Bridge International Academies Programme Manager – Construction Job

Job: Programme Manager - Construction

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

About Bridge International Academies

Bridge International Academies is a startup revolutionizing education across Africa with a truly unique business model. The company has launched a large-scale franchise-like network of ultra low-cost for-profit private primary schools across Africa.

Our schools profitably deliver high-quality education for less than $4 per child per month, enabling local school managers to operate their school businesses profitably, while creating a highly successful business at the central level. We now have 25 schools in Kenya, and plan to rapidly scale the company to serve more than 1 million students.

About this position

Bridge International Academies is looking a strong Programme Manager to help our construction team manage the scheduling and resource allocation of its construction projects.

The individual must be very comfortable using project management tools and must have managed projects with complex resource allocations. Relevant experience in the field of construction will be an added advantage.

More specifically:

• The individual will be managing anywhere from 10-30 construction projects simultaneously. These projects are not complex, but the deadlines are tight (less than 6 weeks) and the resources are limited. As a result it will be very important to know exactly how every resource is prioritized and allocated for every hour of every day.
• Working in informal settlements can be very challenging and often requires many last minute changes to the priorities and schedules. The individual will need to be comfortable making last minute adjustments and redeploying resources to meet the priorities of the company.
• Besides ensuring that resources are moving tasks forward in the correct places, the Programme Manager will need to ensure that we have timely payments to suppliers, fundis, and labourers. This means ensuring the work is done and scheduling the payments in time, so that the Finance team has time to process the payment and Site Manager has time to pay his team before they break for the day.

Other responsibilities include:

• Timely decision-making for effective allocation/re-allocation of resources within priorities that change on a day-to-day basis.
• Definition of a regular system of review of work progress and resource allocation in order to provide a useful overview of the whole of the ongoing construction work.
• Create master work programmes, based on baseline nested work programmes, for all on-going projects.
• Collect and collate weekly work plans from the field, into the programmes and evaluate project status for decision making on resource allocations.
• Prepare, based on the programmes, schedules of labour, materials, payment and other information as required.
• Prepare daily, weekly and monthly reports on resource utilization for review by the Construction Team.

About You

• Minimum of 8 to 10 years experience in project management, including projects that have multiple resources that need to be scheduled in and out of the project over the life cycle of the project to optimize costs.
• An expert level knowledge of how to effectively use Gantt charts, including complete fluency in Microsoft Project or equivalent program. You should also be able to create Gantt charts with Excel.
• Must be able to manage competing demands, accept criticism and constructive feedback, while being extremely adaptable and flexible.
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills are required
• Ability to identify potential problems, conflicts, and delays before they become an issue and communicate them clearly to the Head of Department.
• Good people management skills that result in timely completion of deliverables.
• Demonstrated ability to solve problems.
• Advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office, particularly Excel.

How to apply

Applicants should go to Bridge International Academies website – job postings - where all the new jobs are listed

Deadline for applications: 4th March 2011