[Hiring] Senior Associate, Country Support - Mental Health @Clinton Health Access Initiative

Role Description

The majority of MHAI's work sits at the country level, with CHAI country teams. This role exists to support our overall program model. Reporting to the Program Lead, Mental Health, the Senior Associate, Country Support will be the day-to-day link between the global mental health team and country teams across the program's six focus countries, working in close collaboration with the global team's country engagement lead, with the countries divided between them.

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated, mission-driven Senior Associate to help drive the success of this initiative across sub-Saharan Africa. The successful candidate joins a nascent program at the point where it moves from proving a model to delivering it at scale. They will work alongside Ministries of Health, regulators, procurement agencies, and manufacturers on a problem that has been neglected for decades.

The mandate for this role is broad and likely to include program management, thought partnership, and planning and execution support across MHAI’s six country teams, and possibly on other mental health programs. We are looking for a generalist — someone who joins dots across workstreams, reads situations well, and communicates clearly in writing, in conversation and on a slide.

Responsibilities

• Country team partnership and delivery support (40%)
  • Serve as the primary day-to-day point of contact between CHAI’s global mental health team and country teams across the focus countries.
  • Provide hands-on, timely support and feedback to country teams on objective and key result tracking, work planning, analysis, materials preparation, fundraising activities, and delivery against program milestones and the program’s monitoring and evaluation framework.
  • Travel regularly to focus countries to work alongside country teams, including during workshops, government engagements and periods of peak delivery.
  • Develop a working understanding of the programmatic, political and operational constraints each country team faces, and be able to articulate them accurately to others.
  • Build and maintain relationships with in-country stakeholders, including Ministries of Health and procurement agencies, alongside the country teams who hold those relationships primarily.
  • Identify where additional resources are needed and mobilize to fill the gap.
• Communication and coordination (25%)
  • Communicate effectively across a matrixed, international organization, streamlining.
  • Synthesize country progress, insight, and evidence into materials for funders, partners, the public, and CHAI leadership, representing country realities accurately.
  • Articulate, internally and externally, how in-country work connects to program-level strategy, funder commitments and decisions being taken globally.
  • Prepare program updates, presentations, and briefing materials for internal and external audiences.
• Program management and delivery tracking (25%)
  • Support annual and quarterly planning cycles with country teams, including objective setting and milestone definition.
  • Track progress against country work plans, objectives, and key results; flag risks to delivery early and propose mitigations.
  • Coordinate across CHAI global teams and external partners to align workstreams and avoid duplication.
  • Support grant management and reporting requirements in coordination with program leadership.
  • Foster a strong team culture based on CHAI's values, contributing to a cohesive and productive matrixed team across the country and global teams.
• Cross-country learning (10%)
  • Capture lessons learned and best practices, and facilitate cross-country and cross-program exchange through briefs, convenings and regular calls, including dissemination to external audiences where appropriate.
  • Adapt country-specific tools, templates, and approaches into resources other teams can use.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 5+ years of relevant professional experience.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted working relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders.
• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to structure an ambiguous problem, build and interpret quantitative and qualitative analyses, and draw out what matters.
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly, connect the dots, and translate technical knowledge into actionable insight for decision-makers.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including the ability to produce clear, compelling slides for both internal and external audiences.
• Ability to work independently, set priorities and manage multiple workstreams in a decentralized, multicultural environment.
• Experience in capacity building, mentorship, and working with remote or decentralized teams.
• Comfort moving between hands-on delivery support and senior external engagement, with no task considered too small.
• Exceptional attention to detail.
• Willingness and ability to travel 20-40%, including to settings where travel logistics can be demanding.
• English language fluency, both written and verbal.

Advantages

• Experience working within a CHAI country team, or within a country-based team at a comparable organization.
• Experience in a resource-constrained, high-autonomy environment where roles are not narrowly defined.
• Familiarity with pharmaceutical access, regulatory, procurement, supply chain or health financing in LMICs.
• Experience working with Ministries of Health or other government partners.
• Experience supporting donor reporting and funder engagement.
• Master's degree in public health, public policy, business, economics or a related field.
• French language proficiency.
• Interest in, or exposure to, mental health.