Overview
Head of Development, East Africa Jobs in Nairobi County, Kenya at Sanku
Title: Head of Development, East Africa
Company: Sanku
Location: Nairobi County, Kenya
Why You’ll Love Working Here
Our pioneering technology fortifies staple grains in African mills, reaching over 73 million people daily. Our solution is more than a product; it’s a mission of saving lives. You will be part of a passionate, mission-driven team committed to transforming health outcomes across Africa. We foster a high-performance work environment where career development is supported, and employee wellbeing is a priority. Our guarantee is that you will find a culture that makes you want to show up every day!
What is Expected of You
You will be responsible for building and leading a high-performing Development function across East Africa, with end-to-end responsibility for fundraising, donor stewardship, communications, and team performance. The role enables fundraising success through leadership and organizational excellence, with a strong focus on building the operational systems and team capability required as Sanku enters a new phase of rapid scaling.
How You’ll Deliver Impact
- Lead, coach and develop the East Africa Development Team (a team of 5 and growing, across major donor fundraising, grants, and communications), setting clear priorities, ensuring high-quality on-time delivery, and building a culture of accountability, rigor, and collaboration.
- Design and improve fundraising systems, processes, and tools, including CRM, reporting dashboards, and AI-enabled workflows, to drive consistency and team productivity.
- Contribute to development strategy in collaboration with the CEO and senior leadership, translating priorities into operational plans with clear accountabilities and timelines.
- Support and enable the team to retain and deepen relationships across Sanku’s existing $10M+ portfolio of strategic institutional and philanthropic funding partners, identifying upgrade and renewal opportunities and building the pipeline discipline to deliver growth as per strategy.
- Oversee the full grant and major donor lifecycle, from prospect research and proposal development through budgeting, submission, compliance, reporting, renewal, and in-country visits and site trips.
- Oversee Sanku’s production and distribution of donor-facing communications and content: impact reports, donor updates, presentations, website content, social media, and other external materials.
- Ensure Sanku is well-represented at donor meetings, partner events, and conferences, matching the right team members to the right opportunities and supporting them to get the most out of each engagement.
- Monitor team and portfolio performance through KPIs and pipeline reviews, identifying bottlenecks and driving continuous improvement.
- Provide support to the CEO and senior leadership on selected transformational funding opportunities (i.e. $10M+ gifts and grants) as needed, while keeping the team’s core portfolio, systems, and delivery on track.
What We Are Looking For
- 5–8 years’ experience leading Development, Business Development or Partnerships teams, within the NGO, Social Enterprise or International Development Sector.
- Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field.
- Experience building and managing teams of five or more, including direct reports who themselves manage staff or lead workstreams.
- Comfortable operating in a fast-scaling environment, with experience building or professionalizing a development function rather than just running an established one.
- Excellent leadership, coaching, and cross-functional collaboration skills. Experience securing funding is desirable, but success leading development operations and teams is essential.