Position Summary:
Terwilliger Center is an innovation hub within Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) that contributes to its mission of ensuring that everyone has a decent place to live in. The purpose of TCIS is to continue influencing the market actors such as private companies, public officials, civil society, consumers, and households; to support scalable and affordable housing solutions through their products and services.
The Manager, Construction Practices, is expected to be a major contributor to the TCIS regional operations team in Eastern and Southern Africa ensuring smooth implementation of ongoing program activities. The position will serve as a subject matter expert to program staff around construction practices and materials and will serve as a primary point of contact with external construction technical experts. The Manager, Construction Practices will also contribute to global and/or regional initiatives related to construction practices and materials including climate, healthy housing.
Essential Duties:
1. Construction Practices and Materials (50%)
- Provide technical leadership in designing and implementing initiatives related to construction practices in the region, in partnership with program specialists.
- Driving adoption of construction technologies that support families to build better and faster, liaise with various technical leads to ensure integration of behavior change , labour and housing finance systems approaches.
- Lead the development and implementation of construction-focused initiatives related to introduction of new construction practices and/or materials.
- Serve as a technical expert in construction practices and materials for external stakeholders including private sector partners, start-ups, incubators / accelerators, government agencies, industry bodies, and other relevant actors.
- Support the MEAL team to develop construction practice and quality related indicators, data collection tools, etc.
- Identify and support partnerships with market actors that enable testing and application of innovative construction technologies and practices to better serve low-income households.
2. Research (25%)
- Conduct initial sector-specific assessments and make expert technical recommendations for appropriate activities related to and/or contributing to improved housing practices.
- Identify and evaluate new and/or alternative construction practices and materials that can be piloted for scale.
3. Learning (15%)
- Serve as a construction technical expert related to global and regional learning initiatives including labor, climate, and healthy housing.
- Participate in relevant global task forces, communities of practice, etc.
- Support the collection and synthesizing of data, in partnership with the global MEAL team, to develop an increased understanding of construction systems that can improve affordable housing.
- Represent TCIS in construction-related discussions with relevant AO and NO construction experts.
4. Support Resource Mobilization (10%)
- Lead technical input and review submitted proposals and/or concept notes to ensure that proposed activities and programs align with appropriate construction practices and materials, and markets systems approaches.
Minimum Requirements:
- Education: Bachelor’s Degree (Master’s Degree preferred) in civil engineering, construction management or architecture.
- Years of Related Experience: 7 years’ relevant experience
- Practical experience in construction project planning, execution and/or management
- Demonstrated understanding of and ability to assess a range of construction materials, technologies, and practices.
- Ability to examine and optimize operations and procedures related to construction practices.
- Ability to develop financial plans and manage resources.
- Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, a proven ability to mentor staff, and demonstrated experience collaborating with different types of partners from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
- Outstanding written and oral English communication skills in particular the ability to write clearly, succinctly and engagingly about technical subjects.
- Understanding of housing systems, market systems development, small and growing business development, and/or financial inclusion programming
More Information
- Job City Kenya
