Head of Impact

Are you a rigorous impact leader who can build trusted evidence systems at scale? Do you know how to combine world-class evaluation methods with the speed and pragmatism of a high-growth organization? Are you equally comfortable discussing RCTs, sampling, confidence intervals, and causal inference as you are working with product, data, fundraising, and executive teams to turn evidence into better decisions, stronger donor confidence, and more powerful learner outcomes?

Do you want to help build one of the most trusted, scalable impact engines in education and workforce development?

About ALG

The African Leadership Group is a family of mission-aligned institutions building one of the world’s most ambitious pipelines of ethical, entrepreneurial talent. Founded by Fred Swaniker in 2004, ALG has spent over two decades creating education and career pathways that identify overlooked potential, develop it through applied learning, and connect it to real opportunity -- from African Leadership Academy’s early leadership development, to African Leadership University’s mission-driven higher education, to ALX’s high-scale workforce training. Across this ecosystem, ALG is working toward a bold mission: developing 3 million leaders by 2035. To date, the Group has raised more than $1.7 billion in philanthropic support, graduated 373,000+ leaders across 50+ countries, supported the development of 10,000+ ventures, and demonstrated that high-quality, career-connected education can change trajectories at scale.

Role Summary

ALU and the broader African Leadership Group (ALG) are entering a new phase of growth. We have demonstrated the ability to scale rapidly, reach learners across the continent, and generate meaningful early outcomes. 

We are looking for a Head of Impact to build the rigorous, scalable, externally credible impact engine that will support ALG’s next chapter. This role will lead the evolution of our Impact function from a reporting and monitoring function into a world-class evidence, learning, validation, and impact intelligence capability.

The mandate is ambitious: to make ALG one of the most trusted organizations in education and workforce development for impact quality, transparency, data integrity, and external validation.

This leader will own the systems, methods, partnerships, collateral, and team needed to make our impact claims audit-ready, donor-ready, decision-ready, and, where appropriate, publication-ready. They will help the organization move beyond short-term placement statistics toward a deeper understanding of income lift, economic mobility, career progression, promotions, entrepreneurship, household uplift, family support, resilience, and long-term opportunity.

The right candidate will bring deep expertise in rigorous impact methodology, including RCTs, quasi-experimental methods, longitudinal studies, sampling, survey design, and causal inference, while also being able to operate in ALG’s fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment. This is not a slow academic research role, nor is it a traditional M&E compliance role. It is a senior builder role for someone who can bring rigor without rigidity, structure without bureaucracy, and external credibility without slowing down innovation.

Specific Responsibilities

Build the evidence and trust architecture

• Build the trust infrastructure for ALG’s next phase of scale: the methodologies, systems, validation partnerships, dashboards, governance, and public-facing evidence needed to make our impact claims credible under scrutiny
• Develop and own ALG’s impact methodology, including approaches to data collection, verification, sampling, extrapolation, attribution, contribution, confidence intervals, error margins, data quality, and limitations
• Define the standards for what ALG can claim internally, what can be shared with donors, what requires caveats, and what is ready for external publication or independent validation
• Move ALG’s impact narrative beyond short-term placement statistics to include income lift, economic mobility, promotions, entrepreneurship, household uplift, family support, resilience, and long-term career progression
• Strengthen internal alignment around core impact definitions, metrics, data sources, reporting standards, and evidence thresholds, ensuring leadership, fundraising, product, and program teams are working from a single source of truth.

Lead rigorous evaluation and external validation

• Design and lead a rigorous research and evaluation agenda, including RCTs, quasi-experimental studies, tracer studies, longitudinal research, employer studies, learner surveys, and mixed-methods evaluation.
• Identify which research methods are appropriate for different programs, geographies, and questions — balancing gold-standard rigor with the practical realities of a fast-moving, scaled organization.
• Build partnerships with credible external validators, researchers, economists, evaluation firms, academic institutions, and research labs to strengthen public and donor confidence in ALG’s impact.
• Create a roadmap for when, where, and how ALG should pursue external validation, publish findings, commission independent evaluations, or subject its methodology to external review.
• Ensure external validation efforts are directly connected to organizational learning, fundraising, program improvement, and public trust, not research for research’s sake

Build impact intelligence systems and data quality

• Partner with Data, Product, Engineering, Learning, Community, and Operations teams to embed impact measurement across the learner journey, from registration and baselines through program completion, transition into work, long-term outcomes, and alumni progression
• Strengthen data pipelines and verification systems across surveys, platform data, CRM tools, employer feedback, relationship manager inputs, alumni updates, financial or KYC rails, LinkedIn/digital trace data, and other relevant sources.
• Build QA and governance systems that make impact data audit-ready, including audit trails, anomaly detection, dashboard health checks, data dictionaries, internal controls, documentation, and clear ownership for core metrics.
• Ensure dashboards and data products are reliable, donor-friendly, methodologically clear, and able to distinguish between actuals, estimates, projections, and externally validated outcomes
• Work with technical teams to make impact data useful for decision-making, not just reporting, including predictive insights, segmentation, learner support interventions, and program improvement

Turn evidence into learning, fundraising, and thought leadership

• Develop donor-facing and public-facing collateral that clearly explains ALG’s evidence standards, collection methods, verification layers, sampling approach, extrapolation logic, audit protocols, and methodological limitations
• Partner with Fundraising and Partnerships to create credible impact assets for major donors, institutional funders, governments, employers, and strategic partners
• Produce or oversee white papers, methodology briefs, board materials, impact reports, donor evidence packs, and thought leadership on ALG’s approach to economic mobility, AI-era workforce development, youth employment, entrepreneurship, household uplift, and durable career resilience
• Lead a practical learning agenda that identifies the highest-value questions ALG must answer to improve outcomes, strengthen funder confidence, and scale responsibly
• Translate impact data into actionable insights that improve learner experience, program design, community support, employer engagement, fundraising, and long-term outcomes

