Job Description

MANAGING DIRECTOR: NOVA PIONEER SOUTH AFRICA

Johannesburg, South Africa | Full Time | Executive Leadership

ABOUT THE ROLE

Nova Pioneer is looking for an outstanding Managing Director to lead our South Africa network of nine schools, our talented senior team, and a mission we have spent more than a decade building. This is the most senior role in the South African organisation and one of the most consequential leadership roles across Nova Pioneer globally. It offers a rare chance to lead at scale, shape a thriving network, and work alongside ambitious leaders as part of an international organisation with a growing footprint across multiple countries.

The Managing Director of South Africa is the chief executive of the Nova Pioneer SA network. The MD is responsible for Nova Pioneer’s commercial performance, educational excellence and cultural health across our South African network of nine schools (and growing!). The MD leads an exceptional senior team of educators and operators to achieve those outcomes in pursuit of our mission: to develop innovators and leaders for the African Century.

Over the next 3 years, the MD’s first mandate will be enrolment growth and market leadership. The MD, with the support of the CEO, is charged with getting a network of genuinely strong schools to the enrolment density, operational efficiency, and reputational distinctiveness their quality deserves, while ensuring we consistently deliver the Nova Pioneer educational promise with excellence. The right person for this role is inspired by the mission, excited by the commercial opportunity and a strong team and culture leader. They understand that profitability and educational excellence are not in tension; one enables the other.

ABOUT NOVA PIONEER

Imagine a world in which every young person across Africa attends a school that truly sets them up for success and contribution in the 21st century. A school that cares about individual students and allows them to explore the world around them. A school that focuses more on developing skills than on memorising content. Now imagine not just one school doing this, but a whole network of sibling schools doing this, connected to other schools across Africa that share that same promise and DNA. At Nova Pioneer, we have done more than just imagine this future, we are bringing it to life. Nova Pioneer is a pan-African, independent network of schools offering high quality, accessible education from pre-primary through secondary school. Nova Pioneer uses a unique, enquiry-based learning approach that encourages students to ask “why” instead of telling them the “what”. It allows them to form their own thinking through exploration, investigation and collaboration. Nova Pioneer currently has 16 schools in South Africa and Kenya with a vision to serve tens of thousands of students across the African continent in the next decade. To learn more visit www.novapioneer.com

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

People and Culture

• Consistently role-model and actively reinforce Nova Pioneer’s culture principles across all schools and central functions. Ensure culture is lived, not stated, by embedding expectations into daily leadership behaviours, decision-making, and team norms.
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing regional leadership team (School Leaders and Functional Leads). Ensure clarity of roles, strong accountability, and alignment to regional and organisational priorities.
• Partner closely with the Director of Schools (DOS) to ensure consistent, high-quality performance management of School Leaders and instructional leadership teams.
• Drive strong staff retention through proactive engagement, development, and performance-based recognition. Build and maintain a robust talent pipeline across teaching and leadership roles, ensuring succession readiness for critical positions and alignment to regional growth plans.
• Continuously strengthen and evolve culture in response to organisational growth and regional context, while protecting the core identity of Nova Pioneer. Lead initiatives that reinforce key culture themes and ensure they are embedded in schools and teams.
• Oversee systems to regularly assess cultural health across all schools and functions (e.g., engagement surveys, retention data, performance insights, qualitative feedback). Identify risks early and lead targeted interventions to address gaps and sustain a high-performance, values-aligned environment.

Financial Performance and Profitability

• Financial performance ownership across all nine schools in South Africa
• EBITDA improvement through enrolment growth, cost discipline, operational efficiency, and delivering sustained profit growth
• Budget preparation, management and financial reporting to the CEO, CFO and the board
• Capex allocation decisions within agreed parameters
• Facilities oversight: scheduling efficiency, usage maximisation, and capital appeal; lease matters supported by CFO, CEO, and Facilities Manager

Enrolment and Commercial Growth

• Network-wide enrolment strategy and execution
• Retention of existing families by identifying risk early and responding effectively
• New family acquisition by positioning, marketing, admissions pipeline
• Pricing strategy in partnership with CEO
• Community positioning and brand in the SA market
• Parent engagement as a driver of family retention and new referrals

