Head of Impact

What You Will Do

01  Embed impact into Zeraki’s strategy and products

Good looks like: teams stop saying “we built the product, now Impact should measure it” and start asking what improvement they are trying to create, through what mechanism, and how they will know.

• Work with the CEO, Product, Product Design, Data, Technology, Customer Development and Commercial teams so that major initiatives carry explicit impact hypotheses.

• For each significant product or programme, define the education problem, the scarce resource, for whom, the mechanism, the customer value, the likely outcome and the possible harm.

• Specify the evidence that would show whether the mechanism works — before the product is built, not after it launches.

02  Build Zeraki’s evidence base

Good looks like: impact claims become stronger as the evidence becomes stronger.

• Define impact indicators, baselines and measurement frameworks, integrated with product telemetry and operational data.

• Design experiments and longitudinal studies, commission independent evaluations and build research partnerships with appropriate methodological and statistical rigour.

• Move Zeraki up the evidence ladder — reach, usage, productivity and behaviour, outcomes, system change — and translate evidence into product and strategic decisions.

03  Create and steward public goods

Good looks like: Zeraki is known not merely as a company with data and experience, but as an organisation that helps the ecosystem learn faster.

• Identify where Zeraki’s reach, data and learning can create ecosystem value: research, benchmarks and indices, playbooks, interoperability standards, common data frameworks, open tools and responsible-AI frameworks.

• Determine, with relevant leaders, what stays proprietary, what is shared selectively and what deliberately becomes public.

• Make sure governments, schools, funders, researchers and investors actually use what we share.

04  Lead transformational missions

Good looks like: Zeraki takes part in a small number of serious, measurable, multi-year efforts where its infrastructure materially increases what a wider coalition can achieve.

• Select a small number of missions — for example, returning millions of teacher hours to teaching, or stopping temporary financial shocks from interrupting education.

• For each, define the problem rigorously, make the case for action, map the ecosystem, identify Zeraki’s distinctive contribution and decide what Zeraki should not do.

• Develop programme architecture, funding and partnership models and evidence requirements — then support implementation and institutionalise what works.

05  Build and lead transformational coalitions 

Good looks like: partners understand precisely why Zeraki is at the table and what its infrastructure lets the coalition achieve.

• Build relationships with ministries, regional and continental institutions, foundations, DFIs, multilaterals, universities, teacher organisations, education companies, banks, insurers and NGOs.

• Move groups from shared concern to shared understanding, defined roles, committed resources, coordinated action, evidence and institutionalisation.

• Never convene for its own sake — tie every relationship to a defined problem and programme.

06  Mobilise catalytic and impact capital

Good looks like: grant funding expands what Zeraki and the education system can learn and achieve — without distorting the roadmap or subsidising commercially weak thinking.

• Build a capital strategy that distinguishes commercial, grant and catalytic, and blended capital by the kind of value each activity creates.

• Shape fundable programmes around genuine strategic priorities; lead concept notes, proposals, applications and negotiations on programme architecture.

• Work with Finance on budgets, accountability, grant management and reporting, and build long-term funder relationships and, where appropriate, innovative funding structures.

07  Make Zeraki Learning a flagship impact-commercial learning laboratory

Good looks like: Zeraki Learning is both a commercially disciplined product and a source of knowledge the African digital-learning ecosystem relies on.

• Work with Customer Development, Product, Data and external partners to generate rigorous knowledge on learner needs, willingness to pay, teacher mediation, learning formats and engagement.

• Build evidence on affordability, underserved segments, B2B, B2C and B2B2C models, adoption barriers and learning outcomes.

• Mobilise grant and research capital where the work creates substantial ecosystem-wide learning.

08  Shape responsible impact in financial services, data and AI 

Good looks like: Zeraki pursues commercially attractive opportunities while remaining credible about responsible outcomes.

• Work with Product, Legal/Risk/Compliance, Finance, Data and Technology so customer welfare sits alongside commercial performance in lending, insurance, payments, student data, predictive analytics and AI.

• Ask the hard questions: does a financing product genuinely improve education continuity, are repayments affordable, who is excluded and what incentives are created?

• Make sure information is used with real consent, AI-assisted decisions are fair and explainable, and humans remain accountable where they must.

09  Translate evidence into influence

Good looks like: evidence changes decisions, improves products, influences funding, changes how partners act and strengthens policy where appropriate.

• Make strong evidence travel through impact reports, research publications, policy briefs, Board and investor materials, funder reporting, government presentations and ecosystem events.

• Produce an annual Zeraki Impact Report that clearly distinguishes evidence, hypotheses and ambition.

• Treat storytelling, policy engagement and convening as instruments — never as the objective.

