Associate

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 Associates with experience working with or in Governement as well as management consulting 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.

We welcome applicants who have an existing right to work in one of our office hubs in Nairobi, Dakar, Accra, Athens, Abu Dhabi, London from which you will be based.

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. 

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. This means we are truly 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. Through our embedded advisors and country teams working hand-in-hand with government counterparts we are able to assemble, tailor and distribute our offer to address specific and ever evolving needs in the various contexts we operate across the world. 

TBI is hiring global Associates to join its Delivery anchor team. This role will be situated centrally/regionally and produce high-quality research, analysis, tools, frameworks and coordination of events and activities that are key for the Delivery Team to provide authoritative advice and high-quality, hands-on and tech-oriented delivery technical backstopping to country teams and government counterparts. Reporting to Delivery Advisor, Associates will be assigned to support various workstreams according to the Delivery Team’s needs, including providing surge capacity and technical backstopping to country teams, supporting development of client-facing and internal deliverables and documents, ensuring quality standards and knowledge management, as well as supporting our strategic partnerships. Successful candidates will be effective problem solvers, including research and analytical skills, excellent program managers, and communicators in both written (powerpoint skills ideal) and verbal. The postholders will contribute to continually enhancing and improving our approaches, methods, tools, and other central assets that drive TBI’s work on Delivery at scale.

Some of the exciting global initiatives our Delivery practice is currently 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 digital 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. 
 

Key Responsibilities

Key responsibilities for this role include:

Leveraging and strengthening Delivery expertise

• Support the effective management and enhancement of Community of Practice program on delivery for embedded delivery advisors and colleagues
• Support and coordinate internal capacity building and training efforts, by providing relevant research, tools and frameworks, and identifying capacity gaps
• Contribute to the development, enhancement, and roll-out of TBI’s delivery products, methodologies and tools, and the provision of trainings to Country Directors and in-country advisors
• Support the Delivery Team to engage with network of internal and external experts to undertake a series of talks and events (e.g., fireside chats) on delivery
• Support the development and maintenance of a knowledge management and dissemination system

Specialized hands-on support to country teams for delivery project scoping and set up

• Support the enhancement of TBI’s proprietary delivery framework through research, case studies, and innovative tools, for delivery scoping exercises and government delivery needs assessments
• Provide inputs and materials required to offer expert delivery support and surge capacity, especially during inception, planning and early operationalization phases – includes delivery asessement reports, delivery labs, stocktake meeting preparation, progress reports, delivery sprints
• Develop and update tools, frameworks, and guidelines to ensure standardized use and application of TBI’s delivery framework and offer across the globe
• Support the enhancement and implementation of quality assurance processes for TBI’s delivery offer
• Support the refinement and use of a metrics-based approach to identify risks, problem-solving and learning during implementation – make recommendations for course-correction as needed
• Support coordination of capacity building efforts on delivery for TBI’s counterparts, including implementing institutions

Pushing the frontier – innovating on delivery

• Support research and studies that help TBI reimagine delivery with creative solutions addressing specific needs of our government counterparts. This includes benchmarking delivery best practices globally
• Support the design and operationalization of TBI’s new delivery offer. This includes but not limited to data-driven prioritization (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-succes contracts, outcome funds, results-based financing).
• Support Delivery Advisors develop joint delivery frameworks with other advisory sectoral practices (e.g. e-government, digital ID, agrifood) and global innovation team including document development
• Provide inputs and materials that contribute to development, piloting and roll-out of new/innovative toolkits, templates, and ways of working (tech and non-tech)

Partnerships

• Provide inputs and materials to support establishment of partnerships that ensure TBI’s proprietary delivery methodology, impact on the ground, and strategic priorities are well reflected in the program of work
• Support the exploration and recommendation mechanisms that ensure effective use of knowledge resources and new capabilities resulting from partnerships into TBI’s operations with country teams and practices
• Liase, alongside Delivery Advisors, with partnerships and MEL team to contribute to reporting mechanisms (e.g., data collection, preparation of reports to financiers if need be)

Contribution to wider TBI

• Contribute to wider TBI corporate activities 
• Quickly become a valued and supportive team member of the GCS team, clearly linking strategy, policy and technology with delivery
• Support the Director of Delivery and Senior Delivery Advisor in overall strategy development and implementation

Person Specification

This is a role in a fast-paced virtual team working out of different geographies and in complex policy and government support areas. The successful candidate will build effective trusting relationships with country and program teams and provide open willingness to jump in and support the anchor and project teams. With an emerging knowledge of delivery principles and processes, the postholder will have a grounding in management consulting and programme management including the requisite soft skills.

Successful candidates for the role should be able to display the following:

• Experience in management consulting or programme management with knowledge of public sector contexts
• Experience in government delivery functions is valuable
• Proven track record of developing frameworks and tools,  process quality improvement and standardisation in addition to relevant experience of working in a project and programme environment
• Experience in structured problem-solving and workplanning
• Experience with public-sector capacity-building program development and roll-out a plus
• High quality communication, drafting and presentation skills are essential, including in power point. Experience in writing briefs for senior government officials – precise and brief. Graphic design skills are an advantage.
• Ability to develop and implement tools at different levels of complexity, including professional knowledge management tools and the tools of the Microsoft 365 environment
• Be a strong team player with excellent soft skills as well as flexibility to help where needed
• Highly developed analytical skills that can be deployed in a range of contexts
• Willingness to travel, sometimes on short notice
• Prior experience working with or for governments would be an added advantage
• Fluency in English is required (oral and written). French, portguese, or other language skills in TBI’s growing list of client countries is valuable.

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.

#LI-Hybrid
 

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.