Senior Advisor - Data-Driven Government & Public Sector

Key Responsibilities

This is a senior role within TBI and will be held by an exceptional candidate with deep and extensive experience helping senior political leaders generate, and then act on, insights from data to solve the key challenges of the public sector and support new opportunities for growth in private and third sectors.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Design and implementation of data governance and infrastructure: Advise governments on national data governance, including strategies, architecture, standards, and interoperability (i.e. broader enterprise architecture vision, with interoperability rules and norms & standards for open data).
• Policy advisory: Provide expert input on the ethical and secure use of data for service design and delivery, economic development, and digital government reform.
• Capacity building and institutional strengthening: Support the development of internal data capabilities, including upskilling civil servants and strengthening data governance mechanisms.
• Insight generation and analytics: Work with public institutions to turn raw data into actionable insights for policy, planning, and operational improvement.
• Stakeholder coordination: Advise on how to facilitate collaboration across ministries, departments, and development partners to align data-related initiatives and infrastructure.
• Delivery support: Apply TBI’s delivery model to help governments turn strategy into action, using data to monitor and drive implementation.
• The Senior Advisor will be responsible for :

Strategy and programme development

• Design the advisory services needed to strengthen governments’ capacity to establish the enabling foundations and use data for decision making and service delivery as part of TBI’s tech offer to governments, including practical ways in which TBI can support governments to better use data to set policy and strategy, deliver on priorities and design and deliver more proactive and personalized public services. This will include assessing and adjusting existing data governance models, as well as change management as governments create new data-driven cultures and capabilities.
• Work closely with other GCS advisors and relevant colleagues across TBI to enable TBI’s broader Digital and Tech Transformation vision and cross-functional strategy (e.g. working with the Delivery Team to see how actionable insights can improve policy implementation in real time, with the AI and DID senior advisors to support governments in increasing the availability of quality data).
• Work closely with TBI’s embedded country teams, providing technical expertise and thought partnership to scope and design opportunities in support of countries’ top challenges, leveraging disruptive technology (e.g. AI), digital identity/digital wallets, generating innovative solutions, connecting to related agendas (e.g. cloud strategy and public sector innovation), and framing them in a compelling way for political leaders.
• Drawing from the thought leadership of the Policy & Politics team, identify and apply emerging data-related technologies – including AI – into a cohesive offer for governments.

External engagement and partnerships

• Develop and enhance our relationships with leading innovators, technology companies, implementation partners, and thought leaders, deepening TBI understanding of emerging innovation and improving our offer to governments.
• Provide senior-level representation and presentations for TBI at external fora and events.
• Engage with relevant external stakeholders such as other not-for-profit organisations, donors, suppliers, and agencies.

Programmatic delivery

• Support TBI’s embedded country teams to maintain effective and trusted government relationships, which enable the successful delivery of the Data for Decision Making work, as part of our Tech Offer. Where required, develop relationships with relevant country counterparts and stakeholders.
• Provide technical guidance to teams in supporting client governments to establish the data governance – including institutional set up, data architecture and standards, interoperability frameworks, policies, strategies – as well as data capacity and structures required to improve availability, access, sharing, and reuse of quality data across public sectors to improve public sector delivery and outcomes.
• Lead the development of assessment frameworks and other assets TBI teams can use with government counterparts to increase understanding of how to leverage the latest innovations such as AI or to inform decisions on data analytics tools more broadly.
• Work with the Senior Director for Government Innovation and AI to troubleshoot and ensure country teams can access the best of the Institute to support their work.

Enabling Systems

• Support the development of instructional and implementation material for both TBI country teams and government counterparts.
• Work closely with the TBI Impact team to contribute to a learning culture which effectively captures and utilises lessons to continuously improve our work.
• Support country and regional teams as needed to attract and hire talent in support of our work, contributing to the recruitment, induction and support for new hires and mentoring and coaching where needed.
• Shape and embody a positive culture that drives innovation and delivery. Play a key role in the broader community at TBI, building strong working relationships across the Institute.

Qualifications

Technical skills

Data strategy & governance

• Data governance frameworks: Understanding how to set up and manage data governance structures in government, including roles, responsibilities, and stewardship.
• Data lifecycle management: Experience with policies and practices for collecting, storing, securing, sharing, and deleting data.
• Metadata and data cataloguing: Familiarity with data standards, classification, and interoperability frameworks relevant to public administration.

Data analytics & insights

• Quantitative analysis skills: Proficiency in statistical methods, forecasting, and econometrics, ideally with practical experience applying these to public policy problems.
• Data visualization tools: Use of tools for presenting insights to policy audiences.
• Experience with data analysis tools: Familiarity with R, Python (pandas, NumPy), or STATA/SAS for analysis, especially in areas such as social policy, fiscal reform, or service delivery optimization.

Digital infrastructure and interoperability

• APIs and system integration: Understanding how to enable secure and ethical data sharing across ministries or agencies.
• Enterprise architecture awareness: Ability to navigate how data systems interrelate across government departments (e.g., registries, CRMs, MIS platforms).
• Cloud platforms: Experience in data infrastructure on AWS, Azure, or GCP, especially in low-resource or developing settings.

Ethics, privacy, and regulatory frameworks

• Data privacy laws & compliance: Knowledge of GDPR and other relevant data protection laws, and how these apply to government use of data.
• Ethical use of data and AI: Understanding frameworks to ensure non-discrimination, transparency, and accountability in data use.
• Risk management and cybersecurity basics: Awareness of the vulnerabilities in public digital infrastructure and mitigation strategies.

Public sector use cases & policy understanding

• Domain expertise: Familiarity with how data is used across sectors such as health, education, social protection, and economic development.
• Experience with M&E systems: Knowledge of designing or using performance monitoring systems to track and improve service delivery.
• Behavioral and operational insights: Ability to design interventions that draw on data insights to improve public service uptake or delivery.

Stakeholder Engagement and Change Management

• Data literacy training: Ability to support capacity building among civil servants and policy staff to improve data literacy.
• Cross-sectoral collaboration: Experience aligning data efforts across government agencies and with external partners (e.g., civil society, academia, private sector).
• Strategic communications: Skill in translating technical insights into actionable recommendations for senior decision-makers.

Additional information

• A Master’s degree in data and information sciences or related fields, or a relevant undergraduate degree with extensive experience in data for policy or data for decision making in the public sector.
• Demonstrated strategic thinker with the ability to deliver in challenging contexts
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent negotiation and influencing skills, with discretion and tact, and the ability to foster trusted relationships with a diverse selection of stakeholders.
• Sensitivity to a broad range of cultural and regional norms.
• Willingness to travel globally and up to approximately 30 percent.