SHOFCO pioneered the aerial water piping system in Kibera in 2016, delivering clean water at 60% below the cost charged by private vendors. Today, the system serves 37,500 people daily. The program includes water kiosks and ATMs, solarized treatment plants, gender-segregated school latrines, community sanitation blocks, and behavior-change programming in 64+ schools.

Research by the African Population and Health Research Center documented a 31% reduction in waterborne illnesses among children under five in communities served by SHOFCO water infrastructure. The next milestone is historic: SHOFCO is in the process of becoming the first licensed water company serving an informal settlement in Kenya, a step that would extend safe, affordable water to 100,000 households. This licensing process requires active navigation of regulatory and policy pathways with national and county water authorities.

Health and Wellbeing
SHOFCO's health program reached 470,105 household members in 2025. Its clinics in Kibera and Mathare have achieved a 0% mother-to-child HIV transmission rate, against a national average of 15%. When multiple nearby clinics closed following the USAID funding drawdown, SHOFCO's facilities absorbed a 70% surge in demand without interrupting services, demonstrating the value of community-rooted health infrastructure that is not dependent on international funding cycles.

Health is delivered as part of a whole-family model, integrated with WASH, gender programming, and education so that the underlying determinants of poor health are addressed alongside clinical services. Mental health, through peer networks and trained community ambassadors (12,000 trained to date), is embedded throughout.

Key Responsibilities
Program Strategy and Delivery
Lead the strategy and implementation of all programs across all geographies, ensuring consistency, quality, and alignment with SHOFCO's organizational priorities
Own delivery against SHOFCO's multi-year commitments across IIVC, YVE, and all program areas, ensuring that reported results are accurate and that targets are met or exceeded
Work alongside the COO to identify and resolve delivery bottlenecks, risks, and operational challenges in real time
Ensure ethical, accountable, and community-centered delivery across all sites, with safeguarding embedded in every intervention
Scale the SUN organizing platform into new counties and communities while protecting the depth of trust and member ownership that makes it effective
Convert community scale into influence: ensure SUN's 2 million members translate into a coordinated, credible advocacy force shaping policy, budgets, and service delivery at county and national level
Build SHOFCO's policy and government-engagement capability so that programmatic evidence feeds directly into advocacy positions, with organized communities driving the conversation
Program Quality and Impact
Establish and lead a culture of continuous improvement across all program areas
Define and own clear performance metrics and outcomes for every program, tied directly to multi-year funder commitments and SHOFCO's strategic targets
Use SHOFCO's MEL infrastructure (approximately 20,000 interviews per quarter, 15 large-scale surveys annually, research partnerships with Oxford, Busara, KEMRI, IDInsight, and others) to improve delivery approaches, not just report on them
Lead regular performance reviews to assess progress, identify gaps, and drive concrete improvements
Ensure that reported results meet the standards for accuracy and credibility that major funders including CIFF and the Mastercard Foundation require
Team Leadership and Management
Lead and develop a high-performing team of program directors across Education, Gender, WASH, Health, and SUN
Build strong leadership capacity within program teams, with clear accountability and ownership at every level of the organization
Oversee recruitment, onboarding, and retention across a large, multi-site program workforce spanning 40 counties
Foster a culture of ownership, execution, and learning across all teams
Create clear structures for communication, decision-making, and escalation across geographies
Financial Management and Program Sustainability
Oversee program budgets across a portfolio that currently includes two $60M flagship programs, in close partnership with Finance
Ensure strong financial discipline, identifying variance early and managing resources efficiently across all geographies
Provide accurate and timely reporting on program performance and financial status to funders, the board, and senior leadership
Ensure programs are delivered in a financially sustainable and operationally efficient manner
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning
Own SHOFCO's MEL function, setting the standard for data quality, evidence generation, and accountability that a movement serving 2.5 million people requires
Ensure robust systems for data collection, verification, and analysis, including baselines, results frameworks, data verification plans, and integrated reporting dashboards, so that reported results are accurate and defensible
Translate data into insights that change how programs are designed and delivered, not only how they are reported to funders
Strengthen systems for capturing and sharing learning across teams and geographies
Ensure program outcomes are clearly documented and communicated to funders, partners, and government counterparts
Integration and Coordination
Deepen coordination across program areas so that the person receiving services experiences SHOFCO as one integrated offer, not five separate programs
Ensure alignment between program teams, operations, and other internal functions
Support integrated, community-centered delivery approaches that treat the household, not the intervention, as the unit of change
Government Partnership and Funder Reporting
Maintain strong working relationships with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, county water authorities, and other government counterparts whose systems SHOFCO programs operate within or alongside
Provide the Advancement team with accurate, timely, and complete program data and evidence to support funder reporting and donor communications; the CPO is the source of the evidence, not the lead on its external presentation
The Person We're Looking For
SHOFCO is looking for a deeply technical program strategist/operator who has built their career running complex, multi-sector delivery at scale in Kenya. This is a role defined by execution, financial discipline, and evidence rigour. Candidates whose primary strength is fundraising, external relations, or advocacy are unlikely to be the right fit.
Minimum 10 years of senior experience in program management and delivery in East Africa, with a demonstrated track record managing complex, multi-sector programs at scale across multiple geographies; previous C-suite or equivalent senior leadership experience preferred
Proven ability to manage large program budgets across multiple funders and reporting frameworks; hands-on experience overseeing budgets of comparable scale to IIVC and YVE (each approximately $60M) is a strong advantage
Technically proficient in monitoring, evaluation, and learning: experience designing and running rigorous MEL systems, including results frameworks, data verification plans, baselines, and reporting dashboards; must be comfortable interrogating data directly, not just receiving summaries
Proven track record managing large, geographically dispersed teams with clear outcomes, accountability structures, and strong retention
Deep knowledge of Kenya's government structures from national level through county and sub-county, and the ability to build operational partnerships with Ministry counterparts in Education, Health, and Water that support SHOFCO program delivery
Experience working directly in Kenya's informal settlements or underserved rural communities; this is not a preference but a near-requirement for someone who will be accountable for programs running at community level across 40 counties
Experience in community organizing, civic mobilization, or community-led service delivery is strongly preferred, given that SUN is both SHOFCO's largest program and its theory of change
Genuine alignment with SHOFCO's values of community-led change, accountability, and the belief that communities already hold the power to change their circumstances, and need the right systems to act on it

All interested applicants should send their CV and detailed cover letter with the job position “Chief Program Officer” in the subject line.