Regional Professionalized Services Operations Manager

Who is Water Mission? Water Mission is a rapidly growing Christian engineering nonprofit working to end the global water crisis by building safe water, sanitation, and hygiene solutions in developing nations and disaster areas. Guided by love, excellence, and integrity, we are driven to share clean, safe water and God’s love with all. To date, we have s…

Regional Professionalized Services Operations Manager

Position Summary

Under the direction of the Director of Professionalized Services, the Regional Professionalized Services Operations (OPS) Manager provides regional leadership and coordination for Professionalized Services across East Africa. This is a full-time position and requires that the person reside in Nairobi, Kenya (preferred), or in Tanzania or Malawi. The position requires regular travel to remote locations within Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi.

The Regional Professionalized Services OPS Manager will provide matrix leadership, coaching, and functional oversight to Country Program Professionalized Services Managers (PSMs). Country Program PSMs will continue to report directly to their respective Country Directors, with a dotted-line reporting relationship to the Regional Professionalized Services OPS Manager. In this matrix structure, the Regional Professionalized Services OPS Manager will establish regional Professionalized Services priorities and standards, support work planning, strengthen staff capacity, review performance, and contribute functional input to performance evaluations.

The role will guide consistent implementation of Water Mission’s Professionalized Services framework across countries, including sustainability planning, preventive maintenance, uptime management, district-wide service delivery, Master Planning approaches, and transition of water systems to appropriate professional management models. The Regional Professionalized OPS Services Manager will also directly supervise the Regional Professionalized Services Engineer and coordinate technical support and quality assurance/quality control activities in response to country needs. Success will be measured by stronger country teams, consistent application of standards, achievement of agreed key performance indicators, improved service reliability, and progress toward financially and operationally sustainable water service delivery.

Position Responsibilities

• Maintain a strong Christian witness and model servant leadership to colleagues, partners, the communities we serve, and the public.

• Engage and participate in prayer before and after team meetings.

• Lead and participate in biblically based staff devotions.

• Work in a posture of humble service to God and others.

• Understand, support, and nurture the Vision, Mission, and Core Values of Water Mission.

• Provide matrix leadership, coaching, and functional oversight to Country Program PSMs while respecting the direct supervisory authority of Country Directors, and directly supervise the Regional Professionalized Services Engineer, including work planning, priority setting, performance management, and professional development.

• Establish regional Professionalized Services priorities, annual work plans, deliverables, performance expectations, and common implementation approaches aligned with organizational and country program objectives.

• Coordinate regularly with Country Directors and Program Managers on Professionalized Services priorities, staffing, budgets, risks, and support needs, contributing functional input to PSM goal-setting and performance evaluation and supporting Country Directors in addressing performance or capacity gaps.

• Facilitate regional coordination meetings, peer learning, joint problem-solving, and the sharing of best practices across country teams, and identify staffing and capacity gaps, recommending appropriate team structures, training, coaching, and technical assistance.

• Guide consistent regional implementation of Water Mission’s Professionalized Services framework — including Rural Water Cooperative approaches, utility and local service provider models, and other context-appropriate arrangements — and lead the operational integration of Master Planning and district-wide or portfolio-based planning.

• Provide regional leadership for sustainability planning, preventive maintenance systems, service reliability, uptime and asset management, and operational standards, supporting country teams in assessing existing WASH service provision, identifying performance gaps, and developing prioritized improvement plans.

• Guide water scheme transition activities — readiness assessments, transition planning, stakeholder engagement, operational handover, and post-transition monitoring — and strengthen the governance, management systems, policies, and accountability structures of utilities, local service providers, and other service delivery entities.

• Support the development, testing, documentation, and scaling of innovative Professionalized Services models appropriate to country and regional contexts.