Manager, Women's & Newborn Health

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Program Summary

The Women’s & Newborn Health team at CHAI aims to reduce unintended pregnancies, maternal and neonatal deaths, and stillbirths by ensuring all individuals are able and empowered to access information, products and services that will meet their sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health (SRMNH) needs.

We pursue global and country-focused market shaping opportunities for SRMNH products to create an enabling environment for the introduction and scale up of quality-assured products and services in LMICs. At the global level, we work to ensure that a diversified supplier base can meet demand for key products and ensure commodities are affordable and of high quality. We also coordinate donors and partners around global product strategies. At the country level, CHAI works with governments to steward SRMNH markets and address market imbalances contributing to unequal access to health commodities and services. We support governments to develop national SRMNH scale-up plans with clear targets; use data to coordinate partner resources against the plan and achieve targets; strengthen national forecasting and quantification; address supply chain bottlenecks; strengthen health worker capacity building; and strengthen performance management for the health system.

The global WNH team supports the application of global learning and best practices. The team provides thought-partnership and technical assistance to programs implemented by in-country teams who lead CHAI’s valued relationships with partner governments and who possess critical knowledge of local context and operating conditions.  Underlying our approach is a commitment to achieving sustainable, transformational change at scale by working in a way that strengthens health systems and government capabilities to improve SRMNH outcomes.

Workstream Background

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) remains one of the most significant contributors to maternal morbidity and mortality globally, and particularly across sub-Saharan Africa, where more than one-third of pregnant women are estimated to be anemic. While oral iron therapy is widely used as the first-line treatment, it is often inadequate for women with moderate to severe anemia due to poor absorption, gastrointestinal side effects, and the need for more rapid correction during the later stages of pregnancy.

Intravenous (IV) iron therapy has emerged as a more effective alternative for these cases, with newer formulations such as Ferric Carboxymaltose (FCM) demonstrating superior performance in rapidly increasing hemoglobin levels, restoring iron stores, and reducing the need for blood transfusions, postpartum hemorrhage, and adverse neonatal outcomes.

Despite such findings, FCM uptake in low- and middle-income countries has remained limited, driven by a range of demand- and supply-side factors. CHAI is supporting a 6-month landscaping project to assess readiness for introduction and scale-up of FCM across 15 countries and generate preliminary demand forecasts to inform a broader strategy on maternal anemia and IV iron market shaping. The objectives of the landscape are to:

• Evaluate current practices in the screening and management of anemia in pregnancy
• Map the clinical and programmatic landscape for IV iron use, with a focus on the availability, adoption, and barriers to uptake of FCM and other parenteral iron products in both the public and private sectors
• Assess the policy and regulatory environment for FCM introduction, including national and subnational guidelines, political context, and registration pathways.
• Identify infrastructure and delivery system gaps relevant to safe and effective FCM deployment, including infusion capabilities, workforce training, and availability of screening tools
• Estimate the potential market demand for FCM in the short- and medium-term (2026–2031) across public and private sectors
• Generate strategic insights to inform market-shaping priorities and next steps

Position Summary

This short-term position sits within the Programs Team in the WNH team and will support the FCM landscaping project across 15 countries. This position will play a key role in data validation, synthesis of key findings across countries, including trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities, and development of final outputs.

For this position, we are seeking an individual with strong analytical, writing and storytelling, project management, and stakeholder engagement skills who enjoys going deep into a specific project area, developing strategic insights out of large amounts of information across different country contexts, and synthesizing it into compelling, visual presentations to support key decision-making. The individual in this position must be able to function independently, balance multiple priorities simultaneously, work well under rapid timelines, and work effectively across a range of stakeholders. 

This position will report to the Maternal Health Senior Program Manager within the WNH team. Base location can be the US or a CHAI program country in Africa pending Country Director approval.

Responsibilities

• Support development and tailoring of standardized data collection tools for landscape scope, and develop guidance for desk research and interview data collection to support country teams
• Conduct desk research in select countries and identify gaps to inform additional data collection
• Validate data collection from countries and work with the project manager and forecast lead to follow up on critical inputs
• Review and synthesize data collected from 15 countries to identify trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities
• Develop a compelling, cross-country synthesis PowerPoint presentation summarizing key findings including commonalities, differences, trends, across the 15 countries and include recommendations on prioritization or phasing of markets for FCM introduction
• Develop country summaries in PowerPoint synthesizing key findings for each of the 15 countries
• Participate in key donor meetings to share project updates and ongoing findings
• This position may also be required to do international travel to gather data via stakeholder interviews

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field with a minimum of 6 years of experience in a demanding and fast-paced environment or a master’s degree in a related field with a minimum of 4 years of experience in a demanding and fast-paced environment
• Professional services experience such as management consulting and investment banking are considered an asset
• Programmatic knowledge of maternal health and anemia is considered an asset
• Excellent written and oral English communication skills
• Excellent Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word skills
• Ability to be effective, calm, and flexible in a fast-paced work environment, to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, and to effectively prioritize
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; ability to use data to inform program development and strategy
• Demonstrated capacity to synthesize evidence into effective presentations and actionable recommendations for broad range of audiences
• Ability to work collaboratively and productively with a range of internal and external stakeholders
• Willingness to work with a geographically dispersed team across multiple time zones
• Respectful of cultural differences. Exceptional diplomatic and interpersonal skills, and an ability to manage challenging multi-cultural, multi-stakeholder situations to achieve intended results
• Self-motivated and comfortable working independently
• Strong work ethic, integrity, credibility, and dedication to CHAI’s mission
• Strong commitment to principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion

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