Lead and evolve the Impact Team

• Lead and strengthen the Impact Team, building a culture that is rigorous, fast, transparent, ethical, analytical, and deeply connected to organizational strategy
• Build the team’s capabilities across impact evaluation, data quality, analytics, survey design, storytelling, research partnerships, donor collateral, and product collaboration
• Create operating rhythms that ensure the Impact Team is proactive, responsive, and embedded across the organization rather than functioning as a retrospective reporting unit
• Serve as a senior advisor to leadership on impact claims, data risks, evidence quality, external validation, donor diligence, and public communication
• Bring rigor without rigidity, structure without bureaucracy, and external credibility without slowing down ALG’s entrepreneurial pace

Skill Requirements - Essential

• 10+ years of relevant experience in impact evaluation, applied research, economics, workforce development, education outcomes, labor market analytics, social impact strategy, data science, or a related field
• Deep expertise in rigorous impact methodology, including RCTs, quasi-experimental methods, causal inference, longitudinal studies, tracer studies, sampling, survey design, mixed-methods research, and evaluation design
• Experience designing, managing, commissioning, or partnering on external evaluations with academic researchers, research organizations, foundations, multilaterals, or independent evaluators
• Strong understanding of education-to-employment, workforce development, economic mobility, youth employment, entrepreneurship, income lift, household outcomes, or labor market transitions
• Strong data fluency, including comfort working with dashboards, data pipelines, data warehouses, CRM systems, survey platforms, product analytics, and data quality processes
• Ability to translate complex research and methodology into clear, credible materials for donors, boards, executives, governments, employers, and public audiences
• Experience working cross-functionally with product, data, engineering, operations, learning, fundraising, communications, and senior leadership teams
• Strong written communication skills, with the ability to produce methodology notes, donor briefs, board materials, impact reports, white papers, and thought leadership
• Excellent judgment on evidence quality, including when to use gold-standard evaluation methods, when to use faster pragmatic approaches, and how to communicate uncertainty or limitations
• Proven ability to lead teams, build systems, manage ambiguity, and operate effectively in fast-moving, entrepreneurial environments
• Strong ethical grounding around data privacy, consent, responsible AI, equity, transparency, and the risks of overclaiming impact
• A bias toward action, paired with the discipline to build systems that are credible, auditable, and trusted

Skill Requirements - Preferable

• Experience at or with organizations such as J-PAL, IDInsight, Opportunity Insights, Jobs for the Future, Burning Glass / Lightcast, One Acre Fund, GiveDirectly, 60 Decibels, IPA, MDRC, Mathematica, World Bank, major foundations, or high-growth social enterprises.
• Advanced degree in economics, public policy, statistics, education, data science, development studies, social science, or another quantitative or evaluation-focused field.
• Experience in Africa or other emerging markets, especially in education, skilling, workforce development, entrepreneurship, youth employment, or economic mobility.
• Experience building or scaling an impact, MERL, research, data, evidence, or learning function inside a growing organization.
• Experience supporting major fundraising, donor diligence, institutional reporting, or evidence-building for large philanthropic, bilateral, multilateral, or government funders.
• Experience with labor market data, employer-reported outcomes, wage data, financial transaction data, LinkedIn or other digital trace data, and/or longitudinal learner tracking.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled data systems, product analytics, data governance, technology-enabled monitoring and evaluation, or impact intelligence platforms.
• Experience publishing or contributing to externally credible research, white papers, field-building reports, policy briefs, or public-facing thought leadership.
• Experience translating evaluation findings into program design, learner support interventions, product improvements, or strategic decisions.
• Familiarity with workforce credentials, skills-based hiring, digital skilling, AI-era labor market shifts, or education-to-employment pathways.

Person Specification/Attributes

• Courage: Willingness to speak up, challenge the status quo, and embrace new challenges.
• Humility: Openness to learning, seeking help when needed, and a focus on serving others.
• Adventure: A passion for setting ambitious goals, tackling difficult tasks, and finding joy in the journey.
• Initiative: Proactive problem-solving, a sense of ownership, and a willingness to go above and beyond.
• Resilience: The ability to bounce back from setbacks, persevere through challenges, and emerge stronger.
• Methodologically rigorous but not rigid.
• Highly analytical but deeply practical.
• Transparent about limitations without becoming cynical or slow.
• Able to move between big-picture strategy, technical methodology, data systems, and execution details.
• Comfortable building in motion inside a fast-moving, entrepreneurial organization.
• Strong enough to say “we cannot claim that yet,” and creative enough to build the system that allows us to claim it credibly in the future.
• Able to build trust with researchers, donors, executives, data teams, product teams, fundraisers, and frontline operators.
• Motivated by helping ALG set a new global standard for trusted, scalable, data-driven impact.
• Energized by the opportunity to turn evidence into better decisions, stronger programs, deeper learning, and more credible storytelling.

Preferred Time Zones

Africa- and US-friendly working hours preferred, with enough overlap to collaborate effectively across teams and stakeholders. The preferred time zones are GMT +2 / SAST / CAT / EAT, with flexibility where needed. Given ALG’s donors and team are spread across the world, this may include occasional nights and weekends, depending on location.

Due to the considerable amount of virtual working and interaction with colleagues and customers in different physical locations internationally, it is essential that the successful applicant has the drive and ethic to succeed working in small teams physically but in larger efforts virtually. Self-drive to communicate constantly using web collaboration and video conferencing is essential. As an employee, you will be encouraged to continually develop your capability & attain certifications to reflect your growth as an individual.