Managing Director

The Opportunity

As a key member of SmartStart’s C-Suite, the Managing Director will
be the owner of enterprise execution, integration and organisational
performance - translating approved strategy into clear priorities, integrated
plans, accountabilities, operating rhythms and measurable outcomes.

The role will make the enterprise system work: aligning functions,
resolving cross-functional dependencies and trade-offs, strengthening
performance discipline and ensuring that evidence, people, resources,
technology, programme, network and ecosystem capabilities come together to
execute strategy.

As SmartStart shifts from primarily implementing and scaling
programmes itself toward enabling a wider network and ecosystem to deliver
quality ECD at scale, the Managing Director will ensure that this shift becomes
operationally real while protecting delivery, quality, learning and legitimacy.

For an accomplished enterprise leader, this is an opportunity to
lead through leaders, shape a more integrated and adaptive operating model, and
help SmartStart convert bold strategic ambition into sustained organisational
and ecosystem outcomes.

Managing Director - Job
Specification

Purpose

 
To serve as SmartStart’s C-Suite owner of enterprise execution,
integration and organisational performance. The Managing Director turns
CEO/Board-approved strategy into coherent, sustained delivery across the
organisation, ensuring SmartStart operates as one enterprise rather than a
collection of strong but disconnected functions. The role creates clarity,
integration, accountability and execution without becoming a second CEO or
taking specialist decisions away from functional leaders.

What You Will Help Us
Achieve

As part of
SmartStart’s C-Suite, you will:

• Translate strategy into execution - converting
  approved strategic direction into focused enterprise priorities, integrated
  plans, measurable outcomes and clear accountabilities.
  
• Build a reliable performance system - making
  delivery visible, surfacing risks early and ensuring evidence drives timely
  corrective action and organisational learning.
  
• Integrate the enterprise - resolving
  cross-functional dependencies, ownership gaps and competing priorities so
  functions collectively deliver SmartStart’s strategy.
  
• Evolve the operating model for scale - translating
  the shift from implementer to enabler and field catalyst into concrete changes
  in structures, capabilities, governance and ways of working.
  
• delivery while building the future - aligning programme, network, platform, evidence and ecosystem
  commitments while maintaining quality and safeguarding.
  
• Direct resources toward strategic value - integrating people, money, technology and organisational capacity
  around explicit priorities, trade-offs and opportunity cost.
  
• Lead through leaders - creating a
  high-accountability, high-trust leadership system in which Directors have
  genuine delegated authority and act as enterprise leaders first.
  

The Leader We Are Looking
For

• We are looking for an
  enterprise integrator - a leader who sees the whole system, connects functions
  and resolves dependencies without taking over specialist work.
  
• You will bring strong execution
  judgement: knowing what must be driven, sequenced, stopped, escalated or
  delegated to keep strategy moving within organisational capacity.
  
• You will be comfortable leading
  through senior leaders, setting clear expectations and holding outcomes while
  giving functional leaders genuine room to lead.
  
• You will combine performance
  orientation with learning agility - creating visibility and accountability
  without reducing performance to compliance, activity tracking or bureaucracy.
  
• Most importantly, you will
  bring an enterprise-first mindset, constructive challenge and relational
  authority - making the whole SmartStart system execute better without becoming
  the system.
  

 
Key Responsibilities

• Translate CEO/Board-approved
  strategy into enterprise priorities, annual and multi-year operating plans,
  measurable outcomes and clear accountabilities.
  
• Own the enterprise planning
  architecture and ensure functional plans collectively add up to the strategy
  rather than optimise separate portfolios.
  
• Sequence priorities and
  strategic initiatives against organisational capacity, dependencies and
  available resources, maintaining line of sight from strategy to functional and
  team outcomes.
  
• Ensure strategic choices are
  converted into explicit implications for the operating model, capabilities,
  resources and ways of working.
  
• Own the enterprise performance
  rhythm, including the Balanced Scorecard, strategic priorities, execution
  reviews and corrective-action mechanisms.
  
• Hold Directors accountable for
  agreed functional and cross-functional outcomes while preserving their
  delegated authority.
  
• Identify execution risks,
  bottlenecks and underperformance early and ensure accountable leaders resolve
  them.
  
• Use evidence, data and
  organisational learning to adapt execution without allowing constant
  reprioritisation to destabilise delivery.
  

Enterprise Integration,
Operating Model & Delivery

• Lead the Directors and other
  designated enterprise execution leaders as an integrated leadership team, in
  line with the emerging organisational structure.
  
• Create mechanisms for
  cross-functional planning, decision-making and delivery across functional
  areas, including strategic integration with the CFO and Finance.
  
• Resolve competing priorities,
  ownership gaps and material cross-functional dependencies that cannot be
  resolved at functional level.
  
• Ensure leaders act as
  enterprise leaders first and functional leaders second, using time-bound
  SteerCos where standing line structures are insufficient.
  
• Own enterprise-level
  operating-model coherence and hold Scale & Replication as an enterprise
  accountability rather than an isolated functional silo.
  
• Translate the shift from
  implementer toward enabler/field catalyst into concrete changes in effort,
  capabilities, governance and measures of success.
  

• Hold enterprise accountability
  for delivery performance without taking specialist programme/network decisions
  away from the relevant Director.
  
