Head of Research

• The Head of Research will play a critical leadership role in advancing Village Enterprise’s mission by ensuring the rigor, quality, and relevance of all externally conducted rigorous impact evaluation activities. This role will also oversee the organization’s innovations pipeline, ensuring that promising concepts are rigorously tested and provide evidence for scale. While the Head of Research will not directly lead program monitoring and evaluation (M&E)—which falls under the mandate of the M&E Lead—they will work closely with the M&E team and other internal and external stakeholders to support the development and implementation of program learning agendas, as capacity allows.

Responsibilities

• External Research Leadership and Management
• Form external research partnerships, including maintaining an active network with academic institutions, evaluation firms, and research consultants, and leading and disseminating formal requests for proposals. Serve as the primary liaison for those partnerships
• Ensure that all research conducted aligns with Village Enterprise’s strategic objectives, complies with ethical standards, and delivers actionable insights.
• Manage the design, implementation, and dissemination of rigorous research studies, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental evaluations.
• Oversee the development of research protocols, data collection plans, and analysis frameworks in collaboration with external evaluators.
• Facilitate the integration of research findings into organizational strategy and programmatic decision-making.
• Implement targeted training and knowledge-sharing initiatives to strengthen internal and partner team capacity to productively engage with Village Enterprise’s rigorous research programming
• Innovations Pipeline Oversight
• Collaborate with program and technical teams to identify priority areas for innovation and experimentation.
• Lead the identification of innovative solutions to poverty graduation following human centered design principles
• Lead the design, and testing of innovative approaches to poverty graduation following lean impact principles
• Ensure right-fit rigorous evaluation of fully developed innovations to determine their impact and potential for scale, working closely with external partners and Village Enterprise’s leadership. This includes, the analysis and reporting for internal experiments
• Implement targeted training and knowledge-sharing initiatives to strengthen internal and partner team capacity to productively engage with Village Enterprise’s innovations pipeline programming.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Dissemination
• Present research findings and insights to donors, partners, and policymakers through reports, presentations, and thought leadership engagements.
• Support the development of Village Enterprise’s position as a thought leader in the poverty graduation space.
• Build and maintain relationships with academic and research networks to stay at the forefront of industry advancements.
• Contributions to Learning Agendas
• Support internal project teams in developing and executing project learning agendas when time allows.
• Share best practices from external research to enhance internal learning frameworks.
• Communications, Fundraising, and Administrative
• Represent Village Enterprise in partnership/fundraising meetings and events as appropriate
• Support fundraising efforts as relevant
• Inform and monitor annual budget allocations for research and innovations pipeline activities
• Other administrative duties as requested

Requirements

Required Skills and Experience

• Advanced degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in Economics, Development Economics, Statistics, Development Studies, International Development, Public Policy, Design Thinking, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in research management, preferably in international development or poverty reduction.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing and managing RCTs and other rigorous evaluation methods.
• Firm grasp of modern product design principles, methods, and approaches (ex., human centered design, lean impact, scrum)
• Proven ability to manage complex stakeholder relationships, including with external evaluators, academic institutions, and donors.
• Strong analytical skills, with a track record of translating complex research findings into actionable insights.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present to diverse audiences.
• Experience working in cross-cultural settings, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Proficiency in statistical software package Stata or R.