ABOUT THE COMPANY
Pharo Foundation is a mission-driven, impact-oriented organisation that designs, funds, and operates economic development programmes towards a vibrant, productive, and self-reliant Africa.
About the Art School
The Art School in Kenya is a new tertiary creative institution being built from the ground up, offering post-secondary (tertiary and TVET-level) creative education to students who have completed secondary school. We want to build a world-class creative institute that shapes Africa's cultural and creative export economy. By 2030, Africa will have the largest youth population on earth. As AI reshapes knowledge work, creativity will become one of the most durable human advantages. Global demand for authentic creative content rooted in African culture is rising fast, yet the pathways from raw talent to global opportunity barely exist. The School will close that gap. We’ll combine a strong creative foundation with studio-based learning, launching with fine art, fashion and material culture, and expanding from there. We’ll focus on building creative agency, leadership, IP, and new ventures, and not just vocational skills. We’re building a distinct entity with its own board, economics, and identity.
The opportunity
We're looking for a Founding Director to take the School from concept to reality, and then run it. This is a founder-style mandate: put the governance and foundations in place, build the institution end to end, and lead it once it's built. You'll be the single point of accountability for governance, people, campus, brand, programmes, partnerships and commercial performance. This isn't a role for someone who wants to be an employee inside an institution. While our vision is clear, we need someone who can own, deliver, and run it like it’s theirs.
Key responsibilities
i) Build the institution: governance and foundations
Put the governance, legal structure, and controls in place for a standalone institution, working with the Board.
Develop the business plan, budget and operating model, and bring the Board along at each phase, before capital is committed.
Stand up the systems, processes and team needed to run the school professionally.
Develop the certification strategy and lead compliance with relevant tertiary and TVET registration/certification bodies.
ii) Set up the academic and creative offer
Work with creative and academic leads to design and launch two to three core programmes and the studio-based learning model.
Build the faculty, curriculum, accreditation pathway and student recruitment.
iii) Build and run the campus and operations
Lead the search, design, fit-out and launch of a minimum viable campus, and the phased build-out from there.
Own facilities, operations, health and safety, safeguarding, and the student and staff experience.
iv) Commercial performance and sustainability
Drive the school towards financial sustainability across tuition, short courses, partnerships, IP, and philanthropy.
Pursue IP, venture-creation and industry partnerships that turn student and faculty work into market-ready businesses and jobs.
Own the P&L and report performance to the Board.
v) People, leadership and stakeholders
Recruit, build and lead the team, and set a high-performing, creative, and accountable culture.
Serve as the public face of the school with government, industry, the creative community, partners, and funders.
Lead fundraising and partnership development to finance Phase 1 and beyond, alongside the Board.
Who we are looking for
A track record of building something from scratch — a school, a company, a studio, an institution — not just working inside one. Evidence of having built matters more than titles held.
Real experience in post-secondary education or creative education (tertiary or TVET level): running a programme, faculty, curriculum or institution, not just adjacent exposure to the sector.
A demonstrated ability to raise money personally — grants, philanthropic capital, or commercial investment — not through a development team they direct.
A credible, compelling public voice: comfortable representing the school with government, funders, media and the wider creative community, and able to set the tone for what the School stands for.
Deep, credible standing within the African or East African creative and cultural ecosystem, and a reputation that carries weight internationally with peer institutions and funders.
Strong commercial and general-management instincts — business planning, budgets, P&L — ideally forged in a start-up, venture or founder-style setting rather than a large institution.
Personal attributes
Entrepreneurial and hands-on — comfortable building from a blank sheet in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment.
Commercially minded, but protective of the creative mission.
High integrity and resilience, with real ownership — someone who finishes what they start.
Comfortable operating without a big team or support structure in the early days; willing to do unglamorous work personally rather than delegate it away.
A real respect for African creativity, and genuine belief in its global potential.
Who should apply
We're looking for someone who has built something from scratch before — a school, a company, a studio, an institution — and not just worked inside one. Real experience in tertiary or TVET-level art or creative education matters, as does the ability to raise money and represent the school publicly with government, funders and the creative community. You should have genuine standing in the African or East African creative world, and a reputation that carries weight internationally. This is a hands-on, start-up environment, not an established institution.
To apply
Please send the information listed below, as a single PDF file:
1. A detailed CV and cover letter.
2. A short note on how you'd approach the first 90 days building the School, along with one or two examples of something you've built from scratch.
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