Senior Marketing and Production Manager (South Africa)

Girl Effect; South Africa; Remote; ZAR 600,000 - 800,000; Full time

Job summary

An international non-profit organization in South Africa seeks a Senior Marketing and Production Manager to lead the marketing strategy and manage production for youth-focused programmes. The role involves collaborating with various teams to ensure successful implementation and execution of campaigns aimed at empowering adolescent girls. Candidates must possess extensive experience in media production and digital marketing, along with strong project management skills.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Professional development opportunities

Diverse work environment

Qualifications

• A Degree or HND in a relevant field is required.
• Proven experience in the non-profit sector is necessary.
• Minimum 8-10 years in Media Production and/or Marketing.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute marketing strategies for programmes in South Africa.
• Manage end-to-end production projects with agencies and teams.
• Create marketing and rollout calendars across stakeholders.

Skills

Media Production

Digital Marketing

Project Management

Creative Strategy

Data Analytics

Education

Degree in Business, Project Management, Production or Marketing

Tools

Digital Marketing Tools

Data Analytics Software

Job description

Senior Marketing and Production Manager (South Africa)

South Africa

Overview

Girl Effect is an international non-profit that builds media that girls want, trust and need.

From chat-bots to chat-shows and TV dramas to tech, our content is reaching millions of girls in Africa and Asia to make choices and changes in their lives. Igniting their confidence to act differently at a time that can define their future.

We have launched a youth brand in South Africa called Jik’iZinto’, designed to propel this generation of young South Africans towards their full potential, and to motivate positive actions such as applying for a job, speaking to a doctor, or going for an HIV test. The Jik’iZinto programme leverages an integrated ecosystem of platforms, including the Big Sis chatbot, Dichipi TV, Dichipi Unfiltered podcast, and an interactive web app, designed using behavioural science to shift attitudes and drive meaningful action. In FY25, Jik’iZinto reached 2.7 million young people across South Africa through a blend of broadcast, digital, and community-based channels, weaving content on SRHR, mental health, and economic empowerment to help girls and young people access supported services.

Over the next 3 years, Jik’iZinto aims to reach 3.5 million young people (focus on adolescent girls and young women aged 18-24), educate and shift knowledge drivers for 2M, and have 120,000 people access products and services.

Context of the role

We are looking for someone to lead the strategising, development, marketing, and distribution of content, products, and branded experiences in South Africa. This is a highly cross-functional role that partners closely with leaders to ensure that smart strategies are set, initiatives are prioritized, concrete plans are developed, and our teams are organized to succeed.

What you will do

As the Senior Marketing and Production Manager, you will be responsible for developing and executing the creative and marketing and distribution strategies for our programme(s) across South Africa – media content, chatbots, activations, and communities. On occasion, this may require you to work with an external agency to ensure that we are utilizing the right people, processes, and principles to produce great activations, marketing, and distribution results.

In this context, the role will need to move from detailed hands-on execution to high-level discussions on strategic direction. You will support the Programme Lead in ensuring that the creative and marketing strategy informs the selection of channels, formats, and concepts. You will work closely with our Evidence & Impact team to design campaigns so we can capture learnings, for example, value-for-money data for on-ground versus digital. Your day-to-day responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Create and Marketing

• Building a creative, marketing and distribution strategy for our brand(s) and their products in South Africa, taking inputs from research, Youth Advisory Panel, multi-market colleagues, including the Senior Director Media Programming Practices, and other stakeholders. Ensuring that the creative and marketing strategies are aligned with the brand and programme objectives.
• Building marketing capacity—whether via an agency or in-house—and onboarding, training and managing any in-house consultants to deliver the marketing strategy.
• Supporting the Programme Lead in ensuring that engaging, strategically relevant content is regularly delivered across all decided touchpoints—mass and social media, communities, chatbot, etc.—with a weekly, monthly, and annual content calendar design and delivery.
• Creating a marketing and rollout calendar and ensuring it is socialised across stakeholders and kept updated.
• Monitoring and tracking data, working closely with the Global Digital Marketing Manager, to ensure learnings are incorporated into the marketing design.
• Developing and socialising marketing reports and learnings.
• Working closely with data analytics colleagues to ensure successful tracking and visualisation of data in dashboards.
• Building on and evolving innovative ways to create and deliver content and product experiences that deliver on the South African brand(s) and country strategy.
• Understanding learnings and data presented by the E&I team and contributing to MERL processes to improve programme implementation and brand marketing.

