Chief Program Officer

**Location:** Nairobi, Kenya

**Reports to:** Chief Executive Officer

## **About SHOFCO**

SHOFCO was born in 2004 in Kibera when Kennedy Odede, who grew up in the community, saved 20 cents from factory wages to buy a soccer ball. After the games, neighbors gathered to talk about what they were living through. From those conversations, a movement grew.

Twenty years later, SHOFCO reaches 2.5 million people across 40 of Kenya's 47 counties. It runs the largest network of community social groups in the country, the SHOFCO Urban Network (SUN), with more than 2 million members. It is the largest non-government provider of girls' scholarships in Kenya. It operates the first aerial water piping system ever built in an informal settlement, serving 37,500 people daily.

And it is on track to become the first licensed water company ever to serve an informal settlement in Kenyan history.

SHOFCO has won the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the world's largest humanitarian award. Kennedy Odede was named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in 2024 and received the United Nations Nelson Mandela Prize in 2025. These recognitions reflect two decades of evidence that community-led change, done with rigor and at scale, works.

## **The Moment You're Joining**

SHOFCO is in the middle of its most ambitious expansion to date. Two flagship programs, each backed by $60 million in long-term investment, are running simultaneously. The Integrated Investment in Vulnerable Children (IIVC), supported by the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, is targeting 181,000 children in education, the management of 100,000 GBV cases, and clean water access for 100,000 new users across 15 high-need counties. Youth Voice and Empowerment (YVE), supported by the Mastercard Foundation, is engaging 2.1 million young people in civic life and aims to place close to a million of them in dignified work by the end of its five-year term.

At the same time, SUN is scaling across every county in Kenya, building toward a national civic organizing platform that currently gives 2.5 million community members the organized power to hold government accountable, shape county budgets, and win on the issues that matter most to their lives. In 2025 alone, SUN-led advocacy was instrumental in the removal of a KES 1,000 fee on lost National IDs and bringing youth mental health into Kenya's Universal Health Coverage framework.

The CPO is the executive who makes all of this real. This is not a strategy role, a fundraising role, or an externally-facing one. SHOFCO's CEO and Advancement team carry the funder relationships and external positioning. The CPO carries delivery: building and running the operational machinery that turns community power into measurable change at scale.

This is a role for someone who is as comfortable sitting with a program director to interrogate a lagging indicator as they are reading a quarterly MEL report or navigating a WASH licensing process with the county water authority. The CPO's credibility comes from deep technical competence in program delivery, financial management, and evidence systems, not from speaking at conferences or writing thought pieces.

You will be the executive most responsible and accountable for whether SHOFCO meets its multi-year commitments to:

- 181,000+ children kept in school
- Hundreds of thousands of children protected from violence
- Clean, affordable water for 100,000 households
- Close to 1 million young people placed in dignified work
- A national civic network that shapes how Kenya is governed

## **The Portfolio You Will Lead**

SHOFCO's programs are integrated by design. A girl stays in school because she also has access to clean water, a safe home environment, and a mother with enough economic stability to keep her enrolled. The CPO is accountable for the quality, delivery, and continuous improvement of all five program areas.

### **SHOFCO Urban Network (SUN)**

SUN is not a program in the traditional sense. It is SHOFCO's theory of change manifested. With more than 2.5 million members across 40 counties, SUN organizes communities to set their own agendas, elect their own leadership, and collectively demand accountability from government at every level.

In 2025, SUN held 41,000 youth forums reaching 1.2 million young people. Advocacy coordinated through SUN removed the KES 1,000 National ID fee, a policy win that directly benefited millions. A Youth Agenda presented to the Council of Governors brought mental health into Kenya's Universal Health Coverage framework. Twenty-nine county governments incorporated community priorities into their development plans.

The CPO's mandate for SUN is not just scale. It is power: ensuring that the 2.5+ million organized members translate into a coordinated civic force that shapes how Kenya is governed at community, county, and national levels.

### **Education**

SHOFCO is the largest non-government scholarship provider in Kenya. The Education program cur