Senior Associate, Regional Procurement, Vaccines Market Team - Short Term at Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc.

Overview of CHAI’s Vaccines Program

CHAI’s Vaccine Markets Team works with vaccine manufacturers and procurers, the Gavi Alliance and other global and reginal stakeholders to improve availability, affordability, and supply security of vaccines.

Inequalities in access to vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, have motivated efforts to establish a commercially sustainable vaccine manufacturing footprint in Africa. CHAI aims to help address this issue by applying the techniques it has used successfully in working with suppliers and procurers to optimize the African vaccine ecosystem.  

A transition to African regional procurement of vaccines is currently being discussed by the Africa CDC, UNICEF, and others. To date, centralized procurement through UNICEF of a majority of LMIC vaccine volumes has been instrumental in driving global supply security and healthy markets. Therefore, it is critical to ensure that the transition to regional procurement is designed to minimize negative impacts on vaccine markets and coverage. This includes considerations around whether, when, and how Gavi-funded volumes would transition, as well as the design of the regional procurement mechanism.

At this early stage of discussions, CHAI has been asked to evaluate the potential market impacts of regionalizing vaccine procurement in Africa – including analyses of the key benefits, costs, and risks associated with the transition – and to propose concrete design principles and strategies to mitigate these risks (e.g., procurement system requirements, enabling environment requirements, coordinated buying strategies, etc.).

The Vaccines Markets team is seeking a Senior Associate to support the strategic analysis and insight generation.

This is a temporary role with a contract duration of 9 months, which could potentially extend to 12 months. 

Responsibilities

We are seeking a highly motivated individual with outstanding analytical, strategic, communication and teamwork skills. Responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

• Create an insight-oriented procurement fact base on the current state of global vaccine procurement, including analysis, insights and comparisons by region, vaccine, procurement entity, and funding source; an overview of UNICEF’s procurement model and analysis of its market-shaping power; as well as case studies of global pooled procurement initiatives.
• Conduct qualitative research and analyses on regional procurement model motivations and aspirations with key stakeholders at the global level, at the continental and sub-regional level (e.g., Africa CDC, ECOWAS, SADC), with vaccine manufacturers and their associations globally and in Africa, as well as with governments.
• Support a benefit-risk assessment of adopting a regional procurement model, with a focus on market and programmatic implications.
• Support the identification and assessment of potential transition scenarios to a regional procurement entity in Africa.
• Develop presentations, reports, and other analyses to be shared with external stakeholders.
• Cultivate relationships with operational counterparts working across the vaccine ecosystem.
• Perform other tasks as necessary.

Qualifications:

• Analytical – You are comfortable working with large amounts of quantitative and qualitative data and effectively extracting logical conclusions and recommendations from this analysis.
• Insightful – You draw cogent conclusions from large amounts of analysis, sharing what is relevant for real-world challenges in the African vaccine manufacturing ecosystem.
• Intellectually Curious – You proactively seek out knowledge and are interested in developing innovative solutions rather than accepting existing strategies or statements at face-value.
• Practical – You demonstrate judgment in how you allocate your efforts when balancing multiple priorities, focusing on the most decision-critical aspects, and dynamically changing these priorities as required.
• Communicative – You respectfully and effectively navigate varied and sensitive stakeholder environments.
• Responsible – You take pride and ownership in your work and have high standards for what you produce, creating rigorous analysis that can stand up to the scrutiny of internal and external parties.
• Passionate – You are passionate about helping improve the vaccine markets as much as possible.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree.
• Minimum 4 years of professional experience including in a fast paced, results-oriented work environment (e.g., strategy consulting, pharmaceuticals, health financing).
• Proven project management skills and the ability to work independently and handle multiple priorities simultaneously.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with individuals of varying levels of seniority.
• Clear strategic thinker with very strong problem-solving skills.
• Available for up to 20-30% travel.
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
• English language fluency, both written and verbal.

Advantages:

• Experience working remotely with a decentralized team.
• Experience in vaccines, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and/or procurement.
• Experience working in or supporting low- and middle-income countries.
• Prior knowledge or experience of global health partners within the vaccine ecosystem.
• Fluency in other languages is a plus.