Senior Supply Chain Advisor

Role is open to candidates based in Africa only.

Amid increasing disruptions to global supply chains and shifts in the global aid financing landscape, the Senior Supply Chain Advisor (SSCA) will provide strategic leadership to help ensure reliable access to safe abortion commodities, contraceptives, and gender-based violence management supplies across development and humanitarian contexts. This role will strengthen supply availability through formal health systems and self-care pathways by establishing and enhancing global technical tools, processes, monitoring mechanisms, and partnerships that contribute to a sustainable abortion ecosystem. Effective supply chain management is a critical pillar for building resilient, responsive, and equitable pathways to care.

Summary of Responsibilities

The SSCA serve as subject matter expert for global health supply chain technical issues, in areas such as quantification, forecasting, procurement, storage and distribution and inventory management, logistics management information systems (LMIS), health systems strengthening, budgeting and financial management, driving and analyzing supply chain performance, and program effectiveness.

The role is expected to translate technical expertise into practical tools, country support, and partnership strategies that reduce supply interruptions and improve visibility, availability, and responsible use of reproductive health commodities.

Organizational Leadership and Strategy:

• Lead the Ipas supply chain management approach across the network by ensuring that evidence and best practice inform strategies and efforts to sustain the availability of abortion and contraception drugs across the different pathways to care.

Program, technical, and functional responsibilities: 

• Provide technical leadership and support to strengthen sexual and reproductive health commodity supply chains at global, regional, and country levels across the pathways to care
• Support countries to assess gaps in reproductive health commodity systems and implement corrective actions.
• Improve forecasting, quantification, procurement, warehousing, distribution, transportation, quality assurance, and logistics management information systems for abortion and contraception commodities.
• Design and optimize supply chain strategies, tools, and frameworks for SRH commodities in partnership with country programs, governments, and partners to speed up product flow.
• Build national capacity through training, mentoring, curricula development, and knowledge transfer for supply chain staff and stakeholders.
• Strengthen partnerships with national, regional, and international experts, institutions, and partner organizations to advance RH supply chain systems.
• Promote evidence-based approaches, lessons learned, innovation, and increase data visibility and use for continuous improvement of supply chain performance and operations.
• Establish quality assurance, sustainability assessment, monitoring, evaluation frameworks, and KPIs to track supply chain performance globally.
• Mitigate supply chain disruptions through risk management, contingency planning, supplier diversification, and compliance with regulatory standards.
• Foster innovation in procurement, market shaping, inventory management, distribution, and technology-enabled global stock management, including in crisis-affected settings.
• Contribute to the regional advocacy efforts to integrate abortion commodities in essential medicine lists (EML), including supporting the registration and marketing authorization of abortion commodities.
• Capitalize on private sector supply chain capacity and knowledge for innovative packaging, distribution, and user experience documentation.
• Lead monitoring and evidence synthesis on the safety and quality of abortion commodities used locally in order to contribute to external collective efforts of pharmacovigilance.

Resource mobilization:

• Contribute to project design, proposal development, and opportunity prospecting for supply chain strengthening initiatives.
• Participate in donor and partner calls to ensure supply chain needs, priorities, and progress are effectively represented across the Ipas network.
• Assist procurement and contracting team with product quality assurance assessments and vendor certification vetting.
• Coordinate and support financial review of global supply chain strengthening initiatives and projects

Communications & representation:

• Lead efforts to highlight, advance, and advocate for abortion supply planning priorities by engaging supply chain coalitions and working groups, international NGOs, multilateral partners—including UN agencies, the World Bank Group, WHO—and donors to collaborate on and inform global abortion supply planning.
• Contribute to evidence generation and knowledge sharing on reproductive health supply chains across countries, regional networks, technical forums, and international conferences.

Position Requirements

• Deep commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights, especially abortion and contraception access
• Significant experience in key areas of supply chain system assessment approaches and tools, forecasting and quantification methods and tools, procurement processes, inventory control and distribution systems, and management information systems.
• Experience working with private sector partners, including pharmacies, community distribution systems, and digital health platforms.
• Professional-level fluency in English
• Proven ability to lead and motivate teams and foster a positive work environment through supportive supervision, effective communication, shared leadership, and modeling of organizational core values.
• Demonstrated capacity and commitment to sound stewardship of funds, including strong skills in work planning, budgeting, financial monitoring, and data-driven problem solving.
• Proven ability to build positive working relationships with diverse internal teams and external partners.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and sound judgment skills, with the ability to identify and resolve policy and operational constraints.
• Demonstrated proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite applications, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.
• Excellent knowledge of and experience working with country and/or regional health system entities.

Education

Advanced degree (master’s or equivalent) in public health, supply chain management, logistics, health system strengthening, pharmacy, or related medical field

Experience

• Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience in global health supply chain management, with a strong focus on reproductive health commodity supply chains.
• Strong quantitative analysis and forecasting skills, cross-cultural diplomacy, and experience working in low-resource or humanitarian settings.
• Demonstrated experience providing technical assistance to global health programs.
• Demonstrated experience in global health commodity supply chain management.
• Knowledge of technical issues related to global health commodity procurement.
• Demonstrated ability in strategic planning, program management, and implementation in low- and middle-income countries.
• Experience working on sustainable commodity access programs.
• Experience facilitating training and providing technical assistance to country teams, including through remote support

• This position is fully remote, subject to change based on business need.  
• Flexibility to meet virtually in different time zones required.
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 25% of the time internationally, including in crisis settings

Salary grade for this role is S2. Compensation for this position will be determined on the hiring country's prevailing market rate in addition to Ipas's own pay philosophy and other factors, such as the employee's experience level and expertise. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working on WHO pre-qualification process with WHO-Listed Authorities, National Regulatory Authorities, and private sector.
• Excellent knowledge of Logistics Management Information Systems, including e-LMIS, DHIS2, VAN, and Power BI.
• Proficiency with at least one Ipas working language, such as French, Portuguese, or Spanish.

Ipas is strongly committed to providing a work environment that is free from all forms of harassment, discrimination, and inequity.  We recruit, employ, train, promote, and compensate our personnel without regard to race, age, sex, religion, national origin, color, creed, ancestry, citizenship, caste, ethnicity, regional identity, tribal identity, marital status, veteran status, disability, genetic information, gender identity, transgender status, sexual orientation, or any other personal characteristic protected by law or outlined by Ipas policy. Ipas acknowledges that these personal characteristics may differ in different contexts.