• Ensure alignment between
  programme design, network/field enablement, platform capability, evidence and
  ecosystem commitments, with cross-functional quality and safeguarding risks
  escalated and resolved.
  
• Ensure network governance and
  shared-authority mechanisms are integrated with internal execution where
  SmartStart cannot rely on line authority alone.
  
• Resource Priorities, Leadership
  & Organisational Effectiveness.
  
• Own enterprise
  resource-priority recommendations and integrate functional resource needs into
  coherent choices.
  
• Partner with the CFO on
  affordability, financial scenarios, resource allocation and major investment
  trade-offs while respecting the CFO’s fiduciary and financial authority.
  
• Ensure resource decisions
  reflect strategy, expected impact, delivery capacity and opportunity cost, and
  surface what should stop, defer, simplify or be redesigned when capacity is
  exceeded.
  
• Hold management accountability
  for the overall performance and effectiveness of the Director leadership layer.
  
• Partner with People &
  Organisational Capability so leadership, organisation design, talent, culture,
  performance and change interventions are connected to execution needs.
  

Continuous Improvement,
Decision Architecture & C-Suite Stewardship

• Drive removal of duplication,
  unclear ownership, unnecessary process and organisational friction that impede
  strategy execution.
  
• Ensure learning from evidence,
  implementation, partners and performance is translated into changes in plans,
  operating model or priorities.
  
• Define and maintain enterprise
  decision rights, delegated authorities and escalation pathways, ensuring
  decisions are made at the right level by the right accountable leader.
  
• Ensure governance forums have
  clear mandates, do not duplicate line accountability and produce named owners,
  implementation pathways and review points.
  
• Distinguish controllable
  execution failure, system constraints, reasonable experimentation and external
  dependencies so accountability supports rather than suppresses learning.
  
• Provide the CEO with a clear,
  unvarnished view of execution reality, organisational capacity, performance and
  emerging enterprise risks.
  
• Translate material CEO/Board
  commitments into accountable internal execution without becoming the owner of
  external relationships that sit elsewhere.
  
• ​Maintain constructive,
  high-trust partnerships with the CEO, CFO and Chief of Staff while protecting
  clear role boundaries and representing SmartStart externally where delegated
  and execution credibility is material.
  

Requirements

Qualifications
& Experience

• Relevant postgraduate qualification or equivalent executive
  experience in business, strategy, operations, public management, development,
  organisational leadership or a related field.
  
• Substantial senior executive experience leading a complex,
  multi-functional organisation or major enterprise portfolio through strategy
  execution, transformation and scale.
  
• Demonstrated accountability for organisational performance,
  enterprise planning, operating-model execution and cross-functional
  integration.
  
• Experience leading senior functional executives and creating strong
  delegated accountability rather than centralising decisions.
  
• Strong experience in complex stakeholder, networked,
  public-interest, development or social-impact environments is highly
  advantageous.
  
• Demonstrated ability to work across programme/service delivery,
  technology/platform, evidence, partnerships, people/capability and finance
  interfaces. Experience scaling through partners or moving from direct
  implementation toward enabling others is strongly advantageous.
  

• Strong understanding of enterprise strategy execution, integrated
  planning and organisational performance management.
  
• Strong understanding of operating-model design, cross-functional
  integration and execution governance.
  
• Knowledge of performance systems, Balanced Scorecards, execution
  reviews and corrective-action mechanisms.
  
• Understanding of resource prioritisation, organisational capacity,
  trade-offs and opportunity-cost decision-making.
  
• Strong understanding of decision rights, delegated authority,
  escalation pathways and governance forum design.
  
• Understanding of leadership, organisation design, culture, talent
  and change as enablers of strategy execution.
  
• Strong systems and scale thinking, including network, platform,
  partnership and ecosystem enablement models.
  
• Understanding of shared-authority environments in which relational
  authority matters alongside formal hierarchy.
  
• Credibility with Boards, funders, government, partners and senior
  external stakeholders while remaining primarily accountable for enterprise
  execution.
  
  

Skills
and Competencies

• Enterprise integration and systems thinking across multiple
  functions and stakeholder environments.
  
• Strong execution judgement, strategic translation and prioritisation
  discipline.
  
• Ability to lead through senior leaders, hold outcomes and preserve
  genuine delegated authority.
  
• Strong performance orientation balanced with learning agility and
  productive challenge.
  
• Excellent decision-making, problem-solving and cross-functional
  dependency resolution.
  
• Constructive challenge and ability to provide an unvarnished view of
  execution reality.
  
• Relational authority and ability to lead effectively where formal
  line authority is limited.
  
• Ability to simplify complexity, reduce organisational friction and
  avoid unnecessary bureaucracy.
  
• Strong communication, stakeholder management and executive presence.
  
• Enterprise-first mindset with low territoriality and respect for
  specialist role boundaries.
  
• Ability to adapt execution using evidence and feedback rather than
  defend plans that are no longer working
  
• Deep commitment to SmartStart’s mission, Purple Practices and the
  shift toward enabling network and ecosystem scale.
  

Employment Equity

SmartStart is committed to employment equity, diversity and
inclusion. Preference may be given to suitably qualified candidates from
designated groups, in line with SmartStart's Employment Equity commitments and
applicable legislation.

Benefits