Chief Academics and Innovation Officer

The context: 

Across the developing world, more children than ever are in school – but they are not learning. A recent study estimated that less than 1% of school children in Sub-Saharan Africa attend a school where the teaching meets basic standards of quality. At Rising Academies, we’re changing that, and we want your help. Our mission is to create the best schools and the most powerful teaching and learning tools for the people that need it most. We’re one of the fastest-growing quality-focused education companies in Africa, and a Certified B Corp®. 

About us:

Founded in Sierra Leone in 2014, we’ve spent over a decade developing a unique blend of high-tech and low-tech solutions that dramatically improve learning outcomes and strengthen teaching quality at scale. Across seven rigorous randomized controlled trials, students in Rising-supported schools have learned, on average, 2.4x faster each year than their peers in comparable schools.

Today, we support more than 400,000 students across 1,400 public schools in West and East Africa, working alongside governments to strengthen teaching and learning at scale. Our approach combines structured curriculum, ongoing coaching for teachers and school leaders, and real-time data to drive consistent improvements in classrooms and across every level of public education systems.

Our model is designed to be practical and scalable. We work with and through government systems, adapting our level of support to each context - from hands-on implementation to system-level quality assurance - ensuring that improvements are sustainable and cost-effective over time.

Technology and AI play an important role in this work, not as standalone products, but as tools that strengthen delivery, lower the cost of implementation, and help systems continuously improve at scale. You can learn more about our solutions here: https://www.risingacademies.com/oursolutions

About the role:

We seek an exceptional and seasoned leader to join our senior leadership team as Chief Academics and Innovation Officer (CAIO). As Chief Academics and Innovation Officer, you are the chief architect and steward of Rising's portfolio of offerings. You will be accountable for the vision, design, quality, standards, and evolution, ensuring our offerings can deliver measurable improvements in learning at scale across diverse partnerships while remaining coherent, evidence-based, scalable and affordable. You decide what scales, what stays experimental, and what stops. 

The ideal candidate will build and lead an integrated team of academics, digital and data specialists who design, build and test the systems that help governments deliver better learning at scale.

The Chief Academics and Innovation Officer will:
- Own and shape Rising's partnerships into a coherent portfolio of high-quality offerings, with clear standards and guidance for contextual adaptation. 
- Drive evidence-based product R&D by running a structured, transparent decision-making process, working closely with implementation teams, prioritizing  impact, scalability and affordability. Decide what is ready to scale, what stays experimental and what stops. 
- Ensure AI and emerging third-party solutions are rigorously evaluated and integrated only where they genuinely improve the quality and/or affordability of Rising’s offerings while strengthening human capability.
- Equip teachers, school leaders and system leaders with the digitally-enabled tools they need to  drive continuous learning and improvement.
- Oversee the design and adoption of a simple, cost-effective impact measurement framework that informs decision-making by senior leaders, country teams, and program leads across stages of scale.
- Ensure Rising has the capabilities and structured approach needed to co-design and test third party solutions with governments, in order to evidence what works in classrooms and public education systems. 
- Build research collaborations that strengthen Risi