The African Leadership University (ALU) is at the beginning of a rapid growth spurt, expanding its student numbers, course offerings, and campus locations. Over the next 5–7 years, it expects its student numbers to grow from the current 360 (on one campus) to over 25,000 (distributed on perhaps 6–8 campuses and in the 'cloud’). This role is listed as Remote/Nairobi-based. The Business Planning and Analysis Director is pivotal to this growth, responsible for leading institutional planning, ensuring operational efficiency, managing organizational risk, and enabling data-driven decision-making. The Director also establishes systems to monitor process discipline and efficacy, ensuring that operational improvements translate into sustained performance and accountability across the institution.
Responsibilities
Business Planning & Strategy Execution
- Lead the annual and multi-year business planning cycle, translating strategic priorities into measurable operational and financial targets.
- Coordinate institutional planning inputs from departments and campuses, ensuring coherence and resource alignment.
- Develop and maintain the organizational performance framework, aligned to organizational goals and KPIs, and a planning calendar that integrates finance, operations, and strategic milestones.
- Partner with Finance and all departments to align forecasts, enrollment targets, and investment plans with institutional priorities.
- Develop forward-looking models and business cases to guide decision-making and growth planning.
- In collaboration with the Finance Performance team and the Data team, drive periodic performance reviews, building dashboards and analysis, and consolidating insights from across functions.
- Develop performance dashboards and reports, from Management committees to board updates.
Operational Excellence & Process Optimization
- Lead the process mapping and optimization agenda, ensuring that core business processes are efficient, standardized, and scalable.
- Identify operational bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and duplication across the value chain (e.g., admissions, finance, academic delivery).
- Design and implement systems and metrics to measure process adherence, efficiency, and effectiveness.
- Oversee implementation of improvement initiatives in collaboration with function heads and the transformation office to drive standardization, automation, and continuous improvement.
- Partner with function heads to ensure processes are embedded, followed, and continuously improved.
- Partner with the Systems and Data teams to ensure automation, process integration, and digital enablement.
Risk Management & Institutional Resilience
- Serve as custodian of the institutional risk register, ensuring systematic identification, assessment, and mitigation of risks.
- Lead quarterly risk reviews with ExCo and ensure linkages between risk management, performance, and planning.
- Partner with Legal, Finance, and People & Culture to strengthen enterprise governance and business continuity strategies that enhance organizational resilience, agility, and sustained performance.
- Embed risk awareness into planning and project management processes.
- Coordinate with department heads to ensure that controls are effectively integrated into day-to-day operations.
- Provide training and support to staff on control processes and compliance requirements.
Systems, Data & Insight Enablement
- Partner with Data teams to ensure consistency and reliability of institutional data sources.
- Develop dashboards and reports that track both performance outcomes and process adherence indicators.
- Conduct analysis and scenario modeling to assess process impact on institutional performance and guide decision-making.
Required Experience and Qualifications
- Experience: 8–12 years’ experience in business performance management, strategic planning, operational excellence management, financial planning analysis, or related roles.
- Qualifications: BA/BSc/HND qualification.
- Specific Requirements:
- Proven experience leading planning or performance cycles in complex, multi-unit organizations.
- Strong analytical and modeling skills.
- Proficiency in dashboards and performance reporting tools (Excel, Power BI, Google Suite, or equivalent).
- Demonstrated success in process improvement, risk management, and data-driven decision support.
- Exposure to risk management frameworks and organizational governance (preferred).
- Experience in education, mission-driven, or growth-stage organizations (an advantage).
- Project management experience.
