Consultant, Head, Innovation Labs

Locations: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria

Deadline: January 30, 2026

Job Description

THE OPPORTUNITY

Reporting to the Director, Innovation Labs, the Consultant, Head, Innovation Labs, joins the team at a pivotal moment and will play a hands-on role in strengthening project execution, helping the Innovation Labs team deliver high-priority work, ensuring alignment, consistency, quality, and speed.

The role is designed to lead and manage project implementation across the Innovation Labs cycle—from early-stage intake, discovery, and incubation to full adoption and scaling. You will ensure operational discipline and delivery excellence, making solutions practical, well-integrated, and usable across Foundation and Partner teams. The Consultant, Head, Innovation Labs will also help shape the Labs’ evolving service delivery model and build structures for consistent, scalable implementation.

Additionally, the role will contribute flexibly to strategic initiatives, people management, and operational strengthening as needed.

Duration: 1 YEAR CONTRACT.

The successful candidate will be based in one of our listed offices in Africa (Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria).

WAYS YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

As a Consultant, Head, Innovation Labs, you will strengthen the Innovation Labs’ offer and the Foundation’s innovation agenda by:

Leading Innovation Initiatives: Manage projects across the Innovation Labs experimentation cycle, ensuring disciplined execution, real-world relevance, and timely delivery.
Facilitating Collaboration and Co-Creation: Design and lead collaborative processes with Foundation teams and partners, ensuring that solutions are customer-centric, adopted, and scalable.
Developing and Scaling Solutions: Oversee the incubation, rollout, and scaling of solutions aligned with the Foundation’s Young Africa Works and EleV strategies.
Standardizing and Operationalizing Delivery: Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of the Labs’ service delivery model, ensuring solutions and processes are replicable, scalable, and sustainable.
Surfacing Opportunities: Drive discovery work to identify innovation opportunities that are responsive to the needs of youth, partners, and the ecosystem.
Leading Technical Areas: Act as thematic lead on selected innovation domains and products, shaping protocols, methods, and user-centric approaches.
Strengthening Relationships: Build and sustain trusted relationships across the Foundation and partner networks to foster a strong community of practice.
Representing and Positioning the Innovation Labs: Contribute to thought leadership and represent the Labs in internal and external forums to strengthen strategic partnerships.
Managing and Developing Talent: Manage direct reports as required, supporting performance, growth, and alignment with the Foundation’s mission and culture.
Supporting Cross-Foundation Initiatives: Contribute to cross-functional initiatives across the Impact, Research & Learning function and the broader Foundation.

WHO YOU ARE

An advanced degree or equivalent experience is required, preferably in innovation-related disciplines.
Additional training in International Development, Economics, Evaluation, Research Methods, or Social Sciences is an asset.
Extensive experience in international development and/or market-based initiatives, aligned with the Foundation’s priorities in Africa.
Extensive experience in leading impact-driven innovation initiatives (projects/programs/ products, etc.), with a deep understanding of what it means to drive innovation that scales.
Proven track record leading complex, multi-stakeholder, impact-driven projects, including operational and financial management.
Experience with youth-led, community-based, or participatory approaches to design and knowledge generation.
Strong understanding of innovation, technology, and science trends, particularly in African contexts.
A foundational understanding of impact evidence and insights related to various domains, with deep expertise in one or more areas, is an asset.
Skilled in group facilitation and participant-centred design methods.
Competence in budget development and financial management.
Fluency in English required. French desirable.
Professional maturity and sensitivity to working within different cultures.
Flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity that exemplify the Foundation’s values.
You have a commitment to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.

INNOVATION LABS: CREATING THE SPACE FOR BREAKTHROUGH PROGRAM INNOVATION THAT SCALES

At the Mastercard Foundation, innovation serves as a lever for accelerating scalable and lasting impact. As we expand our ambition to enable dignified and fulfilling work for 30 million young women and men in Africa and meaningful livelihoods for 100,000 Indigenous youth in Canada, the role of innovation has never been more critical.

Innovation Labs is the flagship innovation initiative of the Impact, Evidence & Learning (IEL) function at the Mastercard Foundation.

Innovation Labs serve as the Foundation’s program experimentation engine—co-sourcing breakthrough program hypotheses in partnership with Program Platform teams, de-risking them through disciplined incubation, testing, and learning, and transitioning successful experiments into fully fundable Young Africa Works programs. In short, Innovation Labs are the place where breakthrough opportunities are explored early, tested rigorously, and handed over for large-scale adoption.

The Mastercard Foundation values the unique skills and experiences each individual brings to the organization and we are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone.

Completion of satisfactory business references and background checks are essential conditions of employment.

For more information and to sign up for the Foundation’s newsletter, please visit http://www.mastercardfdn.org/
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