Head of Service Delivery Abuja

The Head of Service Delivery at Zipline is responsible for ensuring the operational standards across all distribution sites in Africa, certifying each site against these standards, and leading the operations excellence and compliance teams. The role requires over 12 years of experience in running distributed physical operations.

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Zipline - Do you want to change the world? Zipline uses drones to deliver critical and life-saving medicine to thousands of hospitals serving millions of people in multiple countries. Our mission is to provide every human on Earth with instant access to vital medical supplies. Join Zipline and help us make this a reality for billions of people. We are  recruiting to fill the position below:

 Job Title: Head of Service Delivery

Locations: Abuja and Lagos About You and The Role  

Zipline operates a growing network of distribution sites across Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, and that network is about to expand quickly. As Head of Service Delivery, Africa, you will make sure every site is ready to operate from the day it is handed over and keeps performing after that. You will set one written operating standard, train people to it, certify every site against it and hold teams accountable to clear metrics, at a sustainable cost per delivery. Country Directors run their sites day to day. You will own how the work is done, and partner with them to bring every site up to the same standard. You will lead our in-country operations excellence and compliance teams, set the bar for operator competence, and be Engineering’s main operations counterpart. You will report to the Head of Operations, Africa, and work alongside the Heads of Deployments and Logistics as one regional leadership team.

What You'll Do  

Write and own the operating standards library for our African network, consolidating what exists today into one clear standard. Practices vary from site to site today, so much of your first year will go into writing these standards and embedding them in every site. Certify every site at go-live and every quarter after that, and publish the results. Lead a Country Operations & Product Lead in each major market, who reports to you and works hand in hand with their Country Director. Define the competency standard for Site Leads and Shift Team Leads and, with our People team, build the pipeline that produces around 20 new certified Site Leads for our launch programme. Publish a capacity envelope for each site, based on flight operations constraints and real site data. Define the operating metrics every site is measured on, agree targets with each Country Director, and hold site teams accountable for meeting them. Own the network’s operating data, including monthly site reporting and cross-site comparisons, and follow up until the gaps are closed. Act as Engineering’s primary operations partner: first response on field issues, standardisation, and a ranked list of product requests from the field. Build strong working relationships with every Country Director. They run operations in their countries, and you will support them with the standards, data and coaching to raise performance.

What Success Looks Like

A rising share of sites certified at standard, with high certification pass rates. Findings closed quickly, and the same finding rarely appears twice. Capacity envelopes that accurately predict what each site can deliver. New Site Leads reach full competency quickly and are ready for each launch. Every site reports against the same metrics, and performance gaps between sites narrow month on month.

What You'll Bring 

12+ years running distributed physical operations to a written standard, for example airline ground operations, multi-site logistics networks, industrial or franchise operations, or healthcare networks. You have built a standards and certification system from scratch, not just inherited one. Experience leading through country or regional leads with dotted-line authority, and a reputation as an outstanding cross-functional partner. A track record of building operator talent pipelines at scale. Strong data instincts: you set clear metrics, use operating data to spot variance, and hold teams accountable. Strong programme and project management instincts: you drive workstreams end to end across teams you don't directly lead.

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