Maisha Meds is hiring! We’re looking for a Director of Scale Programs with project leadership and program design experience to accelerate business development and strategy efforts that will translate our organizational strategy into groundbreaking public health impact for years to come.

About Maisha Meds

Maisha Meds is an organization dedicated to improving health care in Africa through best-in-class technology.

Founded in 2017, Maisha Meds has created the largest digital network of private pharmacies and clinics across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and Zambia through our mobile software. Our platform not only helps these providers improve business by making sales, managing inventory, and tracking patients. It also reimburses them for providing high-quality care for malaria, family planning, and HIV prevention at discounted costs.

Maisha Meds logs more than 25 million patient visits every year and has provided more than one million quality-assured reimbursements to-date. We harness data from our network of pharmacies and clinics to reveal health and market trends, which allows us to design better solutions that work for the people we serve. We have worked with leading academic institutions such as UC Berkeley, Emory University, and KEMRI to evaluate the effectiveness of our programs. Research shows that our system is able to significantly increase appropriate malaria case management and the uptake of long-acting contraceptives.

Our work is funded by a range of partners including scale-up funding from USAID Development Innovation Ventures and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This will help Maisha Meds greatly expand its mobile software to 7,500 total pharmacies and clinics by late 2026, delivering high quality and affordable care to millions of new patients in the process.

About the role

We are seeking a Director of Scale Programs Programs to join our team. The Director will drive all of Maisha Meds’ external-facing activities, including business development and partner-engagement ,across the HIV, Malaria, and Vision Programs and our markets. This will include driving our strategy for inclusive pharmacy integration for HIV treatment and biomedical prevention, malaria case management, and other programs as they graduate to scale, and owning the results from program design through to execution. Specific program areas may evolve as more of our incubation pipeline graduates to scale-up.

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 10 years of experience working in a fast-paced healthcare context launching and building partnerships to support HIV and related programs at scale, with a proven track record of managing senior stakeholder relationships (e.g., Ministries of Health, National AIDS Control Programs and National Malaria Control Programs, donors, FBOs, implementing partners, etc.), knowledge of both public and private health sectors, and experience working in and navigating the complexities of HIV and malaria services delivery with a focus on partnerships and program design. This role will partner closely with our operations team, who will lead program implementation at, above, and below site level. The role will report directly to the Chief Development Officer, although will work closely with other teams within the organization to oversee the portfolio of work and ensure strategic alignment with the broader activities of Maisha Meds. This position will sit within the Strategy & Business Development team, and engaging with new and emerging funders for Maisha Meds HIV and malaria programs will be a key component of this role.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities will include:

Program Design and Oversight

• Conduct research and analysis on the HIV and malaria ecosystem, competitive landscape, and operational challenges, in order to identify strategic opportunities and risks, as well as design potential interventions or solutions.
• Coordinate with Domestic Resource Mobilization team to understand specific national funding trajectories and related services in Maisha Meds markets.
• Coordinate with our operations team to support on program implementation and delivery against aggressive program targets
• Lead financial analysis and modeling to support business case development and investment decisions with a focus on results-based financing and cost savings of integrated pharmacy models
• Oversee and coordinate grant activities, including developing clear work plans, and coordinating with Tech, Product, and Operations teams to ensure the timely delivery of program commitments.
  

Business Development / Funder Engagement

• Cultivate and manage funder relationships across the global health ecosystem in order to identify new business opportunities for Maisha Meds.
• Develop the ideas for new activities, and lead on the production of high-quality proposals and supporting materials to funders, which may include document or slide deck formats as well as detailed budgets to support proposal submissions.
• Lead funder engagement activities throughout the execution of grants/funding commitments, including oversight for all relevant donor reporting.
  

Strategic & Research Partnerships

• Build external relationships with other relevant stakeholders in the sector to grow our profile and network of opportunities, including in the government and policy spheres.
• Lead on developing and managing research partnerships that aim to solve questions around our work that can help to unlock further scale (e.g., willingness and ability to pay for HIV ART pick-up and PrEP, pharmacy efficiencies for injectable PrEP, introduction of new drugs to mitigate antimalarial resistance, etc.)
• Work with VP of Comms to contribute content on activities to raise the profile of Maisha Meds.

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of experience working in sub-Saharan Africa on public health programs, with a preference for experience in clinical HIV service delivery and experience with US government and Global Fund processes.
• Location: Based in one of our core markets of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, or Nigeria.
• Experience working to introduce new technologies with senior HIV program stakeholders (e.g., Ministries of Health, NASCOPs / NMCPs, donors, FBOs, implementing partners).
• Knowledge of supply chains, referral pathways, etc. for HIV, malaria, and other historically donor funded services.
• Core competencies:
  • Proven track record of designing streamlined processes and evaluating program shifts to determine cost savings, efficiencies, etc.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a demonstrated ability to rapidly synthesize data into relevant, usable insights and recommendations for both short-term decision-making and longer-term strategic planning.
  • Demonstrated experience managing senior stakeholder relationships across global health funders, governments and other partners.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively communicate complex information to a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
  • Advanced proficiency in Google Docs, Slides, and other analytical tools.
• Motivation and mindset:
  • A self-starter who will roll up your sleeves to work independently and collaboratively in the context of a cross-functional, distributed team.
  • Strong project management skills, with the ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
  • A blend of passion, humility, patience, and a good sense of humor.
    
    

Why You Should Join Us

• On a roll: We are doubling year-over-year with new funding partnerships that are boosting expansion in multiple countries
• Great team: Founded, managed and backed by successful veterans of Stanford School of Medicine, Google, Safe Boda, Helium Health, M-Kopa, CNN, and BCG. We have technologists, clinicians, and economists working side by side to solve difficult problems.
• Great funders: We’re backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CIFF, The Global Fund, Livelihoods Impact Fund, WAM Foundation, Novartis, the Nigerian Government, and many others - their funding provides us catalytic funding to fundamentally change the way health outcomes are funded in the private sector throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Huge market: We are disrupting a massive, growing $50+ billion market for healthcare payments for low-income patients, with a focus on paying for health outcomes to ensure patients get the best quality care.
• Great customers: We create financial incentives that ensure our health care providers deliver excellent care.
• Impact: We have cultivated a fun and exciting start-up culture that empowers its talented staff to make a huge impact.