Work at BOLO IT
Executive Director
Overall leadership and management of BOLO IT — operations, staff, partnerships, regulatory matters, finances and enrollment performance.
- Location
- Cameroon
- Employment
- Full-time | Executive leadership
- Reports to
- Founder / Board of Directors
- Sector
- Higher education | Technology | Innovation
Build a technology institution for the global stage.
BOLO IT is seeking a higher-education executive to lead the institution: to build it before launch, and to run it afterwards. The mandate is an academically rigorous, AI-enabled, Silicon Valley-inspired institution that prepares students in Cameroon to compete globally.
The institution
BOLO Institute of Technology is a higher-education institution in Cameroon, architected around three pathways — Higher National Diploma, Bachelor's and Master's — and being developed to prepare professionals, innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs across science, technology, health, agriculture, business and the applied professions, for opportunities in Cameroon, across Africa and internationally.
BOLO IT is being built around a distinctive educational model: rigorous academics combined with hands-on laboratories, real-world projects, internships, professional certifications, mentorship and instruction shaped by experienced technology practitioners. The institution is intentionally globally oriented, AI-enabled and Silicon Valley-inspired.
A student educated at BOLO IT in Cameroon should leave with the academic foundation, practical capability, AI fluency, professional exposure and confidence to compete with technology talent anywhere in the world.
The opportunity
The Executive Director carries overall accountability for BOLO IT. Before launch that means institutional setup, policies, curriculum development, faculty and staff recruitment, campus and laboratory readiness, partnerships and regulatory matters. After launch it becomes accountability for academic quality, operations, finances, enrollment performance, student outcomes and institutional reputation.
Leadership mandate
- Build a modern higher-education institution — not simply administer an existing one.
- Create an academic environment where students learn by building, experimenting and solving real problems.
- Establish a faculty model combining academic excellence with accomplished industry practitioners.
- Make graduate employability and global competitiveness core institutional outcomes.
Core responsibilities
Institutional leadership & strategy
Translate the mission into strategic plans, governance, organizational structure, annual priorities, performance indicators and regular Board reporting.
Operations, staff & finances
Lead day-to-day operations and the staff who deliver them. Hold overall accountability for budgets, financial health and the controls that support audit and regulatory inspection.
Partnerships & regulatory matters
Build relationships with employers, universities, certification bodies and the diaspora, and lead the institution's engagement with regulatory authorities.
Enrollment performance
Own the enrollment targets — recruitment, conversion, retention and progression — and the marketing and admissions effort that delivers them.
Required qualifications
- Master's degree minimum in a relevant discipline; a doctorate is preferred.
- Senior leadership experience within a university, institute of technology, polytechnic or comparable higher-education institution.
- Demonstrated experience establishing or substantially growing an institution, faculty or academic division.
- Sound command of academic governance, quality assurance and regulatory compliance.
- Working ability in both English and French; staff, partners and authorities use both.
The leader we are looking for
This role suits a builder rather than a caretaker — someone who would rather establish an institution than inherit one.
- Institutional judgement
- Knows which decisions set precedent and which can be revisited later.
- Academic credibility
- Commands the respect of faculty and of regulators, and can hold both conversations.
- Operational grip
- Comfortable with budgets, timetables and suppliers, not only with strategy.
- Resolve
- Holds academic standards when it would be commercially easier not to.
How to apply
Use the apply button on this page. It opens the application form with this role already selected, and you can attach your CV there. Please do not email applications — applications sent by email are not tracked against the role.
The full profile carries the six-month mandate, the success measures and the graduate profile in full.