[CLOSED] Communications Manager: Come champion Code for Africa’s story

Positions in: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa or elsewhere

Do you want to champion the story of Africa’s most advanced network of journalists, civic technologists and scientists?

Code for Africa (CfA) has an immediate vacancy for a full-time Communications Manager, based in Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa, for our Engagement team.

CfA’s Engagement team is responsible for managing CfA’s public audience, by curating our platforms, communications and brand. The team actively works to grow CfA’s reputation and amplify our thought leadership and accomplishments through compelling multimedia storytelling.

Candidates must have demonstrable experience as communications managers, with powerful digital storytelling skills, and the ability to turn dense portfolios of technical work into highly engaging communications materials.

The successful candidate will lead a small team of digital storytellers and manage all the communications functions of a world-class non-profit, including developing multi-year content strategies, managing and marketing physical and online events, managing brands, producing content for multiple platforms, and more.

The role will be for an English-speaking Communications Manager. Proficiency in local African languages and any additional international languages, such as Arabic or French, will be advantageous.

Required: minimum requirements include:

Two to four years in a communications function, preferably within the NGO, media or tech sectors
Bachelor’s degree or diploma in journalism, communications or a related field
Experience creating, implementing and driving communications strategies that help build organisational reputations and raise their profile as thought leaders within their fields
A proven ability for multi-platform storytelling that allows you to draft strong narratives and repackage them across multiple channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok
A proven ability for creative problem-solving in fast-paced impact-driven environments, where solutions involve balancing human and technology considerations as well as multiple deadlines and tasks
A thorough understanding of digital production pipelines that help you oversee and improve the development of blogs, social media content, press releases, newsletters and other relevant content formats

Preferred: candidates who are able to demonstrate the following will have an advantage:

Familiarity with the African media landscape, ideally with a pre-existing network of contacts
Experience in or familiarity with the non-profit landscape and an understanding of donor requirements and reporting
Demonstrable experience as a project manager, or an understanding of project management methodologies and practices
Demonstrable experience with international events, either as event manager or communications manager
Working knowledge of at least one major regional African language, such as Amharic, Fulani, Swahili, Yoruba, etc
Digital-first workplace skill-sets, including proficiency in collaborative work solutions such as Google Workplace (Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.), Slack (or equivalents such as Teams, etc), and project management tools like Trello (or equivalents such as AirTable, etc)

Language and Location Requirements:

Location: Kenya, Nigeria or South Africa are preferred, but outstanding applicants from across Africa will be considered
Primary language: English
Preferred languages, but not required: Amharic, Arabic, Hausa, French or Kiswahili

About the Role:

The successful candidate will join CfA’s Engagement team. The team is responsible for telling CfA’s story, keeping it accessible and engaging. We amplify the work of our experts and external project partners across Africa, and communicate our shared vision of a more open, connected, and technologically empowered continent. You will join as team lead, and drive the development of CfA’s platforms, audiences, and global reputation.

You’ll drive the ongoing development of CfA’s communications strategy and set measurable goals that support our core objectives. Through this strategy you’ll inform how CfA uses its social media, our private Slack community, your team of writers, strategists and visual storytellers, and how we interact with our network of technical experts, and international partners.

On a daily basis you will work with the Engagement team, partners, and CfA’s in-house teams of technical experts. You will oversee and direct the production of incisive, well informed content for CfA’s platforms, including, but not limited to, thought leadership blogs and innovative social media storytelling.

At times you will be called upon by CfA’s executive committee, management committee and partners to help develop communications strategies, and advise on proposal writing and project implementation to maximise the impact of the organisation’s work.

You’ll be responsible for curating CfA’s in-house knowledge around branding, communications strategy, events, messaging and platform management. You’ll work with your team to maintain CfA’s engagement playbooks, which host our strategic communications knowledge,and keep them accessible to the rest of CfA and our international partners.

You’ll drive the development of CfA’s reputation by proactively identifying opportunities to grow CfA’s influence by facilitating our team appearing at events and conferences, submitting and winning awards, joining boards and decision making panels, and syndicating our content to relevant media houses across Africa.

You’ll also manage special projects relevant to your portfolio. This can include continent spanning investigative journalism conferences, the launch of special tools and products, rebranding CfA initiatives, and more.

Responsibilities: Your daily responsibilities will include:

You will own and help steer the strategic communications objectives of the organisation, continually ensuring that they grow and adapt with the organisation’s needs
You will manage the day-to-day operations of a small, transnational team of social media managers, designers, writers and editors
You will ensure the team meets strict deadlines and reporting requirements for partner deliverables
You will ensure that the team meets its targets and quotas for content creation, reach and engagement, partner collaboration and platform growth
You will build relationships with programme managers and partners to ensure that all of our innovative projects get the space they need in our communications collateral

What We Offer:

A competitive salary, subject to experience, with opportunities for performance-based growth, both in terms of career path and public stature
A dynamic workplace, with a transnational team, occasional international travel, and generous vacation benefits
Ongoing opportunities to learn new cutting-edge skills and techniques/technologies to future-proof yourself in a rapidly evolving industry
A chance to shine on a global stage, writing for international audiences and interacting with colleagues around the world

How to apply:

Please fill in this form by 31 March 2022.

About Us:

Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of indigenous African civic technology and investigative data journalism laboratories, with over 70 staff in 19 countries, who build digital democracy solutions that are intended to give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions and that strengthen civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.

This includes building infrastructure such as the continent’s largest open data portal, open.AFRICA, and largest open source civic software portal, commons.AFRICA, as well as the largest repository of investigative document-based evidence, source.AFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network that gives citizens their own ‘eyes in the sky’, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative in 12 African countries, and the sensors.AFRICA remote-sensing citizen science initiative to combat air/water pollution.

CfA also incubates the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), as an association of the continent’s best investigative newsrooms, ranging from large traditional mainstream media to smaller specialist units. ANCIR member newsrooms investigate crooked politicians, organised crime and big business. The iLAB is ANCIR’s in-house digital forensic unit, with teams in east, south and west Africa. ANCIR uses its resources to strengthen newsrooms’ own internal capacity, by providing access to the world’s best whistleblower encryption and investigative semantic analysis technologies, as well as skills development, and seed grants for cross-border collaboration.

At CfA, we don’t just accept differences – we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our products and our community. CfA is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

To all recruitment agencies: CfA does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our employment application line, CfA employees or any other CfA contact. CfA is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.