Director of Policy and Advocacy – Digital Inclusion

Department: Mobile for Development

Team: Digital Inclusion

Location: London

Position type: Fixed Term Contract until March 2028

What the hiring manager says

“This role is a unique opportunity to support governments, the mobile industry and others to drive digital inclusion of the unconnected and advance digital gender equality in low- and middle-income countries. As the Director Digital Inclusion Policy and Advocacy, you will lead a team that truly drives impact on the global stage and at the national level in a sector that has a profound impact on billions of lives.”

Claire Sibthorpe – Head of Digital Inclusion, M4D

About the Team

GSMA Mobile for Development (M4D) is a global team within the GSMA, which brings together our mobile operator members, tech innovators, the development community and governments, to realise the impact of mobile in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/

Through the GSMA Connected Society programme, Connected Women programme, and the Women in Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF), the Digital Inclusion team has been working closely with the mobile industry, policymakers and a wide range of other partners on digital inclusion of the underserved across LMICs, as well as financial inclusion of women. The team also conducts industry-leading research on digital inclusion challenges and opportunities, such as the annual State of Mobile Internet Connectivity Report and the Mobile Gender Gap Report.

About the Role

The Director of Policy and Advocacy will lead a team to advance digital inclusion policies in low- and middle-income countries. This includes developing advocacy campaigns and engaging a diverse group of stakeholders at the global and national level, such as multilateral organisations and national governments. Policy topics include barriers to mobile internet use such as affordability and digital skills, expanding mobile broadband coverage in remote areas, and bridging the gender digital divide. Your work will focus on the digital inclusion of a broad range of underserved communities (e.g. women, rural, urban-poor) primarily in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Key roles and responsibilities include the following:

• You will develop and deliver an overall public policy and advocacy strategy for the Connected Society and Connected Women programmes on digital inclusion, ensuring delivery to time, quality, budget, and monitoring impact.
• You and your team will conduct policy and regulatory research and author public content that will become the reference materials for policymakers and private sector actors in the digital inclusion space. The focus will be on key issues such as mobile broadband coverage, affordability of handsets and data bundles, digital skills, relevant content, online safety and security as well as gender equality.
• You will lead a team to support policymakers and regulators in priority markets on the best approaches to accelerate adoption and use of mobile products and services by underserved population groups. This includes providing technical assistance, delivering capacity building or trainings, and helping organise multi-stakeholder workshops or dialogues.
• You and your team will identify and develop new partnerships with international organisations while maintaining existing ones to further advance our leading position on digital inclusion and gender equality policy.
• You will be responsible for written contributions for various consultations, meetings, events and other policy processes. You and your team will maintain advocacy messages, input into briefings and author speeches or talking points for senior management. You will ensure that all submissions and messaging related to digital inclusion and gender equality are in line with GSMA policy positions.
• You will ensure effective collaboration with internal stakeholders, such as the GSMA policy teams, our regional offices, and other Mobile for Development programmes.
• You will manage a team to deliver the above.

About You

We welcome applications from professionals with the following qualifications:

• Significant experience working on digital and/or telecommunication policy and regulatory issues.
• Proven policy research and advisory experience, and a track record of engagement with senior officials at national or international level.
• Experience developing strategy and leading teams to deliver impact.
• Outstanding written communications skills, including the ability to structure and tailor complex content into clear messaging for different stakeholder audiences.
• Strong project management skills, ability to work independently, entrepreneurial and organised to deliver high impact outputs. 
• Ability to work across different cultures with senior officials, policy professionals and other partners.
• Experience working in low- and middle-income market contexts is desired.
• Experience working on gender equality is an asset.
• Ability to communicate in French is an asset.

Contract type

Worker type

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.