Senior Delivery Advisor

Focus of the Role

At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), we work at the highest levels of government to help leaders go further and faster to make their citizens’ lives better. Moving the dial on the great global challenges of our time requires engaged, incentivised, focused and motivated leaders.  When political leadership is relentlessly deployed, at the highest levels, incredible things can be achieved.

Using our distinctive expertise and global outlook and guided by the unique insights and perspective of our Executive Chairman Sir Tony Blair, our dedicated experts and embedded teams advise governments all over the world in strategy, policy and delivery, underpinned by technology.

TBI is hiring global Senior Delivery Advisors with extensive experience working with, or for, governments to join our growing team supporting political leaders and partners on making change happen through innovative delivery mechanisms. TBI and our delivery work is growing rapidly in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia.

Job Introduction

Our new Global Client Solutions team is at the heart of how we define “what we do” and then distribute the best of the Institute and our networks to global leaders through our country advisory teams.  As a centre of excellence, Global Client Solutions is comprised of our centrally situated global and regional experts – functional and sectoral.  Our experts provide valuable counsel, technical support, thought partnership, strategy, and surge capacity and lead the development and evolution of our solutions, methods, and offers in the service of our partner governments. Through our country teams and embedded advisors working hand-in-hand with government, we assemble, tailor and distribute our offer to address specific and ever-evolving needs in the various contexts we operate across the world. 

Government Delivery is about the processes, tools and techniques used by political leaders to steer more effective and faster implementation of government priorities. Delivery is at the heart of TBI’s origin story and offer, beginning with Mr. Blair’s time in Downing Street when he established the first government Delivery Unit. We are driven by outcomes and have a laser-focus on making government work. ‘Getting things done’ or ‘making change happen’ in complex delivery ecosystems is something that we take very seriously and are constantly leveraging lessons from the frontline and innovating to offer best-in-class delivery solutions to our clients.

The role will be situated centrally/regionally primarily providing expert support to our in-country TBI advisors, our partner governments, and other key stakeholders worldwide on strengthening their delivery systems and to deliver concrete results to their citizens. The post holders will also contribute to continually enhancing and improving our approaches, methods, tools, and other central assets and knowledge that drives TBI’s work on Delivery at scale.

Some of the global initiatives our Delivery practice is driving include: conducting a global study on the Future of Delivery reflecting on evolving best practices; building on user experience to drive the 2.0 version of our delivery dashboard and a toolkit on using performance data to guide decision-making; and planning for our next global delivery exchange, a platform to assemble expertise and exchange lessons on delivery from practitioners across the globe.

This is a senior expert role requiring exceptional candidates with relevant expertise, deep networks and experience working with governments, development and technical partners active in delivery. Global experience, or experience translating your expertise in diverse contexts is a must. Reporting into the Director, Delivery and working with the Executive Director Client Solutions and our experts, Senior Delivery Advisors provide critical hands-on expert support to our global teams and government advisors for greater client impact, contribute to the growth of the Institute, and ensure we effectively and continuously develop, define, and evolve the solutions, tools, and means to support leaders on achieving meaningful outcomes. Senior Delivery Advisors will be assigned by Director Delivery to lead various workstreams according to clients’ needs, including providing surge capacity and technical backstopping to country teams, ensuring quality standards and knowledge management, as well managing partnerships. Candidates will work closely with fellow Senior Advisors as well as our country and regional advisory leaders to coordinate our areas of expertise and ensure they are both visionary, and client-driven.

Please note that applicants for our Nairobi and Athens offices we do require an existing right to work.  In Abu Dhabi, Accra, London and Dakar we can consider, for the right applicant, supporting relocation and/or work permits.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the Director of Delivery in overall offer strategy development and implementation, and thought leadership of TBI’s Delivery offer and methods
• Identify game changers and lead creative, context specific processes to push the frontier on delivery solutions
• Ensure feedback loops between the implementation of our delivery offer with areas like strategy, policy, strategic communications and private office functions
• Work with other the sectoral team (e.g. Economic Prosperity) to strengthen our delivery offering when a sectoral lens is required
• Champion and directly support the design, mainstreaming, and adaptation of new delivery solutions in various contexts. This includes but is not limited to data-driven prioritisation (e.g., data analytics for granular targeting), combining design thinking, behavioral insights and data science with delivery planning tools (e.g., delivery labs and sprints), and clear line of sight and tools to scaling up results (e.g., pay-for-success contracts, outcome funds, results-based financing)

