Deputy Chief of Party- Senior Technical Advisor | Pretoria, South Africa | 2025 At Chemonics

Chemonics seeks a Deputy Chief of Party, Senior Technical Advisor for the USAID Empower Southern Africa (ESA) project. ESA is a 5-year regional program that covers South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros and Sao Tome and Principe. This is a billable position responsible for USAID Empower Southern Africa Program which implements across thirteen countries in Southern Africa. The Empower Southern Africa (ESA) program is a five-year Power Africa initiative implemented by USAID, focusing on increasing access to and use of electricity from renewable energy sources to reduce energy poverty, accelerate decarbonization, boost investment, and foster innovation in the energy sector in Southern Africa to achieve sustainable development outcomes. The program will support the accelerated connection of more Southern Africa homes, businesses, and institutions to clean, reliable electricity and increase its productive use; reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector by supporting cleaner electricity generation; and increase energy sector investment, working in partnership with Southern African governments to improve the enabling environment for the energy sector. The position will be based in Pretoria, South Africa. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of people around the world.

Responsibilities include:

• Provide technical leadership in delivery of expected results of ESA’s expected results, project objectives, and technical contractual deliverables (i.e., annual work plans, annual reporting, technical implementation reports, etc.)
• Manage, supervise, coordinate technical services, design and prioritize work plan activities aligned with contract objectives, and provide thought leadership and technical support to activity implementation.
• Directly supervises three technical team leads, responsible for technical implementation.
• Works with the Senior Leadership team to ensure technical staff are delivering the right assistance at the right time to country action plans and work plan activities.
• With the chief of party, leads matrix-management approach and prioritizes and assigns technical scope of work to staff for efficient delivery.
• Reports to chief of party and serves as acting in chief of party’s absence and coordinates with the DCOP-Program Support position accordingly.
• Ensures long-term consortium partners deliver technical assistance as part of the “one team” approach across objectives.
• Regularly liaise with the Power Africa Coordinator’s Office, USAID missions, and other USG agencies, as appropriate.
• Maintain strong relationships with relevant regional organizations, such as the African Development Bank, and with private sector companies and host country governments.
• Other duties as assigned or required.

Qualifications, Experience and Competencies:

This position is based in Pretoria, South Africa. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty and responsibility satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills, and/or abilities required.

• Bachelor’s degree required; an advanced degree in a relevant field of study may be preferred.
• A minimum of 10 years of experience implementing energy programs, including in leadership and management role (s).
• Experience implementing development activities in sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Africa, and/or in a similar context.
• Advanced knowledge and familiarity of the technical requirements and scope required for advancing large-scale, donor-funded, Power Sector or Energy programs covering areas such as electricity transmission, generation, on/off-grid, regulatory, electricity trade, transmission, clean energy technologies, and energy sector investment.
• Demonstrated leadership, versatility, and integrity