Senior Manager, Higher Education Inclusion

About the role

The Senior Manager, Higher Education Inclusion leads regional education initiatives for WUSC and its partners, providing strategic oversight of technical assistance for higher education inclusion worldwide. The role embeds a gender lens and champions young women-centred design, strengthening access to secondary education and pipelines into higher education, with a focus on the initiative's 70% young women target. It is a full-time management position based in Nairobi, reporting to the Deputy Project Director.

Key responsibilities

• Provide strategic and technical oversight for WUSC's 40+ higher education inclusion partners and the project's inclusion team.
• Embed a gender and intersectional inclusion lens across technical assistance, partner engagement, education pathways, retention supports and education-to-work transitions, supporting partners to address barriers to young women's participation.
• Lead technical components such as secondary-to-tertiary transition management, recognition of prior learning, inclusive admissions policy adaptation, cross-referral systems and education-to-work pathways.
• Operate peer advisory networks, support refugee-led organisations, and advise partners on retention and wrap-around supports such as language bridges, MHPSS referrals and legal documentation.
• Manage the component budget, align technical assistance with grant allocations, and uphold safeguarding, data protection and risk management standards.
• Coach and mentor a team of Partnerships Manager, Project Manager and Project Assistants and Officers, and work with the MERL and communications teams to measure impact and share learnings.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree and 7-10 years of higher education experience.
• 5+ years managing multi-country teams in Africa.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships with diverse stakeholders and to give technical guidance on forced displacement in the context of higher education.