Principal Advisor, Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance (Remote - US, UK, Nigeria, Ethiopia, or France)

Resolve to Save Lives' Prevent Epidemics program works closely with Ministries of Health and national public health institutes in Africa to strengthen epidemic preparedness capacity, accelerate disease detection and response, and effectively use data to inform action. In addition to direct partnerships with governments, we also work with implementing partners, including the US CDC, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, to implement programs, prototype innovations, and ensure sustainability through increased national ownership, including domestic budget allocations.

Position Purpose:  

Despite decades of investment in public health surveillance infrastructure across Africa, a fundamental integration gap persists: data generated across disease programs, laboratory networks, emergency operations systems, and health facilities remains largely siloed. These systems were designed to serve individual programs, not to support the cross-cutting intelligence functions that effective epidemic preparedness and response require. When outbreaks emerge, the institutions responsible for detection and response are assembling a picture from fragmented, delayed, and inconsistent information — a structural limitation with direct consequences for decision-making speed and quality.  

Resolve to Save Lives works with six African countries to address this through Collaborative Surveillance: an approach that helps national public health institutes (NPHIs) and ministries of health (MOH) to build the integrated systems, governance frameworks, and institutional practices required to bring multisectoral data together in support of timely, evidence-based decision-making. The countries engaged in this work are navigating complex existing digital architectures, competing institutional mandates, constrained domestic financing, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape — including the introduction of artificial intelligence tools that require careful, context-sensitive judgment to deploy responsibly.  

The Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream is the point at which the technical and institutional dimensions of Collaborative Surveillance converge. It spans data architecture and engineering, interoperability standards, data governance and policy, product design and management, and the change management required to ensure that integrated systems are adopted and sustained. This is not a technology implementation role. It is a leadership role for a professional who understands technology deeply enough to guide strategic decisions — and understands public health systems and institutional change well enough to recognize that technology alone is never sufficient.  

We are seeking a Principal Advisor who brings demonstrated depth across both domains: a professional with direct experience supporting African governments through digital transformation, a working understanding of what it takes to build systems that endure beyond project cycles, and the credibility to engage as a peer with both senior government counterparts and technical specialists. The right candidate has led and developed teams, navigated complex multi-stakeholder environments, and exercised sound judgment under conditions of uncertainty.  

This full-time, remote position is for a fixed term of 2 years, with the possibility of extension. 

Core Duties and Responsibilities: 

This position reports to the Director of Epidemic Intelligence and manages a headquarters-based team with responsibilities for accompanying countries to bridge the gap between public health decision-making needs and the appropriate integrated data architecture.  

1. Workstream Vision and Leadership  

•    Provide strategic direction for the Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream, including articulating how RTSL's approach to data architecture fits within — and advances — the broader Collaborative Surveillance framework through supporting the design, adaptation, utilization, and integration of data systems with the aim of providing better intelligence for public health decision-making  

•    Translate technical concepts into accessible language for diverse audiences: national public health leaders, donors, WHO counterparts, and non-technical program staff.  

•    Represent the workstream externally in global technical forums, partnerships, and donor relationships.  

•    Serve as a senior thought partner to the Director of Epidemic Intelligence on global strategy, emerging trends in digital health and AI, and stakeholder positioning within and across countries  

•    Work collaboratively with other workstream leads to cohesively matrix responsibilities spanning between Data Use and Decision Science, in-country implementation, and our leadership and governance support to national public health institutes and Ministries of Health  

•    Identify emerging opportunities and risks in the digital health landscape — including developments in artificial intelligence — and advise on how these should shape RTSL's country support strategies.  

2. Team Management and Development  

•    Manage and develop a team of staff, including diverse roles across solutions architecture, data engineering, product development, and informatics.  

•    Foster a team culture of cross-disciplinary skills, grounded in a solutions-oriented and implementation focused approach — ensuring engineers and informatics staff (global and country-based) understand public health use cases, and can translate effectively public health use cases with appropriate technologies.  

•    Build clear expectations, delegate with appropriate authority, and create conditions for team members to produce high-quality work without unnecessary bottlenecks.  

•    Coach team members and country counterparts to develop skills in product thinking, systems design, and governance — not just technical execution.  

3. Country Strategy and In-Country Accompaniment  

•    Provide direct advisory support (accompaniment) to national public health institutes and ministries in pathfinder countries as they navigate decisions about data architecture, digital transformation, and data governance based on public health decision-making priorities and needs.  

