R&D Project and Partnership, Associate Lead

Overall Purpose

The R&D Partnership and Project, Associate Lead (AL) will be responsible for ensuring the project management excellence and end-to-end execution of one or several of GARDP’s strategic development project. Working closely with the Associate Director, STI Portfolio (AD), R&D team members, external partners, and senior management, s/he will drive the proper implementation and delivery of comprehensive cross-functional drug/treatment development plans within the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Portfolio, across all trans-disciplinary work streams and full life cycle, including clinical, manufacturing and regulatory components.

The AL provides cross‑functional coordination and operational leadership, ensuring that development plans are coherent, resourced, risk‑managed, and executed in line with GARDP governance, donor requirements, and portfolio priorities. The responsibilities will encompass to proactively monitor and manage the assigned project(s), ensuring the project goals and timelines are achieved within quality requirements and target budgets, and to maintain an efficient information and communication flow between internal and external stakeholders.

By maintaining a clear visibility between project‑level execution and portfolio‑level objectives, the AL plays a key role in enabling consolidated reporting and informed decision‑making.

In addition, the role includes active R&D partnership management and leadership of selected technical work streams, as delegated by the Associate Director and aligned with the AL’s expertise.

As a team-player and effective communicator, the R R&D Partnership and Project, Associate Lead must be able to drive momentum and build consensus, at the interface of multi-disciplinary and cross-functional teams. Strong organizational skills and ability to develop and manage successful collaborations with external and internal stakeholders is a key driver of success.

• Responsible to plan, integrate and manage the execution of the comprehensive cross-functional Project Plan to deliver the agreed milestones, deliverables, and outcomes against set performance and objectives, within scope and agreed timelines.
• Collaborate with the Associate Director in the definition of project scope and objectives working closely with relevant project stakeholders (internal and external). Manage project scope, including identifying, implementing and managing changes to achieve project goals.
• Develop detailed task lists and work effort assessment and short and long-term resources/capacities need plans based on input from all key players and team members. Collaborate with Functional Leads on resources/skills requirements for the project.
• Lead the project budget, procurement plan, and actuals monitoring to ensure a clear visibility on project funding needs, its execution within the agreed budget, and compliance to GARDP and donors’ policies and requirements.
• Drive the monitoring of the project contractual framework and liaise with the operational contract owners to ensure the contracts execution and control are on track and in compliance with GARDP and donors’ policies and requirements.
• Act as a key operational interface with external stakeholders, ensuring alignment on scope, deliverables, timelines, and governance.
• Identify, measure, and elevate risks and potential roadblocks and relational issues. Proactively implement and track mitigation measures and resolution plans.
• Monitor, analyse and report on the progress and performance of the project, both internally and externally in alignment with GARDP governance and reporting framework (i.e., manage and support the development of R&D governance meetings presentations and reports for the project and contribute to reporting to GARDP’s donors). Responsible of the documentation of the project and maintenance of effective communication channels to provide accurate information to the R&D leadership team.
• Plan, manage, and facilitate regular cross-functional Core & Extended Project team meetings, act as the key point of contact for the non-R&D department (Legal, Procurement, Finance, Communications) and…