Senior Program Coordinator - Ethiopia Country Office at Gates Foundation

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve.

We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The Africa Team works to advance the foundation’s mission across the continent by scaling evidence-based innovations and driving systems-level impact in health, agriculture, and digital transformation. With a presence in five offices - Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, and South Africa - the team is comprised of about 180 people. Together, we collaborate deeply with country governments, regional institutions, private sector actors, and civil society to drive African-led development through a strong network of partners and programs across the continent.

The Africa Team ensures the foundation’s global priorities are informed by and grounded in local contexts, enabling greater relevance, sustainability, and impact for the communities we aim to serve.

Application Deadline: 25/4/2026

Your Role

You coordinate, develop, and manage a portfolio of investments, including the implementation and maintenance of a range of activities associated with the lifecycle of grants and contracts. You manage projects in support of programmatic and strategic goals, while contributing to the continuous improvement of resource allocation, operational, and investment management processes. You provide oversight and support for budget planning, financial reporting, portfolio monitoring, and related analysis, and apply expertise in internal and external processes, systems, and tools to inform sound decision-making.

You also work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders, including grantees, vendors, and local implementing partners, to facilitate effective execution across the investment lifecycle. In this role, you provide operational guidance, training, and capacity-building support to strengthen partner readiness, compliance, and implementation quality. The role requires strong cross-functional coordination, relationship management, and the ability to help translate strategy into effective, timely, and well-managed execution.

What You’ll Do

• Act as a subject matter expert on investment tools, systems, and templates and provide training and coaching to program team and external partners when needed.

• Partner with investment makers by supporting the development, management, and maintenance of a portfolio of investments. Able to independently manage complex investments and partnerships in service of shaping and optimizing successful investments, as well as ensure alignment with strategies and intended outcomes.

• Perform initial investment due diligence, including the collection of portfolio data, identification of trends, and management timelines. Accountable for portfolio analysis and risk identification, as well as providing a perspective on portfolio performance and delivering thorough readouts to leadership.

• Advise on complex investments, budgets, and financial analysis to maximize impact, identify risks, and propose mitigation plans.

• Build, develop and maintain relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to facilitate the investment lifecycle, including engagement with and management of external grantee and partner relationships. Overall ability to steward highly complex partnerships.

• Partner with investment makers to operationalize and shape key business processes, including annual planning, forecasting, regular portfolio reviews, financial planning, and budget.

• Provide in-depth project management to investment team, including tracking timelines, deliverables, communications, and change management. Also includes development of the non-technical portion of the project framework and working on special projects.

• Lead implementation and change efforts for the team, which may include developing new processes, sharing best practices, analyzing workloads, and providing business updates.

• Maintain file organization, team sites, data and records, and a system for tracking, monitoring, and prioritizing tasks, and projects.

• Support inclusive culture through modeling behaviors and actions; raise issues in a timely fashion to appropriate stakeholders.

Your Experience

• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent demonstrated experience preferably in business administration or program management.

• Experience in project management, portfolio management, financial reporting, non-profit or related industry

• Practical understanding of all stages of the investment lifecycle and investment rules, mechanisms, regulations, policies, processes, and practices.

• Proficiency in investment systems and tools, and ability to learn internal systems.

• Experience in financial planning and budgeting.

Other Attributes

• Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located.

• The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role.

• Ability to commit 10 - 15% to domestic & International travel.

Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we’re happy to help. Please contact HR@gatesfoundation.org with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.