About the Organisation
SmartStart is a successful national network of NGOs & partners realising quality, affordable early learning for all 3-5 year olds — through scaling a network of providers, and achieving specific ecosystem transformations with governments and partners.
About the Job
The Senior Learning and Experiments Manager will lead SmartStart’s efforts to strengthen learning, adaptive management, and programme improvement through developmental evaluations and rapid experiments. The role focuses on synthesising insights to guide decision-making, fostering reflective practices, and cultivating a culture of continuous learning across the organisation. Unlike a traditional MERL role, it emphasises agile experimentation, iterative learning, and data-informed adaptation to enhance programme effectiveness.
Key Responsibilities
1. Designing and Leading Rapid Experiments & Nimble Evaluations
Together with the SDI team head, drive the design and execution of developmental evaluations and nimble experiments to improve effectiveness and responsiveness.
Develop and implement fit-for-purpose monitoring and evaluation frameworks that align with SmartStart’s strategic goals and learning priorities.
Establish and refine key performance indicators (KPIs) and feedback mechanisms to track programme progress and impact.
Support teams to design and implement rapid-cycle learning and experimentation processes to test and adapt programme models.
Ensure that evaluation findings and experimental insights are synthesised into actionable recommendations.
2. Strengthening Monitoring and Performance Measurement
Together with the SDI team head, drive the development and management of monitoring frameworks and tools to track programme performance and network-wide impact.
Enhance the use of data dashboards and performance reports to support real-time decision-making.
Enable data collection, analysis, and interpretation across SmartStart’s network.
Build capacity across teams to engage with performance data, identify gaps, and take corrective action.
Facilitate alignment between MERL frameworks and funder expectations, reporting needs, and organisational strategy.
3. Supporting Systems Thinking and Strategic Coherence
Synthesise data and insights to support leadership in sense-making, decision-making, and action-taking.
Enable teams to apply systems thinking approaches to understand complex programme dynamics and improve strategic alignment.
Promote coherence and alignment between monitoring, evaluation, learning, and strategy, seeking to ensure that SmartStart’s theory of change is embedded into how decisions are made.
4. Enhancing Data-Driven Decision-Making
Collaborate with the Data, Sense-Making, and Insights Team to strengthen data governance, integrity, and accessibility.
Support the development of data feedback loops that enable real-time learning and adaptation.
Build team and partner capacity to engage with and interpret data for programme improvement and strategic decision-making.
Ensure that MERL data is integrated into organisational decision-making and strategy development.
5. Supporting Network-Wide Adaptive Learning and Innovation
Co-create the conditions for network-wide rapid learning, iterative experimentation, and collective intelligence.
Drive the use of insights from MERL activities to inform programme design, scaling decisions, and innovation.
Develop feedback mechanisms to ensure that insights from experiments and evaluations are used to improve programme models.
Foster a culture of disciplined innovation and structured experimentation across the network.
Develop and implement mechanisms for capturing and sharing lessons learned across the organisation and network.
Requirements
Qualifications and Experience
Minimum master’s degree or equivalent in Monitoring & Evaluation, Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, or a related field.
At least 5 years of experience in MERL, developmental evaluation, and/or adaptive management in complex organisational contexts.
Experience conducting experiments/studies/evaluations (e.g. developmental evaluations, rapid-cycle experiments etc.)
Excellent English writing skills, with a proven ability to synthesise complex data into actionable insights for strategic decision-making.
Experience working with social impact organisations, programmes, or networks.
Advantageous: Fluency in one or more African languages.
Specific Knowledge and Skills
Expertise in developmental evaluation, adaptive management, and rapid-cycle learning.
Strong analytical and synthesis skills, with the ability to generate insights from complex data.
Knowledge of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) frameworks and tools.
Capacity to design and facilitate reflective practices, learning loops, and adaptive strategies.
Familiarity with systems thinking and strategic coherence approaches.
Strong stakeholder engagement and capacity-building skills.
Advantageous: Proficiency with data analysis and visualisation tools (e.g., Power BI) and Microsoft Dynamics 365 and/or similar CRM software.
General Knowledge & Understanding and/or Skills & Abilities:
Behaving & Learning
Behaving trustworthily: being reliable, accepting, open, congruent (i.e.. integrity)
Learning curiously, incl. learning how by doing differently
Clear curiosity (asking questions, questioning assumptions, doing differently, trying things)
Track record of learning
Openness to & appetite for feedback
Familiarity with and curiosity about
Societal scale
Systems doing-and-thinking
Design thinking & iterative designing
Driving to succeed
Commitment to SmartStart’s purpose and social justice internationally
Advantageous: experience in, or familiarity with, early learning, ECD, education, public health, etc.
Relating & Adapting
Building trusting relationships
Playing role(s)-across-contexts adaptively
Creating the conditions for and facilitating people’s thinking diversely and doing good work together
Co-building & communicating coherence unendingly
Reprioritising continually
Developing Self
Acknowledging one’s own relative strengths (& weaknesses)
Seeing & navigating rhetoric vs reality
Navigating ambiguity
Coping with stress caused by the above
To apply
To apply, email your application by Monday 3rd November 2025 to callum@actionappointments.co.za