Production

• Personally manage end-to-end production/activation projects with agencies, freelancers, and internal teams to deliver high-quality, multi-platform campaigns on time and within budget.
• Maintain and improve production timelines, budgets, workflows, and approvals, ensuring cost- and time-efficiency across projects.
• Work closely with the Programme and SBCC Managers to integrate feedback, enhance creative outputs, and align content with campaign calendars.
• Continuously push for process improvements, creative excellence, and innovative content approaches to boost engagement and brand impact.
• Lead on procurement, content rollout, and performance tracking (daily, weekly, and campaign-level), ensuring accountability and measurable results.

This list should not be considered exhaustive; the post holder will be expected to deliver other duties relevant and appropriate to this position.

Who you are

• Deeply aligned with our mission and committed to empowering adolescent girls.
• Knowledgeable about, and ideally have lived experience in, the countries where we work.
• Empathetic, curious, and an excellent communicator.
• A thoughtful listener who seeks to understand needs and is driven to find the best solutions.
• Supportive and highly collaborative, helping teams and partners build their skills and knowledge.
• Open and honest, including about areas where we can improve.
• Resourceful and intentional, making efficient use of resources and spending thoughtfully to maximise impact.
• Excited by technology and exploring content through products like chatbots, communities, blogs, etc.

Work Experience & Education

• A Degree or Higher National Diploma (HND) in a relevant field, such as Business, Project Management, Production and Marketing required. Sector-specific certifications are preferred, but not essential.
• Proven experience working within the non-profit sector is required. Experience in health-related content/Behaviour Change content production in the field of Health and Economic Empowerment is a significant plus.
• Minimum 8-10 years of experience in Media Production and/or Marketing, with at least 3-4 of those years spent in Digital marketing. Ideally, this experience will be a mix of in-house and agency roles.
• 5+ years of experience directly managing members of marketing/creative teams, helping them run ad operations and optimise promotions, bring concepts to life, refining and evolving them.
• Effective project management skills to plan, prioritise, and allocate time to tasks and activities to achieve milestones and goals within a tight timeline.
• Demonstrable experience in developing and successfully executing marketing strategies and campaigns for a variety of brands and products.
• Strong interest and knowledge about content and marketing trends across digital, media, short and long-form content.
• An understanding of the social media and entertainment industry, including knowledge of different sectors such as music, film, television, radio, and influencers.
• Experience & proven success managing large social media campaigns, working with complex, multi-geography projects with multiple stakeholders.
• Hold an excellent portfolio that demonstrates deep integrated thinking and strong brand-building capabilities.
• Ability to interact meaningfully with people of diverse backgrounds, personalities, and expertise.
• Strong cultural awareness and sensitivity about the cultures within which Girl Effect operates.
• Ability to juggle multiple projects efficiently in a fast-paced environment while delivering outstanding results.
• Experience working remotely with colleagues and/or field agencies and the ability to work effectively and collaboratively in multicultural teams with varying expertise, skills and backgrounds.

What else you should know

As we continue to scale and grow, we are hugely ambitious for our future and we are looking for people who are driven to change the world for girls.

Our teams are diverse across sectors (non-profit and commercial) and specialisms (from Brand and Creative through to Gender and Insight). You’ll learn and grow in an environment that will challenge you to think and work with a fresh perspective, and you can expect to be stretched and developed in your role, building your career with talented, engaged people committed to our cause.

Girl Effect is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to building an organization that is increasingly representative of the communities that we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to recruiting candidates with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all those we work with and for, especially children and young people. We expect all staff to share this commitment, uphold standards in our safeguarding policy and our code of conduct. In particular:

• To take reasonable steps to prevent any harm caused by Girl Effect
• To report any safeguarding concerns through the reporting pathways

Please note that this is a remote role (some local travel, not exceeding 30% of time).

This role is being recruited on a 12-month fixed term contract basis.

This role is subject to a standard background check.