(Senior) Director, Global MEL

Overview

Director Jobs. Evidence Action Jobs. Looking for a director job in Kenya? Evidence Action is hiring a (Senior) Director, Global Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning to lead global MEL strategy, strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems.The role is based in Nairobi and Expertise in program evaluation design is required. The Role Evidence Action was built on the belief that data should drive every important decision, from how programs are selected, designed, and delivered, to how resources are allocated and programs are scaled. We are constantly striving to strengthen our monitoring, learning, and evaluation (MLE) strategy across our global program portfolio, generating the evidence that underpins program delivery at scale, piloting and launching new programs, and significant exit decisions affecting millions of people we serve. For us, MLE is more than an audit function; it is the foundation upon which we learn, adapt, and grow. The recent monitoring issues on our revealed the need to strengthen this foundation across our complex global portfolio. As we continue to iterate and our ambitions grow to scale proven programs and develop new ones, we are investing in senior MLE leadership to drive and deliver organizational direction on data-led decision-making, and actively balance the rigor, cost and speed trade-offs across the portfolio. In addition to delivering a high-quality end-to-end MLE strategy at the core, we have identified additional priorities for this role including an MLE protocol review across each of our existing programs, AI opportunity spotting, and strengthened organization-wide engagement on evidence and learning. As the (Senior) Director, Global Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning, you will also lead the continued evolution of our MLE approach, ensuring our systems, structures, and external presence reflect the scale of what we are building. We are seeking a senior leader to hold an exceptionally high bar across the entire team, ranging from design, implementation and data collection, and analysis, to dissemination. In this role, you will be held directly accountable for technical rigor on MLE and will contribute heavily to strengthening organizational leadership and external credibility in this area. You bring deep expertise in quantitative-heavy program evaluation and evidence systems, strategic instincts to identify problems early, curiosity to ask relevant questions to understand context, impatient optimism to arrive at possible solutions under time and resource limitations, and the interpersonal sophistication to create alignment in a matrixed global organization.