Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

Palladium International, LLC is implementing the $250 Million, 5-year USAID CATALYZE contract which offers a facilitated partnership model that will craft solutions to crowd in $2 Billion in blended finance (i.e., blended concessional and commercial finance) to USAID partner countries; it can work in any development sector or region. Launched in October 2019, CATALYZE is a buy-in mechanism that allows USAID Bureaus and Missions to efficiently deploy investment facilitation solutions that respond to the needs of specific sectors, issues, and geographies.

USAID CATALYZE Market Systems for Growth (MS4G) focuses on creating transformative outcomes in the food security and WASH sectors to benefit all Ethiopian people. To achieve these goals, the activity engages youth, mobilizes capital, increases access to finance, connects enterprises to markets, and supports stakeholders to self-advocate towards policy change which will promote opportunities for the private sector community. The project supports activities in Addis Ababa and secondary cities.

CATALYZE MS4G, in partnership with the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE),

launched an activity to strengthen Ethiopia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by conducting research, fostering

connections, and building capacity of Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) Ethiopia.

Location: The position is based in Palladium’s Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Office

Estimated Start Date: This assignment is expected to commence December 16, 2024.

Senior Program Specialist will be responsible for the execution of ANDE programs (both grant-funded and otherwise) at the chapter, including setting and tracking budgets in consultation with the program manager, designing project schedules, and preparing reports to funders as needed.

Reporting and Supervision:

Senior Program Specialist will report to ANDE East Africa Chapter team in close collaboration with CATALYZE MS4G team.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

As part of the day-to-day implementation of projects, the Program Specialist/Sr. Program Specialist will engage with ANDE members and key local ecosystem stakeholders, plan and manage events, update the member database, and support other chapter activities as needed. Each day will be different, and this role will provide a wide variety of skills development opportunities and exposure to topic areas throughout the small and growing business space in developing countries.

Specific responsibilities of Senior Program Specialist include, but are not limited to:

• Leading and owning specific projects or initiatives, such as Learning Labs and programs from conception to implementation.

• Project managing larger initiatives that may span various departments and offices. Helping to structure programming and working with implementation staff to ensure quality delivery of programs and tracking allocations and budgets to ensure projects are within budget.

• Building relationships with members and facilitating connections between the networks.

• Scheduling of, and organizing meetings and networking events for members, as well as topic area webinars.

• Serve as program representative, facilitator, and speaker at sector-specific events.

• Support in any other role and tasks as needed.

Relationships

• This role will be closely working with the MS4G Technical team across the enterprise support, capital mobilization, WASH, Gender and youth engagement. S/he will also work closely with the CATALYZE MEL team and the Activity Management Unit at the HO. In addition, this role will liaise with ecosystem players and other stakeholders in Ethiopia as necessary.

Job Requirement

Professional Expertise Required:

• Bachelor’s degree required, preference will be given to those with Master’s degree or have background in entrepreneurship or the social impact space

• Three (3)-to Five (5) years of relevant professional experience applicable to the scope of this project and other professional experiences in similar or other areas.

• Able to travel up to 15% of the time within the region and internationally

• Significant project management experience, preferably working on donor agency funded projects (such as USAID, DFID, GAC, etc)

• Worked in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and has good knowledge of it.

Key Competencies Required: 

• Experience or understanding of the role of entrepreneurship in advancing the private ecosystem in the Ethiopia and in the region.

• Resourceful, proactive and excited to learn and take on new challenges

• Excellent attention to detail

• Confident in public speaking and facilitation

• Organized, goal-oriented, proactive and excels at handling multiple priorities at once

• True team player and is excited about engaging with many cultures and learning about the entrepreneurship sector

• Thrives in a small team and startup environment, where the duty is on you to make it work

• Excellent skills in MS Excel, Word, PowerPoint; proficiency in MS SPSS

• Excellent organizational, verbal, and written communication and writing skills to manage project communications and disseminate project MEL information are required.

• Excellent command of monitoring and evaluation methodologies.

• English language fluency required.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion:

Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success, and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

How to Apply

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding – We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse.  All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.

We invite all candidates meeting the required qualifications to submit their resume/CV to THIS LINK