Code for Africa (CfA) is recruiting an Account Manager / Project Manager for the launch team for CivicSignal: a marketing agency for pioneers who use new technologies for social good.

As the initiative’s first account/project manager, you will build and manage an integrated public relations, communications and marketing team at CivicSignal. This team will help partners in the digital democracy and tech-for-good space across Africa amplify their voice and reach new audiences.

Your inaugural assignment will be to drive communications for the continent’s largest gathering of drones-for-good, the African Drone Forum, scheduled to take place in Rwanda in February 2020.

As the team manager, you will serve as CivicSignal’s chief liaison with clients and stakeholders, ranging from the World Bank and government agencies to tech-start-ups and digital activists, while also managing relationships with global media partners and social media influencers.

You will ensure that your team stays extremely organised and creative in the face of many tasks and priorities; nothing falls through the cracks.

The position is based in Cape Town and will entail occasional international and domestic travel.

Requirements:

• Proven experience managing fast-moving, complex, multi-stakeholder communications projects within the NGO, media or tech/startup sectors
• A track record for driving high-impact marketing or communication initiatives that use creative multimedia approaches
• Experience creating media plans and campaign schedules, pitching a diverse set of cross-platform stories including angles for journalistic interviews, broad appeal social/viral media content and visual stories
• Experience managing the communications for large, live events
• Deep networks of African and international media and journalists. Bonus if experience and contacts are within the digital and technology innovation sectors
• Strong strategic analysis and critical thinking skills: our projects are varied and fast-paced, so you need to quickly understand and learn new things. 
• Excellent communication skills: you will need to transform client requests into clear and concise design briefs for copywriters, designers and social media teams
• Detail-oriented: you will need to possess attention to detail and a good eye for both quality and aesthetics. You are the first and last line of quality control.
• Proactive and eager to learn: you should have a genuine interest in understanding the client and their communication needs, to help design creative campaigns
• Comfortable handling multiple tasks with multiple ongoing deadlines
• Experience managing communications strategies
• Experience in journalism/comms/media preferred
• Previous experience working on the digital collaboration tools that CfA uses, such as Slack, Google Drive and Trello, would be an advantage
• A valid passport

Tasks: 

• You will forge the inaugural communications team into a dynamic, agile and creative multimedia studio, that is passionate about audience engagement and social change
• You will manage client/partner relations, translating their needs into clear briefs and media plans for your team of copywriters and social media managers to implement
• You will help set realistic production milestones and deadlines and oversee the development of communication content complying with international standards
• You will coordinate media relationships, forge newsroom partnerships, build a powerful journalist database, generate story leads/ideas, and facilitate interviews
• You will build partnerships with strategic stakeholders, to help amplify our communications campaigns
• You will manage our on-site communication team at events, such as the ADF 2020 in Rwanda, facilitating press credentials, coordinating press briefings, responding to journalist requests and driving proactive micro-blogging and live-tweeting
• You will proactively identify potential bottlenecks or challenges that could slow down your team, and find creative solutions
• Measurement is important, so you will ensure that engagement analytics are hardwired into everything we do, to help shape qualitative feedback and improve our impact
• You will be the first and last line of quality control

CivicSignal is incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology network, Code for Africa (CfA), with offices in Abuja (Nigeria), Accra (Ghana), Cape Town (South Africa), Dakar (Senegal), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Lagos (Nigeria), Kampala (Uganda) and Nairobi (Kenya).

CfA’s project portfolio ranges from investigative data journalism in some of Africa’s most influential newsrooms, to teams of forensic data scientists fighting disinformation/misinformation, along with startups such as africanDRONE, EveryDayAfrica, sensorsAFRICA, and Takwimu.

The successful candidate will support efforts across the network, as well as at strategic partners that include the World Bank and United Nations initiatives, plus projects underwritten by Google, Facebook, Microsoft and a range of major philanthropies.

Candidates who can start immediately will be at an advantage.

Apply here by 18 October: bit.ly/35rzRRK

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