Associate, Tech Advisory

Focus of the Role

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Are you excited by the prospect of supporting nations around the world through the application of technology and innovations across public services, digital identity, agriculture, climate, health and digital infrastructure? Do you have experience of consulting or working in the tech field to drive systemic and transformative change in an emerging economy? If yes, then we are looking for you!

Join The Tomorrow Partnership!

Scaling up support to governments in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, the Tony Blair Institute’s Tomorrow Partnership works with political leaders and governments to bring tech and digital solutions to their biggest challenges, because we believe tomorrow will belong to those who responsibly harness the power of technology for the good of all people, and to leave no one behind.

Through The Tomorrow Partnership, we broker strategic partnerships between governments and leading tech organisations and innovators to help foster environments that enable tech to deliver practical change in people’s lives. We advise governments on strategy, policy, and delivery of ambitious digital and technology transformation initiatives.

To deliver on this ambitious programme, a globally deployed central team works closely with colleagues across the Institute to identify, design, partner, implement, and scale new technology-enabled transformation initiatives, while meeting the strategic ambitions of the global programme.

Job Introduction

What is the Tech Advisory Associate role?

We are looking to hire a proactive Programme Associate with experience rolling out programmes in complex environments, and sharp problem solving and agile project management skills.  

The Programme Associates are a critical part of TBI’s tech team – they will sit in the ‘country support team’ and work with the Programme Integrators to ensure TBI’s in-country tech teams are equipped with the right tools to successfully rollout their tech transformation strategies. This support includes scoping and discovery work, brainstorming and problem-solving facilitation, planning and coordination, design and continuous improvement of processes, facilitation of team resourcing and reporting. In some instances, the Associates may provide delivery support in-country where surge support is needed. They will also support central strategic workstreams in the development of collateral, undertake efforts to improve understanding across the Institute of processes and approaches, and develop insights which foster the evolution of TBI’s technology offer to governments.

This role will report to the Tech Programme Integrators and will need to develop close working relationships with colleagues across the Institute, including country-based tech programme managers, delivery advisors and sector teams.

What are the requirements for the role?

This is an associate-level role requiring an ambitious candidate, with strong consulting capabilities and a drive for results. You must be a curious problem-solver, open to working and growing in complex environments, learning to push through ambiguity to get to clarity and agreement. The ideal candidate is a driven, hands-on delivery focussed individual, who brings strong people and communication skills, and a proactive attitude to support the growth and ambition of our tech advisory work.

Please note that you have to be based and have the right to work for the location that you are applying for.

Key Responsibilities

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­The key responsibilities of this role will include:

• Supporting successful rollout of ambitious tech strategies defined by country teams
  • Work with the Programme Integrators to coordinate the development and review of Tomorrow Partnership country strategies, and support in quality assurance of strategy deliverables
  • Organise and facilitate sharing and problem-solving sessions between implementation teams to enable and encourage learning across the global programme
  • Provide occasional surge support to implementation teams during scoping and discovery phases of workstreams within the programme. As needed, be willing to travel to all locations of TBI’s current and future work to provide this support
  • Support partnership development with tech changemakers working with sector experts and country teams to identify use cases
  • Facilitate proper resourcing of country teams by supporting at early stages of the recruitment process

• Contributing to tech initiative design and project management/ implementation
  • Support country teams in the design and start-up of tech and digital transformation initiatives, including in improving project sequencing, delivering in political and bureaucratic environments, and developing agile workplans as needed
  • Input into regular reports and ad hoc requests to share advances in our tech work across The Tomorrow Partnership portfolio
  • Provide direct inputs into the Tech central dashboards (Monday.com) to ensure timely management of the overall portfolio, working closely with in-country Tomorrow Partnership Programme Managers
  • Contribute to capturing/sharing/incorporating lessons learned across countries in the regional and global Tech portfolio to improve the quality of our work, and support the evolution of tools, templates, and guides

• Inputting into central strategic workstreams
  • Support central sectoral leads and the partnerships team to develop internal and external facing collateral on our offer to governments and the emerging models for deployment to support growth and quality implementation, likely including presentations for our Executive Chairman and/or for Heads of State and key Ministers
  • Support continuous development and iteration of the global programme playbook, and design templates with the Programme Integrators, and oversee design template quality control & iteration
  • Provide support to central sectoral leads on sectoral strategy (e.g. healthtech, agtech, digital ID, egovernment, digital infrastructure and skills), planning, and knowledge including research where required, ensuring country context and best practice from the portfolio are fully integrated
  • Lead, or contribute to, other strategic workstreams which advance the programme’s foundations, such as/potentially Global Partnerships strategy and tech company engagement models
  • Provide input based on your experience and engagement as a member of the central team on the programme’s objectives, norms, and emerging best practices

Person Specification

We are ideally looking for an exceptional candidate with: 

• Experience in a professional advisory environment, ideally with exposure to digital and technology transformation, public affairs, and international environments
• Demonstrable experience and/or interest in the role of technologies in addressing global challenges
• Experience in managing and executing across multiple workstreams simultaneously, and responding to competing demands/priorities
• Demonstratable strength in project management and structured problem solving
• Who sets ambitious and measurable goals for themselves and for their projects, and works efficiently to deliver upon them
• Who sets themselves and the programme up for success by anticipating blockers, challenges and opportunities, and proactively addressing them within the team
• High EQ and excellent communication skills, knows how to navigate ambiguous environments and is comfortable at managing up and beyond hierarchy
• Who has worked or consulted in developing and emerging economies and is sensitive to a diverse range of cultural and regional norms, and will foster a positive spirit of collaboration between our countries and our tech transformation offer
• Experience in working in entrepreneurial and matrixed environments and who is comfortable collaborating with global functional and geographic teams
• Who can work flexibly and be adaptable, open to changing approaches in response to changing situations on the ground
• Strong skills in Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel
• Relevant language skills for TBI’s regions of work highly desired (French, Portuguese, Balkan languages, etc)

About The Institute

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is a mission-driven not for profit organisation. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. We work hard, every day, to make a difference. When governments work well they are able to create economic and social change in a way that promotes fairness, social justice and opportunity. We work relentlessly to support leader and governments with the challenges they face. Giving them practical solutions and actionable insights, that once implemented, can be transformative for their people  

We do this within two connected divisions: 

 Government Advisory 

Our Government Advisory teams work directly with political leaders and governments around the world to implement reforms that improve the lives of their citizens. It works with a variety of partners and its outputs cover a range of disciplines and projects across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Asia.

 Policy Futures 

Our Policy Futures work encompasses three broad areas: 

• Renewing the Centre: developing a bold and innovative domestic policy programme to help renew the centre ground of British politics; 
• Tech and Public Policy: exploring the policy challenges and opportunities presented by the technological revolution; and 
• Extremism Policy Unit: creating solutions designed to tackle the threat of extremist ideologies in the UK and around the world. 

As an organisation, the core beliefs we all embrace are: 

• Open and Progressive: you’ll believe in the value of teamwork 
• Bold and Pragmatic: you’ll approach everything you do with integrity and authenticity 
• Optimistic Changemaker: you’ll be focused on results 

TBI believes embracing diversity and inclusion make us a better place to work.  It’s our goal to reflect everyone in society and we actively welcome applications from individuals and groups who are under-represented in the workplace. We celebrate difference be it ethnicity, religion, age, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. We will only ever assess you on your abilities and fit for a role. We’re happy to discuss any adjustments you need to ensure a level playing field during recruitment and, if you\'re successful, discuss any adjustments you might need to thrive in your role.