Senior News Editor, East Africa

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT:

• Provide editorial leadership across all East African language services, ensuring consistently high quality journalism across platforms.
• Line manage language service editors and senior teams, fostering strong editorial standards, creativity, and collaboration.
• Take responsibility for complex editorial decision making, including issues involving geopolitical sensitivity, legal considerations, and operational risk.
• Set and deliver a clear editorial strategy for commissioning, newsgathering, and production in partnership with senior leaders across Africa.
• Lead engagement with partnerships, launches, and major regional and strategic projects.
• Manage and influence a wide range of senior and executive stakeholders, often under tight deadlines and competing priorities.
• Drive effective production, distribution, and rollout strategies to maximise reach, relevance, and impact for audiences. 

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• Substantial experience of journalism and production, as well as proven editorial judgement and substantial experience of managing editorial and operational staff and facilities in a daily news environment.
• Expert knowledge of our audience’s needs, current market trends and challenges, and deep knowledge of editorial output processes across the whole of the BBC, as well as that of competitors.
• Experience of solving complex editorial and legal challenges, managing significant budgets and understanding key financial drivers. 
• Experience of managing staff across locations, having nurtured talent and be internally and/or externally recognized as a promoter of diversity and inclusion
• In addition to full proficiency in English, a working knowledge of one or more of the relevant languages that the BBC operates in across Africa.