Principal Advisor, Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance (Remote - US, UK, Nigeria, Ethiopia, or France)

Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) is a global health organization that partners locally and globally to create and scale solutions to the world’s deadliest health threats. Millions of people die from preventable health threats. We collaborate to close the gap between proven, life-saving solutions and the people who need them. Since 2017, we’ve worked with governments and other partners in more than 60 countries to save millions of lives. We work toward a future where people live longer, healthier lives, communities flourish, and economies thrive. This is an ambitious vision, and it inspires us and our partners to make progress every day. Resolve to Save Lives' Prevent Epidemics program works closely with Ministries of Health and national public health institutes in Africa to strengthen epidemic preparedness capacity, accelerate disease detection and response, and effectively use data to inform action. In addition to direct partnerships with governments, we also work with implementing partners, including the US CDC, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator, to implement programs, prototype innovations, and ensure sustainability through increased national ownership, including domestic budget allocations. Position Purpose: Despite decades of investment in public health surveillance infrastructure across Africa, a fundamental integration gap persists: data generated across disease programs, laboratory networks, emergency operations systems, and health facilities remains largely siloed. These systems were designed to serve individual programs, not to support the cross-cutting intelligence functions that effective epidemic preparedness and response require. When outbreaks emerge, the institutions responsible for detection and response are assembling a picture from fragmented, delayed, and inconsistent information — a structural limitation with direct consequences for decision-making speed and quality. Resolve to Save Lives works with six African countries to address this through Collaborative Surveillance: an approach that helps national public health institutes (NPHIs) and ministries of health (MOH) to build the integrated systems, governance frameworks, and institutional practices required to bring multisectoral data together in support of timely, evidence-based decision-making. The countries engaged in this work are navigating complex existing digital architectures, competing institutional mandates, constrained domestic financing, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape — including the introduction of artificial intelligence tools that require careful, context-sensitive judgment to deploy responsibly. The Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream is the point at which the technical and institutional dimensions of Collaborative Surveillance converge. It spans data architecture and engineering, interoperability standards, data governance and policy, product design and management, and the change management required to ensure that integrated systems are adopted and sustained. This is not a technology implementation role. It is a leadership role for a professional who understands technology deeply enough to guide strategic decisions — and understands public health systems and institutional change well enough to recognize that technology alone is never sufficient. We are seeking a Principal Advisor who brings demonstrated depth across both domains: a professional with direct experience supporting African governments through digital transformation, a working understanding of what it takes to build systems that endure beyond project cycles, and the credibility to engage as a peer with both senior government counterparts and technical specialists. The right candidate has led and developed teams, navigated complex multi-stakeholder environments, and exercised sound judgment under conditions of uncertainty. This full-time, remote position is for a fixed term of 2 years, with the possibility of extension. Core Duties and Responsibilities: This position reports to the Director of Epidemic Intelligence and manages a headquarters-based team with responsibilities for accompanying countries to bridge the gap between public health decision-making needs and the appropriate integrated data architecture. 1. Workstream Vision and Leadership • Provide strategic direction for the Surveillance and Digital Architecture and Governance workstream, including articulating how RTSL's approach to data architecture fits within — and advances — the broader Collaborative Surveillance framework through supporting the design, adaptation, utilization, and integration of data systems with the aim of providing better intelligence for public health decision-making • Translate technical concepts into accessible language for diverse audiences: national public health leaders, donors, WHO counterparts, and non-technical program staff. • Represent the workstream externally in global tech…