Principal Officer, Global Lead, Business Development & Licensing for Global Access at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people- especially those with the fewest resources - have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Principal Officer, Global Lead, Business Development & Licensing for Global Access

Job Requisition ID:B021558
Location: Abuja
Employment type: Full-time

What You'll Do
Opportunity Sourcing & Market Scanning (Origination):

• Finding, shaping, and prioritizing opportunities—especially external innovation
• Proactively identify, source, and evaluate externally developed innovations and business models—including those outside traditional agricultural R&D pathways—and assess their potential for adaptation and scaling in LMIC contexts.
• Develop and maintain a forward-looking pipeline of transformative opportunities originating outside the Foundation, complementing internally funded R&D portfolios.
• Facilitate high-quality opportunity assessments and diligence reviews.
• Evaluate commercial and scaling prospects in collaboration with program teams, including integrated supply-and-demand pathways for adoption.
• Act as a thought partner to Agriculture Development teams by introducing externally sourced, market-ready, or near-market innovations that can accelerate impact within shorter time horizons.

Deal Structuring, Negotiation & Partnership Design (Core BD&L for Global Access Work):

• Designing and negotiating agreements, incentives, and market-shaping mechanisms
• Structure and co-lead complex agreement transactions with PSTs that advance agriculture development innovations, including seeds, crop protection, livestock systems, and other agricultural technologies.
• Negotiate sophisticated agreements with multinational and regional partners, including agribusinesses, input providers, livestock system actors, research organizations, and LMIC-based partners.
• Structure and negotiate demand-side mechanisms, including offtake agreements, premium pricing arrangements, and processor-backed models that generate market pull for improved technologies.
• Design and negotiate results-based and market-shaping incentive structures (e.g., adoption-linked payments, farmer reach incentives, and risk-sharing mechanisms) that enable private-sector investment in challenging LMIC markets.
• Structure partnerships that incentivize private-sector actors to adapt and localize existing innovations for LMIC markets, rather than relying solely on new technology development pathways.
• Develop clear, assumption-based partnership recommendations for program and executive leadership.
• Support private-sector engagement strategies aligned with program goals, including global access, licensing, affordability, sustainability, and long-term adoption.

Transaction Execution, Delivery & Internal Leadership (Execution & Influence):

• Driving deals to completion, managing stakeholders, and ensuring impact
• Lead partnerships focused on enabling distribution and adoption of agricultural technologies (e.g., seeds, inputs, and livestock-related solutions) through private-sector channels in Africa.
• Serve as a transaction lead and point of coordination across portfolios, conducting partner diligence, supporting negotiations, and building internal alignment.
• Establish strong, collaborative relationships with internal partners (e.g., Legal, Finance, Foundation Strategy Office, Product Launch/Scale teams, and Alliance Management).
• Ensure all deal structures and partnership mechanisms are aligned with internal policies and legal/regulatory constraints.
• Manage multiple concurrent transactions across geographies and partners.
• Drive clear, timely decision-making across all stages of agreement development and execution.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of BD&L for Global Access capabilities and best practices.

Requirements
Your Experience:

• 12+ years of business development, licensing, or commercial partnership experience, with demonstrated success in complex deal-making environments; agriculture or livestock sector experience preferred but not required.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Ability to translate complex partnerships into measurable impact for smallholder farmers, including productivity, income, and food and nutrition sovereignty outcomes. This includes a strong orientation toward aligning commercial incentives with development outcomes in LMIC markets.
• Demonstrated experience in structuring or negotiating multi-party agreements and incentive structures that drive measurable adoption in emerging markets.
• Experience across multiple functional areas (e.g., business development, commercialization, market access, finance, legal, or IP).
• Experience supporting commercialization and distribution of agricultural technologies (e.g., seeds, inputs, livestock-related products) in LMIC markets, particularly Africa, strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated track record of leading and negotiating successful transactions.
• Experience negotiating with multinational corporations and LMIC-based partners.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional diligence and agreement teams.
• Prior experience supporting agriculture development, food and nutrition sovereignty, or sustainability initiatives is highly desirable.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Strong negotiation skills, including managing complex deal structures and stakeholder interests.
• Solid understanding of legal and intellectual property considerations related to licensing and partnerships.
• Experience designing or evaluating results-based financing, incentive mechanisms, or risk-sharing structures.
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills in highly matrixed environments.
• Ability to quickly understand agricultural and technology innovations.
• Strong understanding of agricultural value chains across both crops and livestock systems, including demand generation and private-sector adoption dynamics in Africa.
• Ability to align incentives across diverse stakeholders (e.g., seed and livestock companies, processors, distributors, financial institutions, NGOs, and governments) within complex partnership structures.
• Strong curiosity and market awareness, with the ability to identify emerging, non-traditional innovations with potential for transformative impact.
• Strong analytical capabilities; financial and business modeling experience preferred.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Sound judgment and ability to balance tradeoffs.
• Inclusive, collaborative team player.
• Passion for the Foundation’s mission.
• Willingness to travel up to 40% domestically and internationally, as required.

Application Closing Date
21st May, 2026.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online