Operations Manager

Position overview 

People who work in operations have a multiplier effect, increasing the efficiency of their colleagues within the organisation by constructing processes that ensure the organisation operates smoothly and at top capacity.

The Operations team provides operational support to Lafiya (e.g., human resource management, finance, productivity, legal and compliance). The team is also responsible for logistics and supply chain management, playing a key role in the movement of contraceptives from manufacturing to last-mile distribution. 

The Operations team currently consists of 2.0 FTE – our Director of Operations (previous Director of Operations at Ambitious Impact and Head of Operations at Suvita), and our Finance & Compliance Officer (previously at Malaria Consortium). The team also relies on external contractors for some of its functions (e.g., bookkeeping, legal advice). 

What You’ll Do

Supply chain management

• Support the development of Standard Operating Procedures for the procurement and distribution of contraceptive and non-contraceptive commodities in Nigeria. 

• Support the establishment of data systems that monitor operating efficiency, analysing and deriving insights from the data to generate recommendations. 

Human resource management

• Fully execute Lafiya’s evidence-based personnel recruitment and selection rounds for international and Nigeria-based staff, including onboarding and welcoming.

• Own employee experience initiatives, including administering benefits and other policies as outlined in the Staff Handbook

• Manage performance appraisal processes, including participating in periodic performance reviews, ensuring adherence to internal guidelines, and managing performance improvement plans as necessary. 

• Execute offboarding procedures as needed, ensuring protection of Lafiya’s data and institutional memory. 

UK compliance management

• Staying abreast of developments in the UK regulatory environment including employment matters, charity regulations and immigration, commissioning advice as needed and making internal recommendations for changes.

• Project-manage the mandatory annual audit, ensuring the organisation is prepared and internally compliant with its financial management procedures, liaising with external auditors and responding to requests, and implementing recommendations for improvements. 

• Serve as the focal point for ensuring all programme operations adhere to donor expectations and restrictions, proactively identifying and mitigating risks, coordinating closely with Lafiya’s Growth & Partnerships team.

Business process improvement

• Identifying opportunities to systematise or automate processes with a view to increasing efficiency, mapping out costs and benefits, exploring technical and non-technical solutions and spearheading fit-for-purpose rollouts. 

• Contribute to strategic plans and actionable roadmaps in meetings with the Director of Operations and other senior management, and help to establish and maintain accountable, scalable work processes and policies for the organisation.

Event, travel and tech logistics

• Organising internal events, such as our annual offsite strategic retreat, including contingency planning, determining objectives and conducting post-mortems.

• Supporting team members with travel needs, including troubleshooting when things go wrong and getting required materials to venues. 

• Supporting tech-related onboarding, rolling out new tech solutions, and shepherding staff with tech-related issues. 

Who You Are

This role will likely suit an early to mid-level operations generalist, but we’re also very interested in hearing from more senior operations specialists as there is room for future growth in responsibilities within the organisation depending on competency and expertise. We would also be keen for talented recent graduates applying for this position as many areas of responsibility can be learned by a quick learner fairly fast.

We expect excellent candidates will meet many (but not all) of the criteria below. We encourage you to apply even if you do not meet all of the listed characteristics. In the past, we've offered positions to applicants who demonstrated strong overall potential, providing training to address skill gaps. We prioritise high general ability, a strong work ethic, and alignment with our values, methods, and approach to maximising global impact over specific prior work experience or backgrounds. We sketch a picture of potential ideal candidates to give a more concrete sense of what particularly strong candidates might look like, not to discourage interested readers from applying.

Skills & Personal Qualities

• You work with an operations mindset. You proactively notice what’s broken, move fast to fix it, and continually identify opportunities to do more with the same amount of time and resources.

• You have a bias to action, meaning you prioritise taking initiative when you see a problem and make decisions quickly to drive progress and maintain momentum. You are a highly organised, conscientious person and you use techniques to always be moving forward, and you find it easy to pivot in the face of new information.

• You enjoy getting things done, even small or unglamorous tasks. You are excited to contribute to a high-impact organisation in a supportive capacity; you know that behind-the-scenes tasks are important, even if they seem indirect or tedious at face value

• You are a tactful person who can adeptly communicate about delicate issues to a variety of stakeholders in cross-cultural contexts. 

• You’re comfortable in a start-up environment, meaning that you’re comfortable wearing multiple hats, you’re comfortable in an environment where priorities can change rapidly, and you’re comfortable with ambiguity and situations without pre-established processes.

• You are generally tech-savvy and, for example, you default to a spreadsheet or find appropriate tools when trying to solve a problem. You have proficiency with or are willing to learn to use digital work tools, including Google Workspace, Slack, Airtable, Make and LLMs.

Why should you apply

This role is crucial to Lafiya’s operational support infrastructure, having a multiplier effect across the organisation and directly (unusually for ops roles) directly contributing to programmatic activities. We have a keen culture of constant learning and we invest in developing our people. You will have regular check-ins with your supervisor, and continuous feedback on your performance. We hold bi-annual performance reviews where we set aside time to discuss your aspirations and career goals. 

There will be room to take initiative, make decisions, and leave your mark on a critical stage of Lafiya’s growth. We don’t have layers of approval or slow processes – if something makes sense, we’ll try it.

Benefits include:

• 30 days’ of paid annual leave 

• Fully paid 16 weeks of parental leave 

• Flexibility in where, when and how you work 

• Working closely with a team of senior leaders who are collaborative, ambitious and serious about impact.

• Co-working space once a week at Ambitious Impact Spitalfields Office

• Visa sponsorship, if required

What is the recruitment process for this role?

We value your time and aim to make our recruitment process as insightful as possible. It includes: 

• Stage 1: Application Form & Assessment. Share your CV and complete a 45-minute multiple-choice quiz to assess your fit for the role. There is an opportunity to upload writing and design samples to showcase your writing style. 

• Stage 2: Test Task. Engage in a 2-3 hour task that mirrors the kind of work you'll do with us.

• Stage 3: Interview. This is the final stage, after which we’ll make offers. All candidates will be asked the same questions in a 1-hour interview, and you’ll get the questions in advance. It will also be an opportunity for you to ask us questions. 

We're committed to transparency and will provide feedback from Stage 2 onwards. If you're ready to embark on this journey with us, apply now!

For any questions, reach out to our Operations Team