Director, Private Sector Finance, Health Systems Strengthening in Deal

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life‑saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID‑19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non‑communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing.

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication, and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skill sets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries.

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Team Overview: CHAI’s health financing work has historically focused on the public (government) side. As aid budgets tighten, the role of private providers and private capital will become even more critical to expand access to affordable, high‑quality care. The private sector already plays a major role across African health systems—from wholesale distributors, retail pharmacies and primary care to diagnostics, supply chains, and essential services such as oxygen, logistics, energy, and equipment—yet many high‑impact health businesses face persistent financing constraints that limit scale, including a “missing middle” of ticket sizes, limited local currency financing, short tenors, market facilitators and ecosystem barriers such as policy uncertainty.

CHAI is building a new Private Sector Engagement and Private Finance capability to address this gap, partnering directly with high‑impact companies and capital providers across the spectrum. As an initial use case, the team has structured and executed solar electrification programs for health facilities across multiple African countries, building a foundation in public‑private contracting and mobilizing finance against measurable health impact. We are now expanding into broader healthcare private finance.

This is not a traditional NGO role: it blends the pace and rigour of private finance with the mission of global health. We are building a deal team that realizes transactions for increasing impact, not a consulting shop that designs blended finance structures for presentation slides. The strategy for this work is not yet set in stone. This leader will be brought in to define it, build a team and the operational infrastructure around it, and execute. The right candidate will combine deep finance expertise with substantial Africa experience, and the temperament to thrive within a mission‑driven NGO. This person must be as comfortable in a boardroom with principals of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) as they are problem‑solving on the ground with a healthcare entrepreneur in challenging operating environments. A creative and well‑grounded in reality mindset is a key driver to the success of this role.

Responsibilities:

• The (Senior) Director will lead CHAI’s Private Sector Engagement and Private Finance work across strategy, partnerships, execution, and team building, working closely with CHAI country teams, Health Systems Strengthening leadership, and external partners including governments, donors, DFIs & Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), commercial banks, impact investors, private equity, venture capital, and health companies.
• Set strategy and build a deal-oriented platform: Develop a deep, ground-level understanding of the health investment ecosystem in priority markets — mapping key actors across capital providers, health businesses, regulators, and intermediaries — to identify systemic gaps and inform where CHAI can add the most distinctive value.
• Co‑develop CHAI’s strategy for private sector engagement and private finance for health in Sub‑Saharan Africa, including focus geographies, priority subsectors (e.g., primary care, wholesale distribution systems, retail pharmacy, diagnostics, oncology, oxygen, supply chains, energy, digital health), and CHAI’s role across the ecosystem.
• Define clear operating models, impact measurement frameworks, and work plans, and build the operational infrastructure for a functioning deal platform: deal scouting, deal flow development, pipeline management systems, due diligence frameworks, institutional deal memory and repeatable playbooks, and impact measurement approaches.
• Treat the strategy as a living document: build in regular review points to assess progress and make decisive calls to double down or redirect based on what the evidence shows.
• Mobilize capital and build relationships across the capital spectrum: Build and manage senior relationships with capital providers spanning MDBs, DFIs, foundations, impact funds (debt and equity), PE/VC, local commercial banks, and Micro‑Finance Institutions.
• Identify opportunities to link CHAI’s health priorities with capital providers and structure practical partnerships and co‑investment approaches.
• Where relevant, explore partnerships with international companies (e.g., medical equipment, digital health, supply chain technology) that can support African health service delivery platforms, in line with donor interest in linking trade and aid.
• Represent CHAI strategically at key forums, prioritizing engagements that directly drive deal origination or advance strategic positioning. The expectation is purposeful engagement that drives results, not a conference circuit.
• Design and execute financing mechanisms and transactions: Lead the design and implementation of blended finance and risk‑sharing solutions (first‑loss facilities, portfolio guarantees, subordinated capital, results‑linked incentives) to unlock appropriately priced financing for health SMEs and service providers. Ensure execution plans are feasible with clear partner roles.
• Drive transactions from origination through close: partner alignment, term sheet negotiation, structuring, documentation, and oversight. Navigate the complexities of local currency financing, tenor, FX risk mitigation, and regulatory environments across different African markets.
• Ensure mechanisms are linked to measurable health impact and financial performance, with practical monitoring and reporting approaches.
• Work directly with high-impact health companies to unlock growth and scale: Oversee targeted support to health businesses: providing hands‑on commercial and financial advisory support, strengthening governance, articulating unit economics, and preparing investable materials. Diagnose financing needs and match companies to appropriate capital sources.
• Build a systematic approach to deal origination and pipeline management, moving beyond one‑off opportunities toward replicable models. Support scale pathways, including contracting with governments and strategic purchasers.
• Build a high-performing team and represent CHAI externally: Build a high-performing team, fostering a culture that balances financial rigor with deep country‑level humility. Represent CHAI at senior forums with governments, donors, investors, and private sector leaders. Develop high‑quality external materials and contribute to CHAI’s broader thinking on sustainable health financing.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in Finance, Business (MBA), Economics, or a related field strongly preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in (impact) investment, blended finance, development finance, VC, PE, investment banking, or structured finance, with demonstrated experience taking transactions from concept to implementation.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and execute strategy in complex, ambiguous environments—translating high‑level goals into actionable plans, identifying where to place bets across a fragmented landscape, and adjusting course as conditions evolve.
• Deep familiarity with allocating capital across company growth stages and with assessing investment readiness. Experience structuring risk‑sharing instruments (guarantees, first‑loss, subordinated capital) and working with DFIs/MDBs and/or commercial financial institutions.
• Substantial professional experience and understanding of the health sector dynamics in sub‑Saharan Africa, with an existing network across the healthcare, finance, and development sectors. Experience working with or alongside health SMEs or frontier/emerging market companies and understanding operational realities of delivering services at affordable price points.
• Proven track record of building and leading teams: attracting strong talent, setting strategy, and creating the culture and systems required for a high‑performing unit.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English; proficiency in French or Portuguese a significant asset given CHAI’s footprint.
• Willingness to travel significantly (estimated 25–35%).

Attributes:

• Builder mindset: energized by creating something from scratch in an unstructured environment. Execution-focused, with a bias for getting deals done over perfecting frameworks.
• Commercially fluent and mission‑driven: able to engage credibly with DFI investment committees and rural healthcare entrepreneurs alike, and translate fluently between financial returns and health impact.
• Culturally adept and organizationally humble: able to operate effectively within an NGO, respecting CHAI’s collaborative culture, while bringing private sector pace and rigour. This person should genuinely want to do this work within a mission‑driven organization, not view it as a fallback.
• Strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence: builds trust across diverse contexts—government officials, NGO colleagues, investors, and founders—without creating friction.
• Intellectual curiosity and comfort with ambiguity: this role requires building strategy in an unsettled space, and calling that out explicitly would help self‑selection.
• Mission‑driven: motivated by the prospect of expanding access to affordable, high‑quality health care.

What Success Looks Like (first 12–18 Months):

• Clear strategy and operating model agreed, with priority countries and subsectors defined.
• Core team recruited and operational, with defined workflows and pipeline management systems.
• Strong network established across capital providers and a curated pipeline of high‑impact healthcare companies.
• 2–3 financing mechanisms in design or early implementation, with aligned partners and a credible path to first capital deployment.
• Targeted support delivered to a first cohort of companies, with tangible outcomes in investment readiness or capital raised.
• Key systemic constraints to healthcare investment in SSA identified, documented, and informing strategic priorities.