evolving it as the organization grows.

  • People leadership - a coach and talent developer who builds

diverse, high-trust teams.

  • Behavioral science fluency - able to translate rigorous methods

into practical, client-facing solutions.

  • External presence - credible, warm, and articulate in front of

the most senior stakeholders.

  • Cross-functional influence - able to lead with authority across

People, Finance, Comms, and Project Operations.

  • Future-oriented: able to engage with new technologies and

support implementation of our AI strategy.

What Success Looks Like

  • Sustained revenue growth and improved financial performance

across practice areas.

  • High-quality, consistent delivery across practice areas

portfolios and geographies.

  • Strong pipeline and conversion of strategic opportunities.
  • Clear and scalable practice areas with increased reuse of tools

and approaches.

  • Strengthened leadership bench and organizational

capability.

  • Enhanced reputation and influence of Busara in the global

majority development ecosystem.

As applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, we

encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

Data Privacy Statement

As part of Busara's recruitment process, personal information

provided by an applicant through various means will be collected

and stored. This includes but is not limited to the information

which the candidate provides to Busara in their application and

profile, any data from role assessments, interviews information

including video interviews and data provided to us by your

referees. This data will be used to evaluate the application

communicate with the candidate, and where a candidate has selected

this option, for future recruitment opportunities. All this

information will be treated as part of each job application record

and only retained for the required record retention period.

By choosing to apply for this position at Busara, you are giving

Busara your consent to process your personal data as described

above. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring

that your personal information is secure.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts

of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing

resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential

inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials

based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment

team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are

ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about

how your data is processed, please contact us.

Tags

behavioral science

business development

management consulting

organizational research

senior manager

Skills

Strategic Thinking

Leadership

Cross-Functional Influence

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