Value Chain Design and Quality Manager

SmartStart
is a social franchise transforming early childhood development
across South Africa. For over a decade, we've worked to give every
child the power to succeed, building a network of community -based
early learning programmes that reach children in some of the
country's most under -resourced areas. We believe that quality,
consistency, and integrity across our value chain are what make this
possible at scale.

We're
looking for a Senior Manager to lead the design and quality
assurance of our programme value chain, the systems, standards, and
guardrails that ensure every child in a SmartStart programme
receives a consistently high -quality early learning experience, no
matter where they are.

This
role sits at the heart of programme integrity. You'll be responsible
for designing and refining the processes, quality assurance tools,
and frontline support systems that hold our network together, from
registration and subsidy integration through to coaching standards
and field support. If you think in systems, care deeply about
getting the details right at scale, and want your work to translate
directly into better outcomes for children, this is built for you.

What You'll Be
Doing

Value Chain Design:

• Reviewing and strengthening value chain processes to align
  with SmartStart's child outcome, safeguarding, and programme
  integrity priorities
  
• Developing and maintaining guardrails across registration,
  subsidy integration, incentives, and frontline delivery
  pathways
  
• Identifying gaps and inefficiencies and designing
  improvements that support scalability
  
• Collaborating with the Digital Transformation team to ensure
  systems and tools reflect programme intentions.
  

Quality Assurance & Frontline Support:

• Reviewing, refining, and developing SmartStart's PQA tools,
  processes, and quality standards
  
• Strengthening moderation and calibration processes
  
• Reviewing quality assurance systems for coaching, field
  support, and remote support functions
  
• Supporting the Coach & Field Officer Network Manager in
  refining coaching standards and induction.
  

Learning, Leadership & Collaboration: 

• Co -developing training and support initiatives to equip
  frontline and remote staff
  
• Building structured feedback loops to surface emerging risks
  or quality concerns
  
• Line managing the Frontline QA Manager
  
• Driving structured experimentation and improvement
  initiatives
  
• Promoting cross -functional collaboration with the Network
  Support Team.
  

Requirements

• A Bachelor's degree in Education, Early Childhood
  Development, Public Administration, Project Management, Social
  Development, Organisational Development, or a related field is
  required; a Master's degree is an advantage.
  
• 7 to 10 years of relevant experience in programme design,
  quality assurance systems, service delivery optimisation, or
  value chain/system design, ideally within early learning (ECCE)
  or social development programmes.
  
• A systems thinker who can design coherent, scalable
  processes; strong strategic judgement and the ability to
  navigate complexity and ambiguity; an experienced project leader
  comfortable driving change and managing people; someone who
  instinctively builds in guardrails for programme integrity and
  child safety; strong analytical and facilitation skills.
  
• A valid South African driver's licence, fluency in at least
  one African language in addition to English, and willingness to
  travel and to comply with SmartStart's child safeguarding
  requirements are all required for this role.