Chief Program Officer NGO Job SHOFCO

NGO Jobs. SHOFCO Jobs

Key Responsibilities

Program Strategy and Delivery

• Lead the strategy and implementation of all programs across all geographies, ensuring consistency, quality, and alignment with SHOFCO’s organizational priorities
• Own delivery against SHOFCO’s multi-year commitments across IIVC, YVE, and all program areas, ensuring that reported results are accurate and that targets are met or exceeded
• Work alongside the COO to identify and resolve delivery bottlenecks, risks, and operational challenges in real time
• Ensure ethical, accountable, and community-centered delivery across all sites, with safeguarding embedded in every intervention
• Scale the SUN organizing platform into new counties and communities while protecting the depth of trust and member ownership that makes it effective
• Convert community scale into influence: ensure SUN’s 2 million members translate into a coordinated, credible advocacy force shaping policy, budgets, and service delivery at county and national level
• Build SHOFCO’s policy and government-engagement capability so that programmatic evidence feeds directly into advocacy positions, with organized communities driving the conversation

Program Quality and Impact

• Establish and lead a culture of continuous improvement across all program areas
• Define and own clear performance metrics and outcomes for every program, tied directly to multi-year funder commitments and SHOFCO’s strategic targets
• Use SHOFCO’s MEL infrastructure (approximately 20,000 interviews per quarter, 15 large-scale surveys annually, research partnerships with Oxford, Busara, KEMRI, IDInsight, and others) to improve delivery approaches, not just report on them
• Lead regular performance reviews to assess progress, identify gaps, and drive concrete improvements
• Ensure that reported results meet the standards for accuracy and credibility that major funders including CIFF and the Mastercard Foundation require

Team Leadership and Management

• Lead and develop a high-performing team of program directors across Education, Gender, WASH, Health, and SUN
• Build strong leadership capacity within program teams, with clear accountability and ownership at every level of the organization
• Oversee recruitment, onboarding, and retention across a large, multi-site program workforce spanning 40 counties
• Foster a culture of ownership, execution, and learning across all teams
• Create clear structures for communication, decision-making, and escalation across geographies

Financial Management and Program Sustainability

• Oversee program budgets across a portfolio that currently includes two $60M flagship programs, in close partnership with Finance
• Ensure strong financial discipline, identifying variance early and managing resources efficiently across all geographies
• Provide accurate and timely reporting on program performance and financial status to funders, the board, and senior leadership
• Ensure programs are delivered in a financially sustainable and operationally efficient manner

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

• Own SHOFCO’s MEL function, setting the standard for data quality, evidence generation, and accountability that a movement serving 2.5 million people requires
• Ensure robust systems for data collection, verification, and analysis, including baselines, results frameworks, data verification plans, and integrated reporting dashboards, so that reported results are accurate and defensible
• Translate data into insights that change how programs are designed and delivered, not only how they are reported to funders
• Strengthen systems for capturing and sharing learning across teams and geographies
• Ensure program outcomes are clearly documented and communicated to funders, partners, and government counterparts

Integration and Coordination

• Deepen coordination across program areas so that the person receiving services experiences SHOFCO as one integrated offer, not five separate programs
• Ensure alignment between program teams, operations, and other internal functions
• Support integrated, community-centered delivery approaches that treat the household, not the intervention, as the unit of change

Government Partnership and Funder Reporting

• Maintain strong working relationships with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, county water authorities, and other government counterparts whose systems SHOFCO programs operate within or alongside
• Provide the Advancement team with accurate, timely, and complete program data and evidence to support funder reporting and donor communications; the CPO is the source of the evidence, not the lead on its external presentation

Qualifications

• SHOFCO is looking for a deeply technical program strategist/operator who has built their career running complex, multi-sector delivery at scale in Kenya. This is a role defined by execution, financial discipline, and evidence rigour. Candidates whose primary strength is fundraising, external relations, or advocacy are unlikely to be the right fit.
• Minimum 10 years of senior experience in program management and delivery in East Africa, with a demonstrated track record managing complex, multi-sector programs at scale across multiple geographies; previous C-suite or equivalent senior leadership experience preferred
• Proven ability to manage large program budgets across multiple funders and reporting frameworks; hands-on experience overseeing budgets of comparable scale to IIVC and YVE (each approximately $60M) is a strong advantage
• Technically proficient in monitoring, evaluation, and learning: experience designing and running rigorous MEL systems, including results frameworks, data verification plans, baselines, and reporting dashboards; must be comfortable interrogating data directly, not just receiving summaries
• Proven track record managing large, geographically dispersed teams with clear outcomes, accountability structures, and strong retention
• Deep knowledge of Kenya’s government structures from national level through county and sub-county, and the ability to build operational partnerships with Ministry counterparts in Education, Health, and Water that support SHOFCO program delivery
• Experience working directly in Kenya’s informal settlements or underserved rural communities; this is not a preference but a near-requirement for someone who will be accountable for programs running at community level across 40 counties
• Experience in community organizing, civic mobilization, or community-led service delivery is strongly preferred, given that SUN is both SHOFCO’s largest program and its theory of change
• Genuine alignment with SHOFCO’s values of community-led change, accountability, and the belief that communities already hold the power to change their circumstances, and need the right systems to act on it

How to Apply

All interested applicants should send their CV and detailed cover letter to recruitment@shofco.org with the job position “Chief Program Officer” in the subject line. Applications due by June 20, 2026.