Deputy Director of Construction Management & Systems Job Vacancy in Kenya - Bridge International Academies

Job Title: Deputy Director of Construction Management & Systems

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

About Bridge International Academies

Bridge International Academies is a startup revolutionizing education across Africa with a truly unique business model. The company has launched a large-scale franchise-like network of ultra low-cost for-profit private primary schools across Africa.

Our schools profitably deliver high-quality education for less than $4 per child per month, enabling local school managers to operate their school businesses profitably, while creating a highly successful business at the central level. We have launched our first 10 schools in Kenya, have 15 more opening in January and plan to rapidly scale the company to serve more than 1 million students.

About this position

We have and are continuing to develop one of the most cost-effective approaches to constructing school buildings in the world. We currently construct school classrooms for less than KSh 140,000 per classroom fully loaded (including all labour and site management, furniture, transport, and the amortized cost of the latrines, School Manager’s office, and fence). These results are achieved by using experienced fundi’s as site managers, who are supported by a central management team and a highly specified process and specifications.

Because of the speed of our scaling, we construct many schools simultaneously. For example, the company is currently building 15 new schools, and expanding 5 existing schools. That means we have to manage 20 simultaneous construction sites. Within a couple of years the number of simultaneous construction sites will increase to well over 50.

We are looking for a full time Deputy Director of Construction Management who underneath our Head of Construction will provide critical leadership to manage these simultaneous construction projects being led by fundis and day labourers. In order to accomplish this, the Deputy Director will need to help refine and improve upon our systems for managing and tracking every aspect of these projects, as well as the training and oversight of the site managers/fundis.

We are looking for someone who is good with the details and not afraid of spending long hours in the field (in the slums) to make sure the job is accomplished.

Responsibilities
Improve upon and develop new manuals, specifications, tracking tools, & training program to allow local construction managers to successfully replicate school design
Refine and implement a sophisticated budgeting and payment tracking system to ensure that schools are being built under budget and on time.
Refine and put in place audit systems to ensure that construction is being done correctly and financial controls are in place to ensure transparency
Identifying, training and managing site managers who are the actual implementers at each site
Managing central construction team to help implement the design, process, and auditing.
Constantly working to reduce cost and improve quality of school construction
Requirements/Skills:
You have minimum 10 years experience in senior project management or construction management role, especially one where you were managing many sites/projects simultaneously.
You have experience with very process-oriented project management
You have experience in construction management, ideally in situations where budgets are incredibly constrained
You are very comfortable and willing to work in slums
You have experience with managing distributed teams of people
You have experience managing inventory at multiple sites and ensuring there are systems to prevent loss
You are experienced in developing budgeting/accounting system to ensure easy auditing of the financial transactions
You are and experiened user of MS Project, ArchiCAD/AutoCAD and MS Excel
A background or experience in detailed ultra-low cost engineering design a plus
You are very comfortable with using and analyzing data, budgets, and information to make better decisions
"Love to get my hands dirty" is your middle name. While you have been a manager, you have also demonstrated your willingness to jump into the very nitty-gritty details and get done what is needed to get done.
You function well in a fast-paced, informal environment where constant change is the norm and the bar for quality is set high
Our team has a passionate belief that basic primary education is critical to the development of every child, family, community and nation. We believe that it is possible to address this critical need for poor families through new and innovative approaches leveraging the private sector, and that by providing low-cost but high-quality primary education, we will give millions of children the opportunity to accomplish their dreams. We are looking for someone who wants to join us in this rewarding task.

How to apply

Click here to apply for this job online

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