Senior Innovations Advisor

Position Overview: USAID/Southern Africa is seeking a highly motivated, entrepreneurial individual with outstanding problem solving, analytical and communication skills to play a key role catalyzing and accelerating the development, introduction, and scaling of groundbreaking innovations for health, specifically to combat the three pandemics of HIV, TB, and COVID-19 in South Africa. The Senior Innovations Advisor will report directly to the USAID/South Africa Health Office Director and advise the Director on : (1) Source and lead the roll out of health innovations with the highest potential for impact across the USAID/SA annual health portfolio of $300 million; (2) Develop and implement change management plans to strengthen innovation capabilities within the USAID/Southern Africa bilateral health office 80-person staff; and (3) Identify and educate the Health Office staff on future trends in global health innovation, and in particular the pathway to scale for accelerated impact. The Advisor will be part of a dynamic, entrepreneurial senior leadership group constituted by the Health Office Director and three Deputy Directors for the Health Office that leads the direction of the USAID/SA Health Office. This role will require creative thinking and business-savviness, and experience to both develop and implement innovative and impactful programs that accelerate progress towards USAID's global health priorities. The candidate will possess extensive knowledge and strategic global perspectives on particular innovations and interventions, and to think creatively on partnerships and collaborations that would help to foster their success and maximize USAID's impact on HIV, TB, and COVID-19 interventions. Specific activities may include supporting the development of innovative partnerships across health, development, and industrial sectors; analyzing market barriers and inefficiencies; supporting the entry of innovative solutions and the development of new product introduction and access strategies to ensure products reach those most in need and subsidies are well-targeted; sourcing and assessing innovations for their applicability across a variety of health areas (e.g., COVID-19, HIV and TB); meeting with new and current implementing partners to better understand their products, plans and needs (e.g., funding, access to markets); supporting user research and segmentation; and identifying and applying cutting edge technologies and approaches (e.g., artificial intelligence, futures visioning), especially from the private sector or non-health sectors, to relevant global health challenges. To do so, the Senior Innovations Advisor will develop strategic and analytical approaches and garner Office- and Mission-wide buy-in to change management processes to address introduction and scaling challenges, apply them to intervention-specific challenges, and lead the dissemination of the approach and learnings for broader application across product categories and health sectors. This role will have a nation-wide impact on USAID's health programs in South Africa, and the incumbent's contributions will contribute to global best practices in U.S. Government-supported HIV/AIDS, TB, and COVID-19 public health programming. Innovations supported by the Senior Advisor have a potential multi-year impact on approximately 4.5 million people on HIV treatment, thousands of people receiving TB services, and tens of millions of people accessing COVID testing, treatment, and vaccines.