Senior Project Manager

Role Overview

You will step into a high-trust coordination role at the centre of a fast-moving portfolio of civic technology and media support projects. Your focus is making sure that every initiative—from grantee partnerships to internal programmes—moves forward on schedule, stays aligned across teams, and meets the quality bar set by both the organisation and its funders. On a daily basis, you will be the person who translates big-picture goals into clear workplans, keeps partners and internal leads informed, and untangles the inevitable scheduling and delivery conflicts that arise when many projects run at once.

This is not a hands-on technical role; it is an orchestration role. You will sit between project owners, finance, leadership, and external stakeholders, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks and that every deliverable is produced, reviewed, and submitted on time. If you thrive on bringing order to complexity, proactively solving problems before they escalate, and enabling others to do their best work, this position will give you broad exposure across the entire programme lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, maintain, and track detailed workplans for projects and grantees, updating them as priorities shift and flagging risks or bottlenecks early.
• Coordinate delivery across internal teams—including engineering, editorial, training, and data functions—so that shared deadlines are met and dependencies are handled smoothly.
• Act as the central point of contact for external partners and grantees, providing regular progress updates, managing expectations, and routing concerns to the right people for resolution.
• Work with the finance team to monitor budget allocations for grants, fellowships, events, and other programme spend, ensuring all expenses stay within organisational and donor guidelines.
• Prepare and manage programmatic reports for donor compliance and internal governance, ensuring monitoring metrics are recorded accurately and reports undergo timely internal review before submission.
• Identify scheduling conflicts across overlapping projects and work with the Portfolio Manager to sequence work, align priorities, and adjust timelines where needed.
• Maintain clear archival and record-keeping systems for project documents, communications, and production materials, following established protocols.
• Keep your project management methods current and develop a working understanding of the tools and workflows used by the teams you support.

Requirements & Qualifications

• At least four years of project management experience, ideally within development, civic tech, media, or social impact settings.
• Proven ability to manage complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives where competing priorities and tight deadlines are the norm.
• Hands-on proficiency with workplan development, tracking tools, and project management software such as Asana, Trello, or Google Workspace equivalents.
• Experience overseeing budgets and financial allocations across grants, fellowships, or organisational spending.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the confidence to engage partners, government bodies, media organisations, and internal leadership.
• Excellent organisational instincts and attention to detail, even when juggling numerous workstreams at once.
• A calm, solution-oriented approach under pressure, with the ability to escalate issues appropriately when guidance is needed.
• Fluency in English is required. French, Arabic, or other African languages are a plus.
• Exceptional candidates based anywhere in Africa are encouraged to apply; remote work is supported.
• Preference will be given to candidates with experience managing teams and partners across multiple time zones and cultures, working with diverse functions such as software engineering, journalism, training, or data analysis, and a strong understanding of Africa’s technology, media, and digital innovation landscape.

What We Offer / Why Join

This is a remote-friendly role open to exceptional candidates across Africa, offering the opportunity to work at the heart of a vibrant civic technology and media ecosystem. You will gain exposure to a wide range of projects, partners, and funders, and play a meaningful part in strengthening journalism, digital innovation, and public-interest technology across the continent.