Job opportunity: Country rep for Ashoka Nigeria

Vacancy: Ashoka Representative for Nigeria
Ashoka Innovators for the Public, a global Citizen Sector Organisation dedicated to advancing social change is seeking a representative for its Nigeria programme.

Ashoka is based in Washington DC with country offices in more than 27 countries around the world. Ashoka identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs—individuals with innovative and practical ideas for addressing social needs. Since 1980, Ashoka has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, investing in more than 1,700 leading social entrepreneurs with systems-changing ideas, known as Ashoka Fellows, in over 60 countries.

Rather than building one school or clinic in one community, Ashoka Fellows work at the systemic level, transforming the way children learn or creating new healthcare delivery systems. Together with these social entrepreneurs, Ashoka develops patterns for effective collaboration and designs the systems and supports that help social entrepreneurship thrive.

The individual selected will be responsible for running Ashoka’s program in Nigeria, interfacing with our colleagues around the world and being a key member of our fundraising efforts in West Africa and Africa, as well as implementing Ashoka’s global guiding principle within the Nigerian social, economic, political and cultural context. Local and international travel will be involved.

In particular the successful candidate will:
• Continue to spread the concepts of Social Entrepreneurship in Nigeria and contextualize them to local audiences.
• Implement Ashoka’s proven methods of Search and Selection to find and elect new Fellows from across the entire country,.
• Engage with the corporate sector to build bridges between corporations and citizen sector organizations beyond basic Corporate Social Responsibility.
• Join Ashoka’s global team to fundraise adequate resources for the program both within Nigeria and across Africa.
• Manage local operations including staffing, budgeting, reporting and other administration issues.

Qualifications
Ashoka has a rigorous screening process for hiring new staff. The ideal representative will:
• Have at least 10 years of demonstrated leadership experience in the social and/or business sectors.
• Be comfortable and competent in engaging prominent business and government leaders.
• Be willing and excited to work across Nigeria and globally.
• Have strong communications skills.
• Be proficient in English and have a working knowledge of French.
• Be a strong team member within Ashoka’s global community.

In addition to the above, Ashoka also seeks people who are entrepreneurial, collegial, have a proven commitment to social innovation and posses the strongest of ethical fibre. For a full description of Ashoka’s criteria in evaluating staff, please visit our website at www.ashoka.org.

Interested candidates should please send a cover letter explaining how they qualify for the position and a CV to [email protected] as soon as possible, and before 5pm, 20th May, 2006.