As a Senior Manager, you are responsible for building and managing relationships with a broad range of stakeholders (e.g. mobile network operators, grantees etc...) in order to identify and catalyse strategic opportunities and to develop, support and ensure the delivery of initiatives that align with the programme’s core objectives. You may have line management responsibilities of one or more market engagement managers.
Department: External Affairs
Team: AI for Impact, SDG Accelerator
Location: London with hybrid working
Position type: FTC until 31 March 2028, Full-time
What the hiring manager says
"In an era where AI's transformative power is rewriting industries, this role offers a unique opportunity to support democratisation of AI in low-middle income countries. Your role will be pivotal in driving the development and adoption of cutting-edge, innovative technologies and ensuring that no-one is left behind in capturing the positive benefits of AI. While supporting the mobile operators in this fast-moving space, you will also ensure ethical principles are at the heart of your work and deliver responsible AI by design. You will be part of a diverse team that is committed to foster AI innovation whilst also prioritising societal well-being, making a tangible impact on how AI shapes our world."
Mojca Cargo, AI for Impact Director
About the Team
The GSMA founded the AI for Impact initiative in 2017, to drive collaboration with partners across the public and private sector to commercially scale AI while protecting privacy and implementing ethics by design. Working with AI Leads from 29 mobile operators accounting for over 2 billion connections in 100+ countries and a network of global thought leaders from UN agencies, governments, international organisations, academia and private sector. The GSMA also facilitates collaboration and knowledge sharing for a sound policy and regulatory environment and has been invited to support various regional and global AI initiatives and coalitions (OECD, UNESCO, AI Verify Foundation, etc).
About the Role
You will be at the forefront of democratising AI in emerging markets and you will kick off a new programme of work funded by donors. In the first 6 months, you will start activities in one country to develop and test a particular AI application, plus in parallel gather global research and insights. Based on which you will subsequently develop a multi-year programme across the Asia-Pacific and African regions until March 2028.
For example, one of the first projects you will lead is to define the steps involved to build a Small/ Large language model (S/LLM) in a local language and validate these by working with a mobile operator to deliver an in-country pilot. From which you will capture learnings to replicate the approach in other markets, with the aim to develop a blueprint that can be adopted widely.
You will engage a cross-functional team of GSMA experts and consultants, to define technology roadmaps, undertake market research, build educational programmes and create blueprints to define replicable, scalable approaches. You will further recruit and manage two market engagement leads that will help you deliver the longer-term programme activities.
You will be working in a matrix-structured team, reporting into the AI for Impact Director, whilst delivering the activities in close collaboration with and under the oversight of the Mobile for Development team. You will collaborate with other subject matter experts across the GSMA to deliver donor-funded projects to democratise AI in emerging markets. This includes colleagues in the Mobile for Development, Technology, Advocacy and Marketing departments, as well as our regional offices.
Furthermore, you will work closely with global, regional and local partners from across the AI landscape to shape and deliver these activities. You will further attract relevant consulting and other advisory support to deliver ground-breaking research, develop cutting-edge projects plus monitor and evaluate impact and outcomes.
About You
You are passionate about digital innovations and their transformative role in business, society and public sector. You have demonstrable experience in developing and researching AI and/ or other relevant digital technologies. You have worked in the telecoms sector or adjacent industries, in subjects covering AI, technology innovations, and impact.
You have a good knowledge of the broader AI landscape, and ideally have undertaken market engagement activities and digital innovation projects with private sector and NGOs in emerging markets.
You understand how to engage various stakeholders within the AI eco-system, at national, regional and international levels; through workshops, co-creation activities, and high-level conversations.
You are familiar with responsible design practices and have affinity with considering ethical principles and their implications across the product cycle and relevant business processes.
You have excellent cultural awareness and a desire to work with teams around the world.
You are able to work in a small team and to show the necessary flexibility to ensure the collective job gets done, and that resource gaps are filled when and where necessary.
You have experience in delivering results both through individual contribution and through leading culturally diverse, collaborative teams.
Capabilities:
You are a quick learner and have strong technical acumen that enables you to oversee the development of new AI applications, such as the creation of LLM in a local language;
You have good understanding of the key steps involved to develop AI innovations (e.g. data collection, preprocessing, cleaning, etc); model selection and training set up and; fine tuning, evaluation and optimisation; and deployment.
You have worked to develop technology programmes in emerging countries and have a thorough understanding of AI and data analytics use cases that are relevant to the mobile industry both internally and especially externally.
A highly motivated individual, you can manage projects and drive them through to completion with the ability to handle multiple tasks at the same time
You have experience in managing small teams and providing oversight as well as day-to-day support to external contractors
You have excellent presentation skills, with an ability to influence stakeholders, negotiate shared objectives, and keep them accountable to commitments made. You have significant experience in
Contract type
Fixed Term Contract (Fixed Term)
Worker type
Employee
What We Offer
Working at the GSMA offers you unparalleled access to the mobile industry. We offer a chance to truly shape the direction of mobile, whatever your role. By joining the GSMA, you will be exposed to a fast-paced rapidly evolving environment, working on global solutions, genuinely fascinating and industry-changing projects and a stimulating and dynamic environment designed to enable you to flourish.
In addition to architect-designed offices and competitive compensation, our benefits include fantastic learning & development opportunities, generous holiday allowances, four additional days off for professional development and many others.
To learn more about the GSMA, visit our career site, our LinkedIn page and our Twitter page.
Being You at the GSMA
We care deeply about diversity, equity and inclusivity and aspire to be the best at it. Your well-being and work/life balance is important, so flexi-time and remote working is available to all staff. We're keen to ensure everyone is equal, represented and connected so we particularly encourage applications from all demographics. The sucess of the GSMA year on year will continue to be contributed by people from all walks of life.
GSMA Values
Our values not only drive our culture – they shape how we work and interact inside and outside our global organisation.
Passionately driven
We approach everything we do with unparalleled capability, tenacity and commitment, knowing that the challenging scale, pace and complexity of our work is what leads to its world-changing impact.
Insightful leaders
We continually develop and engage our expertise, insight and creativity so that we’re always ready to respond to the changing landscape with authority, agility and nuance.
Stronger together
We lean on each other so the industry can lean on us, embracing our diversity by actively seeking out perspectives and skill sets beyond our own, fuelling each other’s successes and constantly asking how we can help.
Underpinning our values is our collective mindset to show up purposefully as good human beings every day, in every situation. When we’re at our best – we are collaborative, considerate and compassionate to others, and we create a safe space for one another to thrive, assuming positive intent in our colleagues. And if we aren’t at our best and the pressure is on – we feel free to be ourselves but still remain curious, lean into the tough stuff and we are always respectful to others and accountable for the part we play.