•    Support the workstream staff members to work with country coordinators and government staff identify right solutions for their context — including when to build new systems, when to integrate existing ones, and how to establish governance structures that will sustain these investments. This work includes the need to balance political sensitivities and stakeholder management with technical approaches, including change management and demand generation  

•    Inform and quality-assure country-level strategies for Collaborative Surveillance Data Architecture (CSDA), building on existing country digital health and surveillance architectures where they exist, while identifying priorities for integration, optimization, systems mapping, and capacity strengthening.  

•    Support country-led efforts to address the governance implications of integrating data across disease programs and sectors, drawing on global standards, regional/country experience, and best practices to inform data-sharing policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, and institutional coordination mechanisms  

•    Advise on the responsible and context-appropriate use of artificial intelligence in surveillance systems, including both opportunities and risks.  

•    Support the development and implementation of a new curriculum for data architecture and engineering to provide scalable support to countries considering implementation of a digital platform supporting the implementation of Collaborative Surveillance. the Collaborative Surveillance Data Architecture (CSDA)  

4. Country and Cross-Workstream Coordination  

•    Serve as a coordination and learning hub across RTSL supported countries, connecting learning and needs with tools and approaches and fostering cross-country experience sharing and knowledge generation    

•    Collaborate with the Data Use and Decision Science workstream to ensure that technical architecture investments translate into actual improvements in how data is used for decisions; with data use cases informing the design and prioritization of system enhancements  

•    Work with the Legal and Leadership, Governance, and Financing teams to ensure that data governance frameworks are actionable at the country level and aligned with broader institutional governance strategies.  

5. Product and Implementation Oversight    

•    Apply product management, user-centered design, and software engineering principles to the workstream's technical outputs: setting priorities, managing iterative development, and ensuring that products are designed for and adopted by end users.  

•    Oversee quality and coherence of digital implementation across countries, drawing on RTSL's implementation toolkit and adapting approaches to different country contexts.  

•    Manage country-level program coordination responsibilities for at least one pathfinder country, including workplan management, contracting, and budget oversight.    

•    Track and communicate progress on workstream deliverables, managing upward to RTSL leadership and outward to donors and partners.  

Required Qualifications:  

Education:  

• Advanced degree in health informatics, computer science, data science, or a closely related field.  

Experience: 

• At least 10 years of experience at the intersection of digital health and public health in Africa, with demonstrated understanding of both the technical and institutional dimensions of health information systems
• Experience working directly with governments on implementation of digital transformation, surveillance system design, or health data governance.
• Experience in product design, product management or product leadership — defining and driving the development of digital tools or systems through iterative, user-centered processes.
• Demonstrated experience managing diverse teams, including direct supervision of technical staff.

• Experience with program management, budget management, and contracting in international development or global health contexts.

Skills & abilities: 

• Understanding of how artificial intelligence is being applied (and misapplied) in low- and middle-income country health systems, including practical judgment about when AI adds value and when it introduces risk. 

• Familiarity with integrated public health surveillance systems, including working knowledge of DHIS2 and integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) approaches.

• Familiarity with data architecture concepts — including data integration, interoperability, and data governance — sufficient to meaningfully guide strategy and challenge technical assumptions, without necessarily being an engineer.

• Strong leadership presence and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to build trust with senior government counterparts, navigate institutional complexity, and represent RTSL credibly in global technical spaces.

• Fluency in English; proficiency in French or Portuguese is an asset.

Other: 

• Ability and willingness to travel up to 30%

Strongly Preferred Qualifications: 

• Familiarity with data governance frameworks and legal/policy dimensions of health data, including data sharing agreements and institutional governance for multi-sector data systems.  

• Experience applying and facilitating design thinking methodologies and Agile implementation approaches to co-design and co-develop solutions with government counterparts.

• Experience with change management in large institutional or government settings.

• Familiarity with emerging trends in global health financing for digital health and surveillance, and experience positioning technical programs with bilateral or multilateral donors. 

Compensation and Benefits: 

Resolve to Save Lives prides itself on cultivating a supportive, connected remote team doing work that matters. We do everything possible to ensure our employees are connected and set up for success.    

The starting salary range for this position is $140,000 to $158,000 annually. The exact offer will be determined by various factors, such as the candidate's skills and experience relative to the requirements of the role. For applicants based outside the US, salaries are set according to national labor rates for the international NGO sector.

In addition to a competitive salary, Resolve to Save Lives provides a generous package of benefits, including:   

• Health insurance for you and your dependents  

• Contributions toward retirement   

• Paid annual leave and sick leave, in addition to public holidays  

• Two paid, week-long organization-wide breaks at mid-year and end-of-year   

• Professional development and home office setup benefits  

• Up-to-date computer equipment