10  Build the Impact Function

Good looks like: the function increases the impact capability of the whole organisation rather than accumulating work that should sit elsewhere.

• Build the minimum sufficient architecture: a lean internal team plus research partners, universities, specialist consultants, programme partners, funded programme teams and external evaluators.

• Shape the hiring and development of the Senior Impact Manager and Impact Manager with the CEO, and hold the function to standards of rigour and integrity.

• Own the impact budget, and allocate it by evidence value, mission priority and public value.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 days

• Deep immersion in Zeraki’s products, customers, strategy, Impact Strategy and Theory of Change

• Existing evidence, evidence gaps and prior external impact studies mapped

• Current and prospective funder and research relationships, and existing grant commitments, mapped

• Impact hypotheses mapped across Zeraki Analytics, Zeraki Finance, Zeraki Pay, Zeraki Learning and emerging financial services

• Working relationships established with Product, Data, Finance, Commercial and Legal/Risk/Compliance

• An initial enterprise Impact Measurement Framework

• The most important unanswered impact questions, and an initial public-good opportunity map

• A shared leadership view of what Zeraki knows, what it only believes, what it still needs to prove and where impact investment should focus first

First six months

• Impact hypotheses embedded in priority product and discovery work

• Agreed indicators for the major scarce resources Zeraki seeks to make more productive

• At least one significant research or evaluation programme launched

• A stronger external research network and a structured public-good portfolio

• An impact-capital pipeline with fundable programmes, and clear grant-governance principles and processes

• An impact reporting rhythm for leadership and the Board, and initial candidate transformational missions

• Impact no longer described retrospectively, but working as a deliberate enterprise capability

First 12 months

• Stronger evidence behind several core impact mechanisms, with measurable progress from reach toward productivity and behaviour

• One or more independently credible research or evaluation programmes underway

• Meaningful catalytic or grant capital mobilised, with no donor-driven mission or product drift

• At least one substantial public-good programme producing useful ecosystem knowledge

• One or two transformational missions developed enough to attract credible coalition partners

• A clear responsible-impact architecture for financial services, data and AI

• Impact metrics increasingly embedded in product and strategic decisions

• An annual Zeraki Impact Report and a credible multi-year impact roadmap

What You Bring

Experience

• At least 10 years of relevant professional experience across education, EdTech, international development, philanthropy, impact investing, strategy consulting, public policy, research, development finance or government, including at least 5 years of significant leadership responsibility.

• Evidence of designing and executing complex, cross-organisational programmes — ideally large-scale, technology-enabled or grant-funded.

• Strong analytical and research literacy: Theory of Change, programme evaluation, causal reasoning, experiments and quantitative and qualitative methods.

• Experience engaging senior external stakeholders — ministries, foundations, multilaterals, development institutions and researchers.

• Understanding of philanthropy, grants and catalytic or blended finance — and the commercial literacy to know what should be funded commercially instead.

• Understanding of African education systems or a closely related development context.

• An advanced degree in education, economics, public policy, development, business, social sciences or research may help, but is not a substitute for demonstrated ability.

Skills and Attributes

• Intellectually honest — able to say “we do not yet know”, and then design the work required to find out.

• Ambitious — willing to pursue problems whose solution may at first appear unrealistic.

• Humble — you know Zeraki does not have all the answers and should not try to build everything.

• A systems thinker who sees how product, incentives, institutions, behaviour, capital and policy interact.

• Commercially disciplined — you know impact without sustainability may disappear when funding does.

• Evidence-disciplined — you refuse to confuse compelling stories with proof.

• Partnership-oriented — you take satisfaction in coalitions succeeding even when Zeraki is not the most visible actor.

• An executor who turns frameworks into programmes, partners, funding, evidence and outcomes.

• Backbone — you resist attractive grants, partnerships or narratives that conflict with Zeraki’s strategy or evidence.

Where you might be coming from

This is an unusual role. We are not looking simply for a traditional M&E specialist, a grant writer, a policy professional, a researcher or a CSR/ESG leader whose experience is mainly reporting frameworks. The strongest candidate combines several of these worlds: rigorous enough to challenge weak evidence, commercially literate, mission-driven about African education, practical enough to turn ambition into programmes, and senior enough to work credibly with CEOs, government officials, funders and researchers — leading through influence rather than control. Exceptional candidates from less conventional routes are welcome.

EXPERIENCE THAT WILL HELP

Education systems in Africa · Large-scale technology-enabled programmes · Grant-funded initiatives · Foundations or multilaterals · Government partnerships · Impact measurement and evaluation · Research design · Digital public infrastructure · Digital learning · Responsible financial inclusion · Coalition building · Programme scaling