Title: Project and Engagement Fellow, Strategic Solutions Group
Department : Strategic Solutions Group (SSG), Office of the CEO
Reports to: Senior Advisor, Strategic Solutions Group
Matrix Management : N/A
Supervises: N/A
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Duration: Six months
Stipend: USD 600 per month
Background
The Strategic Solutions Group is a new initiative within AWF, sitting in the Office of the CEO. It is a pan-African platform through which governments, institutions, funders and partners can draw on AWF’s expertise, tools, relationships and convening power to turn their conservation and development priorities into financed, implementable and scalable action. The ambition is to extend AWF’s impact far beyond our direct footprint by working with and through others: strengthening African leaders and institutions, advancing African-led conservation solutions, and helping proven approaches travel across landscapes, sectors and countries, so that Africa’s wildlife, wild lands and the people and economies that depend on them all benefit.
SSG will work across ministries of planning, finance and environment as well as protected area authorities, national funds and private-sector actors, bringing the latest technological and methodological innovations together with AWF’s decades of conservation experience. It will keep a small senior core and scale through a pool of experts and partners, and it will act as a space for AWF to test new ways of working and share what it learns with the wider organisation.
SSG is at the very beginning. We are shaping its charter and operating model, building the expert and partner pool, and listening to AWF’s country and landscape teams about where support is most needed. A number of exciting early engagements are in discussion across the continent. This is a rare chance to be part of building something new at AWF from the ground up.
SSG’s approach to fellowships
SSG fellowships are project-based internships for students and recent graduates. We call them fellowships because they are not typical internships: each Fellow is given one defined piece of work with a clear beginning and end, specific deliverables, and a final product they can point to when they leave. The Fellow runs their workstream day to day with regular direction, coaching and quality assurance from the Senior Advisor. The intention is that the Fellow finishes with concrete, portfolio-worthy experience of helping to stand up a new advisory platform, rather than a record of shadowing or general support.
In practice this means: a written project brief agreed in the first two weeks; weekly check-ins and a monthly review against the deliverables; a named supervisor plus access to AWF colleagues and the SSG expert pool; a mid-point review at three months; and a final presentation of the project to the SSG and Office of the CEO team at the end of the six months.
Position Summary
The Fellow will lead the project management and operating toolkit for SSG’s launch . We are looking for a student or recent graduate with an engineering, operations or consulting background rather than a conservation generalist: someone who can turn a brief into a workplan, keep several workstreams moving, and build the templates and trackers that a new advisory platform runs on. The work is project-specific and will attach to whichever early engagements are confirmed, while building the systems SSG needs regardless of which projects go ahead.
Key responsibilities
- Build and maintain the workplan, milestone tracker and risk log for each SSG workstream and early engagement, including partner and client deliverables
- Track time, effort and cost against each workstream so SSG has real data for scoping, costing and cost sharing with donors and clients
- Develop SSG’s standard engagement toolkit: scoping template, costing model, proposal format, status report, handover and local ownership checklist
- Maintain the SSG opportunity pipeline tracker and the expert and partner pool database
- Prepare meeting materials, action logs and progress summaries for internal, partner and client meetings, and follow actions through to closure
- Support the operating model and charter work with process maps and decision trees for how work is scoped, resourced, contracted and governed
- Set up a simple learning and evidence log for each engagement (what was asked, what SSG delivered, what the client took forward, and early conservation and institutional results), so SSG can report on its success signals
- Research the latest technological and methodological tools relevant to SSG’s practice areas, and prepare short briefs when a workstream needs them
Expected deliverables
- Month 1: Project brief agreed; live workplans and trackers for active SSG workstreams and any confirmed engagement; weekly status format in place
- Month 2: Time and cost tracking model in use; first monthly SSG progress report
- Month 3: Engagement toolkit v1 (scoping, costing, proposal, status report, handover templates)
- Months 4 to 5: Pipeline tracker and expert and partner database live and maintained; toolkit tested on at least one engagement; learning and evidence log in use
- Month 6: SSG engagement playbook, handover report with recommendations for the next phase, and final presentation to the team
Required qualifications and skills
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering, industrial or systems engineering, operations management, business, economics or a related quantitative field
- Some practical exposure to consulting, project management, engineering delivery or operations, through internships, student projects or early work experience. Experience at a consulting firm or in a project management office is an advantage
- Structured problem solving and the ability to turn a loose brief into a workplan with owners and dates
- Good Excel (budgets, trackers, simple models) and PowerPoint; willingness to learn project tools such as Smartsheet or Asana
- Clear writing, and the confidence to follow up with senior colleagues and partners
- A self-starter who takes ownership of their work, asks for help when needed and follows through on commitments
- Interest in conservation, climate finance or working with African governments and institutions
- French is an advantage
Deadline: November 08, 2026