Delivery initiative quality assurance and thought partnership

• Provide expertise input, thought partnership, and advise to Regional Directors, Country Directors and Advisors on their strategic plans, performance management and resource planning for delivery projects throughout and at critical milestones
• Support to country teams to ensure end-to-end impact of Delivery projects and utilisation of TBI Delivery best practices and tools, methods, approaches
• Support project teams to assess need and build capacity of government counterparts to effectively implement their Delivery strategies transformation agenda, including technological transformational initiatives 

Support portfolio growth and provide surge support to Regional Directors, Country Directors, and the New Business and Impact Team in Delivery projects scoping and setup 

• Lead diagnosis of implementation capability and key drivers to deliver on senior leaders’ national development priorities
• Facilitate high level discussions with senior government counterparts on TBI’s support areas and jointly define and agree on TBI’s scope of work, and work through the available options to ensure delivery
• Lead, or contribute to scoping exercises and develop a clear understanding of governments’ overarching vision, implementation challenges and opportunities
• Support business development efforts with technical expertise and inputs in collaboration with the Business Develop & Income team, Regional Directors, Country Directors and other sectoral teams
• Maintain intelligence on market needs, competition, and market gaps in the Delivery ecosystem

Strategic Partnerships

In collaboration with the Strategic Partnerships and Initiatives team:

• Lead establishment of productive partnerships by ensuring TBI’s proprietary delivery methodology, impact on the ground, and strategic priorities are well reflected in the program of work
• Support the development of and nurture relationships with strategic partners, existing and potential
• Develop annual plan to support implementation of strategic partnerships relevant for delivery practice
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to strengthen TBI’s overall approach to Delivery partnerships, including having efficient approaches for partnership knowledge management

External Thought Leadership

• Continue to position the practice and TBI as a thought leader in this space
• Be a spokesperson for TBI on the key topics of Delivery. Be a recognised thought leader among the sector ecosystem including participating on panels, writing blogs and articles, and networking strategically
• Build strategic relationships with global leaders and political changemakers to support the relevance, and for fundraising, business development, thought leadership, policy influencing and programme delivery
• Support building out of the Institute’s network of exceptional external advisors who can provide tactical surge support on critical programme milestones and input into our asset evolution

Contribution to wider TBI

• Quickly become a valued and supportive go-to expert across the Institute on matters of Government Delivery
• Contribute to the wider Institute including learning and development, connect with global staff, support institute-wide initiatives etc

Person Specification

• Experience leading a Delivery Unit and/or supporting the set-up of Delivery Units in multiple countries with demonstrable success in achieving tangible outcomes for citizens
• Extensive experience in a leadership role, cutting across centre of government, delivery, and/or management consulting globally (including in Africa and developed country contexts)

• Ability to work and interact at the highest levels of political decision-making structures in Governments and to support the emergence of trusted relationships
• Strong political acumen and able to rapidly develop an understanding of the needs of senior officials
• Highly developed analytical skills that can be deployed in a range of contexts
• The ability to work in the face of a range of competing views and priorities, possessing highly developed negotiation skills
• Exceptional communication, drafting and presentation skills
• Strong team player with excellent soft skills as well as flexibility to help where needed
• An ability to work independently, think strategically and translate strategies into concrete and implementable plans; an acute attention to detail, as well as organizational and communication skills
• Proven ability and experience leading and managing people and teams
• Experience with project development and project management
• Able to motivate and influence others, including TBI country specific roles, as well as funders, government counterparts and partners
• Willingness to travel extensively, sometimes at short notice, in particular to TBI’s countries of operation
• Strong sense of ethics, discretion and perseverance required
• Experience of living and working in developing countries is strongly desirable
• Fluency in English is required. Fluency in French, or other relevant business languages is desirable

Please note that due to the upcoming holiday period we will not be able to advise on the success of your application until January 2023.
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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.