Job Title: Lead Economist- Laterite
Summary
Laterite is looking for an outstanding researcher/economist to provide global technical leadership to our teams, to support the professional development of researchers at Laterite and to continue to strengthen the quality of our work, grow our portfolio of research projects and establish new strategic learning partnerships.
About Laterite
Laterite is a data, research, and technical advisory firm that helps clients understand and analyze complex development challenges. We work with universities, global think tanks, international NGOs, multilateral donor organizations, and government ministries and agencies.
Our network of offices currently includes the Netherlands, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The team brings together more than 55 full time local and international staff, as well as 1,000 enumerators across countries, in a dynamic work environment. We are proud to be a culturally diverse organization. Learn more: www.laterite.com
Our core sectors are: education, public health, agriculture, urbanization & migration, and youth & labor. We are also involved in projects with a focus on gender issues. We believe that impact is a long-term endeavor that requires being embedded in the local context. Delivering high-quality research requires building local teams and data collection systems, understanding the context, establishing close working relationships with key players, and understanding their constraints and motivations.
Profile
We are looking for an accomplished economist/research who combines excellent technical skills with experience in mentoring and managing teams of researchers.
Must-have:
- Postgraduate degree in economics, development economics, statistics, data science or related field with a strong component of quantitative data analysis (PhD strong plus)
- At least 7 years of work experience in research, public policy, economic and social research, or management consulting (if PhD, then minimum 5 years of work experience)
- Demonstrated experience mentoring researchers
- Strong skills in relevant areas for Laterite’s technical work, including research design, sampling, analysis of survey data, program evaluation techniques and econometrics
- Demonstrated interest in Laterite’s core sectors: education, public health, agriculture, youth & livelihoods, and urbanization & migration.
- Demonstrated experience in writing and editing grant applications, research papers and scientific output reports
- Proficiency in STATA is required. Knowledge of R and/or Python is a strong plus.
Additionally, we are looking for:
- An excellent networker with experience in building relationships with clients and stakeholders from the public and private sectors
- A self-motivated team leader with excellent interpersonal skills who thrives in a fast-paced environment where timelines can be unpredictable
- Someone who cares deeply about innovation in the fields of econometrics and data science and is always curious and excited to try out new approaches and techniques
Job Description & Key Responsibilities
Laterite’s Lead Economist will have the following responsibilities:
- Provide technical leadership to our global teams. This will involve closely overseeing our most technical research projects, reviewing the quality and technical validity of our work at each stage of the research process and responding to technical questions coming from the team.
- Support the professional development of our research teams, through a combination of training and mentorship. A core part of this process will include working with Laterite’s senior management team to develop individualized professional development plans for members of our research team.
- Continuously strengthen the quality of our work, by identifying systemic fixes and ways to improve our research and quality review processes, by ensuring Laterite is always at the cutting edge and by putting the right systems in place to our work is useful within the context of the countries and the sectors we work in.
- Grow our portfolio of research projects and strategic learning partnerships, by working closely with our business development and communications team to identify new opportunities and lead the technical component of proposals, by growing our network of academic partnerships and by representing Laterite at research/policy events.
- Contribute high quality external publications, in the form of blogs, policy briefs, papers, to increase the visibility of our work and contribute to the policy dialogue in the countries/sectors where we work.
As part of Laterite’s management team, you will have a voice in project selection, corporate strategy, process improvements, and structuring Laterite’s research agenda. You will serve as role model for the team, actively promoting our organizational culture, and helping us to grow and achieve our mission as an organization.
Laterite is expanding rapidly, and we are open to the possibility of hiring exceptional candidates at a higher grade.
Application Process
Please upload your CV and a personal statement describing your motivation to apply and your experience with mentoring research teams working on development research projects via our online application form: https://form.jotform.com/212853724847565 After submitting your application, you will be invited to complete short quantitative assessment for which no special preparation is needed.
Successful candidates will be contacted with information regarding the next steps. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to apply ASAP.
Closing date:
