Bilingual (English, French) project and programme management professional with 9 years of experience working in complex environments in East and Central Africa, the Sahel and Europe.
Seeking flexible (London, Bath, Bristol) or fully remote assignments. |
 Contact Michele-Anne Vennat
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Area of Expertise: |
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Administration, Management, Finance/Accounting, Procurement
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Disaster, Aid, Emergencies, Relief
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Private Sector, Social Enterprise, Corporate Social Responsibility
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Professional Experience: |
I am a bilingual project and programme management professional with 10 years of experience working in challenging contexts in Africa, Asia, and Europe. I am hardworking, apply a positive, dynamic approach to my tasks, and I am driven by achieving social impact and developing the competencies of my teams.
As Senior Programme Manager at Seefar, I am accountable for the oversight of all projects, from inception to evaluation, and for improving processes and systems related to project management. I lead on donor compliance, and have developed and implemented processes and tools to track financial and HR requirements across our portfolio. Within this, I wrote the project management SOPs that now serve as a training tool for project managers (PMs). I am also responsible for linking business development to programmes, and plan staffing requirements for all new projects. As part of the Senior Management Team, I define, drive and communicate organisational objectives and strategy, with the goal of ensuring that all personnel, including field teams, understand how their work relates to these.
I particularly enjoy supervising and mentoring our team of PMs. I am proud of the positive feedback I have received on setting clear goals, creating professional development opportunities, and of my communication style. I see the increased capacity of our team of PMs as strong evidence of my leadership qualities. Last year, I took a course at the London School of Economics to further develop these skills.
As a Project Manager, I successfully delivered multiple projects, from behaviour-change communications campaigns related to irregular migration in West Africa, to trauma-informed trainings to survivors of human trafficking in India. I focus on maximising impact whilst ensuring efficiency and cost effectiveness. I have found that taking the time to develop fit-for-purpose tools for projects saves time, money, and energy, allows me to focus on delivery. As my technical project management capabilities have grown, so have the size, compliance requirements, and strategic importance of the projects I deliver – I am now the consortium lead for a €1.5m EU project covering three West African countries with four partner organisations.
As Programme Director for DAC Aviation, I managed a portfolio of complex programmes in six African countries for humanitarian donors including ECHO, the WFP, and the ICRC. My responsibilities included overseeing the regular transport of people and cargo into the field, as well as the rapid mobilisation of new bases and missions, including emergency missions in response to the Ebola epidemic in the DRC, and political unrest in Burundi and CAR. I ensured programme performance was in line with the company’s strategic objectives and directly supervised the continent-wide Programme Team. I also developed a monitoring and evaluation framework that expanded on traditional quantitative aviation standards to include qualitative indicators relevant to our humanitarian donors, and produced all related donor reporting.
I have actively sought out new business opportunities and played a central role in tender processes for both Seefar and DAC, contributing to multiple successful bids for EU-state donors and international NGOs. I regularly represented both companies at conferences and meetings with high-profile stakeholders and government officials. In June 2022 I presented Seefar’s programmatic approach and research findings at the EMN French Presidency Conference on Returns and Reintegration.
I attribute much of the successes in my career to my strong work ethic and willingness to adapt and learn. I relish opportunities to try new things and to develop my skills. I would love to join a team of dynamic individuals who are eager to learn, share ideas, and who are driven by social purpose.
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Education: |
McGill University, B. Arts: International Development Studies, 2013
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Affiliations and Achievements: |
-- UDEMY: The Complete Google Sheets Training Course: Beginner to Advanced, 2023
-- London School of Economics (LSE): Managing People and Team, 2022
-- Curtin University: Human Rights Theory and Philosophy, 2017
-- University of Waterloo: Project Leadership, 2014
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Available for: |
- Consulting assignments
- Job opportunities
- Being headhunted – make me an offer
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