Chief of Staff to the CEO

ABOUT ALU

ALU provides higher education for a higher purpose. Our students declare missions, not majors.
They develop the real-world skills to take on the world’s most pressing challenges. And they take ownership of their learning from day one through our peer and student-led approach – because ALU believes in the power and agency of young people to start shaping the future right now.
Together with a world-class faculty and staff, our students are igniting a ripple of positive impact across Africa and the world.

We are dedicated to fostering an open yet secure environment, balancing the safety of students, staff, and visitors with respect for individual rights, and safeguarding responsibilities.

HOW WE WORK

As a high-growth start-up, the ALU Team works in starkly different ways to traditional academic bureaucracies. We approach education from first principles, empower individuals to design, test, and implement creative new ideas, and work closely together to craft transformative learning experiences. We are deeply passionate about our students and excited by the challenge of building something entirely new.

The African Leadership University is committed to ensuring the safety and Well-being of all students under our care. As part of this commitment , we have a comprehensive safeguarding policy in place , which outlines our Zero-tolerance approach to any violation of safeguarding.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As the Chief of Staff (CoS), you will serve as our Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s  ‘right hand’. While the CEO concentrates on overseeing ALU's overall strategy, you'll serve as a liaison between the CEO and multiple internal and external stakeholders, attending various meetings where you'll often represent or prepare the CEO. While you may be entrusted with making decisions regarding particular programs or initiatives, your fundamental role remains advising the CEO. As Chief of Staff, you'll work between teams, ensuring  smooth communication and alignment with the CEO's objectives and guidance, and giving full visibility to help the CEO prioritise and plan with adequate reports, presentations and deliverables.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

You are motivated, proactive and display remarkable spirit of service. You are able to research and analyze complex issues, producing impeccable reports, presentations or speeches. You are an outstanding project manager. But above all, you are a fast-learner, an incredibly hard-worker and are willing to make our CEO’s priorities and needs your own. 

Ideally, you bring either 3-5 years of work experience in strategy consulting, investment banking and/or 5-8 years of experience in project management or operational leadership in a transformative organisation. You are excited about pivoting to  support in building a large-scale, highly innovative enterprise. No day will be the same as you help manage a rapidly growing organisation to achieve its ambitious priorities, lead special projects, launch new initiatives, and engage with key stakeholders. 

More specifically, the CoS to the CEO will hold the ultimate accountability on all the tasks, activities and deliverables expected of the CEO’s Office, including:

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Strategy & Innovation: Connects the dots, analyses multiple sources of information, identifies required steps and improvements, and synthesizes coherent and executable plans that align with the CEO’s mandate. 
• Reporting & Presentations: Prepares communications, reports, business cases and presentations on behalf of the CEO. 
• Stakeholder Management: Acts as a steward of critical internal and external stakeholders, fostering meaningful connection, driving collaboration, and championing the CEO & ALU’s vision in all engagements, maintaining transparency and integrity in every interaction.
• Board Liaison: Serves as a liaison between the CEO and the board, and various Committees, facilitating communication, coordinating meetings, and preparing board packs in close collaboration with ALU’s Senior Legal Counsel, the Executive Committee (ExCo) members, to ensure that the CEO is equipped with comprehensive and relevant information for effective decision-making and communication with the board
• Communicating: Acts as the communication arm and gatekeeper for the CEO with internal and external stakeholders.
• Execution: Attends meetings (with or without the CEO) to extract the actions for which the CEO and other ALU attendants are accountable, and execute on them autonomously.
• Project Management: Ensures CEO is informed and updated on special projects of the CEO, Board or ExCo, consolidating updates, risks and opportunities to enable better decision making.
• Research & Analysis: Conducts market research, benchmarking and data analysis to ensure the CEO remains abreast with latest industry benchmarks in the context of ALU and can provide data that supports ongoing strategic work across the organisation.
• Insights & Advise: Acts as a trusted advisor, offering expert advice and recommendations to address challenges and capitalize on opportunities, ensuring alignment with the university's objectives and priorities.
• Ensure the safety and well-being of all young persons and vulnerable adults with whom we deal,  by adhering to ALU’s comprehensive safeguarding policy, maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to any violations of safeguarding standards. 

In addition, you will be expected to perform miscellaneous job-related duties as assigned.

WHAT YOU BRING TO ALU

• Experience & Background - At least 3-5 years of working on diverse range of projects  in a fast-paced environment. Possible backgrounds are management consulting, investment banking and project management. 
• Management experience: You have 5-8 years’ experience managing a team of people, or have led an operational unit in the past.
• Stakeholder relations & management - You posses excellent people skills, ability to communicate effectively with stakeholders at senior levels, including senior leadership, executive committees and advisory/board members. You are able to understand the mandate of the CEO, and create valuable strategies to enhance his time and delivery of the CEO with various stakeholders..
• Communications: You are capable of producing top-notch well-researched, data-sound memos, presentations and other kinds of communications.
• Project Manager: You are able to turn complex conversations into a set of coherent actions, are able to assign responsibilities and make sure everything gets executed flawlessly. You are able to produce reports on the status of advancement of the different initiatives.
• Personal traits: You are motivated, proactive and display an unparalleled spirit of service. You are a detailed-oriented, extremely organized autonomous executor.
• Prioritization: In being the ‘right-hand’ to the CEO, you help them drive the mission of the institution and can thereby prioritize effectively (and ruthlessly when necessary) for yourself and for the CEO.