Educational Quality

• Accountability for student outcomes across the network in partnership with the South Africa DOS (Director of Schools manages the academic and school health across the portfolio of schools) and with educational leaders from our Kenyan and/or global teams.
• Ensuring commercial focus does not compromise educational integrity
• Supporting the instructional and curriculum leadership layer to thrive
• Championing (including resource allocation) the delivery of our promise, and particularly market leadership in Innovation & Leadership, and developing beyond-classroom opportunities

Stakeholder Relationships

• Parent community trust and confidence
• Government and regulatory relationships and deliverables
• Landlord and property relationships
• Community partnerships

Strategic Planning

• Annual and multi-year SA strategy in partnership with the CEO
• School-level growth plans and capex needs
• Input into network-wide decisions affecting SA
• Network expansion planning (site feasibility, location assessment, and growth viability for new schools)

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

Experience

• Senior leadership in a multi-site commercial operation (school networks, retail, hospitality, healthcare, or similar people-intensive business with multiple locations)
• Direct income statement and capex expenditure ownership and accountability at a country or regional level
• Demonstrated enrolment or revenue growth in a competitive market
• Experience leading in the South African context (regulatory environment, labour law, community dynamics ) is an advantage but not a requirement
• Education sector experience is an advantage but not a requirement; genuine respect for educational mission is non-negotiable

Capabilities

• Commercial sharpness: reads financial data fluently, makes decisions from evidence, holds teams accountable to numbers without losing the human dimension
• Relational intelligence: builds trust quickly with diverse stakeholders including educators, parents, landlords, and government
• Emotional intelligence: leads with self-awareness and empathy, managing a complex organisation without losing the human dimension
• Presence and communication: credible and warm in a room, able to hold difficult conversations without losing relationship
• Operational discipline: sets up sustainable and scalable systems and rhythms that work without needing constant personal intervention
• Strategic clarity: can hold the long view while managing day-to-day complexity
• Change leadership: has led teams through uncertainty and kept morale and performance intact

Personal Qualities

• Excited by the mission and impact
• Comfortable with complexity and ambiguity
• Names problems early and directly and holds difficult conversations without letting discomfort delay them.
• Open to learning; genuinely curious about what it takes to run great schools and lead in the South African context
• Leads teams to find and implement solutions to problems with a strong bias for action. Good work done today beats a perfect concept for tomorrow.
• High standards for self and others
• Culturally attuned to the SA context and the specific communities Nova Pioneer serves
• A stable and grounding presence for a team
• Aligns strongly with and models Nova Pioneer's culture principles
• Balances the humility to listen and learn from the team with the confidence to lead from the front

REPORTING AND STRUCTURE

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer

Direct reports: Directors of Schools SA, Functional Leads in SA

COMPENSATION

Competitive for a senior country MD role in the South African independent education market. Details available during the selection process.

HOW TO APPLY

Does leading Nova Pioneer South Africa excite you? If so, apply now.

To apply, please complete the application form on our careers page. We cannot process applications submitted by email.

Please attach your resume in PDF format to protect formatting.

All applications will be reviewed and candidates notified of next steps. The Nova Pioneer interview process has a series of stages and candidates will be moved forward depending on their success at each stage. The process is as follows:

• Introductory conversation: A short call to understand your experience and interest in the role.
• Performance Task: Diagnostic exercises: practical tasks aligned to the specific demands of this role.
• Stakeholder scenario interview: In-person or virtual interviews with the hiring committee, including a scenario exercise to test judgment, relational intelligence, and values alignment.
• School visit and interview day: every shortlisted candidate spends a day in one of our SA schools and meets with a cross-section of regional leaders across the network.

Final interview: A final conversation with the CEO

WORKING AT NOVA PIONEER

Nova Pioneer is a place where our people experience tremendous growth, fast. We invest heavily in the growth of our people because it leads to greater mastery in both us and our students. Teammates work hard and the growth they experience is extraordinary.

Nova Pioneer has a highly energetic, entrepreneurial environment where our people get to bring creative and innovative ideas to life. We look for people who are flexible, adaptable, and respond to adversity with a positive, can-do attitude. We welcome challenges because they make us (and our students) better. We bring infectious energy and enthusiasm to everything we do because joy fuels our work and learning.

Nova Pioneer will never request an application fee from candidates. If you are contacted with a request to pay a fee from someone claiming to be a Nova Pioneer Talent or Recruitment representative, please do not pay them and report it to us immediately on talent.ke@novapioneer.com or talent.sa@novapioneer.com