Vice President, Africa

Job description

## **Vice President, Africa** Are you a senior business leader who knows how to build trusted relationships at the highest levels of government and turn those relationships into significant new business? Sand has built a strong presence and deep government relationships across Africa, anchored by our work transforming national health systems. We are now looking for a Vice President, Africa, to build on that foundation: deepen our existing partnerships, expand Sand's business across both the government and private sectors, shape propositions around the most important problems across the continent, and identify and build new opportunities across sectors and markets. This is a role for someone who can move from a conversation with a Minister, to spotting a funded opportunity, to shaping a proposition with our Product and technical teams, to building the relationships and momentum needed to turn it into a significant program. Ultimately, you will help build the next chapter of Sand’s business in Africa — expanding beyond our existing Healthcare footprint and establishing Sand as a long-term technology and transformation partner to governments across the continent. ## **About Sand** [Sand Technologies](https://www.sandtech.com/) is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure. Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments. Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building. Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges. ## **About The Role** You will be one of Sand’s most senior relationship and business leaders in Africa, responsible for building trusted government partnerships and turning them into opportunities for meaningful, technology-enabled transformation. You will work closely with Country Directors to understand what is happening within each market: the priorities governments are trying to address, where investment and funding are flowing, what opportunities are emerging, and where Sand is well-positioned to create value. You will also work across Product, sector, and technical teams to shape propositions around the most important problems facing governments and critical industries across Africa, while identifying where Sand’s existing capabilities can be taken into new customers, sectors, and markets. Our Founder & CEO and other senior Sand leaders will often help open the door. Your role is to turn that access — together with the relationships and presence we already have across the continent — into enduring institutional partnerships and a growing portfolio of new business. ## **What you will do** **Build the partnerships that unlock government transformation** - Build trusted relationships across government, funders, development partners, private-sector leaders, and implementing organizations, bringing together the stakeholders required to unlock and deliver significant programmes. - Structure effective government–funder–implementer partnerships, aligning priorities, funding, governance, and delivery models around shared outcomes. - Work closely with Country Directors and strategically build relationships with Sand’s Founder & CEO and other senior leaders to unlock progress and strengthen partnerships. **Build Sand’s business across Africa** - Develop a clear view of the strongest opportunities across our markets, including government and the private sector, including customer priorities, investment programmes, tenders, RFPs, procurement opportunities and other sources of funded demand. - Work with Country Directors to identify and originate opportunities, understand where Sand can create value, and progress the strongest opportunities from early problem definition through to funded programs. - Navigate government and donor procurement processes and shape competitive bids, from early positioning and consortium formation through proposal development and award. - Build and actively manage a portfolio of opportunities across countries and sectors, including pilots and initial deployments that can generate early value and create pathways to larger partnerships. **Shape and take propositions to market** - Work closely with product, delivery, and subject-matter experts to shape compelling propositions on the most important problems African governments are trying to solve, including Sand’s broader GovTech proposition. - Bring customer and market insight into proposition development, identifying common needs across countries and helping shape propositions that can be deployed and scaled across multiple markets. - Take Sand’s existing propositions and capabilities across Healthcare, telecommunications, energy, water, infrastructure, and other critical systems into new customers, sectors, and markets. - Build and manage consortia where required, bringing together technology, implementation, funding, and local partners; defining where Sand should lead, where we should partner, and how the combined proposition creates differentiated value. **Expand Sand’s footprint across Africa** - Use the relationships and credibility Sand has established through Healthcare to identify opportunities to solve a broader set of government problems within our existing markets. - Identify opportunities to replicate successful propositions, pilots, and programmes across countries and build repeatable areas of business for Sand. - Identify priority new markets and opportunities for Sand to expand its presence, mobilising the right relationships and capabilities from across the organisation to pursue them. ## **What we are Looking For** You are a senior business leader who understands how complex government transformation programmes are shaped, funded, won and delivered across Africa. You know how to operate across government, funders, private-sector partners and implementing organisations, and can turn customer problems and market opportunities into significant programmes. You will bring: - A track record of building and growing significant business through government, donor, and private-sector partnerships across Africa, with a strong understanding of the institutional and commercial environments in which these programmes operate. - Demonstrated experience structuring partnerships between governments, funders and implementers, aligning different stakeholders around funding, governance and delivery. - Strong commercial judgement and hands-on experience navigating RFPs, tenders and government or donor procurement processes, from opportunity shaping and positioning through bid development and award. - Experience building or managing consortia and complex multi-party programmes, with the judgement to determine where to lead, partner or leverage others. - The ability to understand complex government problems and work with Product, technical, and sector teams to shape compelling technology-enabled propositions. - Experience operating across multiple countries or markets, with the ability to identify common opportunities and build propositions and businesses that can scale beyond a single engagement. - Strong executive presence, diplomacy, and judgement, combined with the ownership and pace required to build something new in complex and ambiguous environments. - Enough technical fluency in AI, data, and digital systems to engage credibly with customers, understand Sand’s capabilities, and identify where they can create value. **Relevant backgrounds** There is no single route into this role. Relevant profiles may include: - A track record of building significant business across Africa through a combination of government, private-sector, and institutional partnerships, with the judgment to understand which route to market is most effective in different sectors and countries. - Partner or Managing Director-level leaders from international development, infrastructure, technology, strategy, or transformation organisations, with experience originating and delivering complex government programmes. - Senior executives with experience building consortia, navigating donor or government procurement, and leading multi-party programmes across African markets. - Senior former public-sector leaders who have subsequently demonstrated strong commercial, partnership and technology experience. Experience in Healthcare or other critical sectors such as telecommunications, energy, water, infrastructure, smart cities, or digital government would be valuable, but is not essential. Fluency in French is a strong plus. Depending on the profile of candidates, this remit may span multiple African markets or focus on **Anglophone or Francophone Africa**. ## **How we work** At Sand, our leaders are expected to own outcomes, not simply functions. We work close to our customers and the problems they are trying to solve, bringing together the right people and capabilities from across Sand to deliver meaningful results. In this role, you will move constantly between strategy and execution: from engaging a Minister and understanding a national priority, to working with a Country Director to identify an opportunity, shaping a proposition with Product, or mobilizing Sand around a new pilot or programme. You will have significant autonomy and will be expected to operate with ownership, pace, and sound judgement. You will work across teams and geographies, bringing together the right relationships, expertise, and capabilities to turn opportunities into meaningful business. We value leaders who are comfortable with ambiguity, willing to get close to difficult problems, and motivated by building something of lasting value.