Leo Magombo

As Senior Program Officer-Capacity Strengthening and Program Management, Leo supports the Malawi EMPOWER’s Chief of Party in the management and oversight of the project and contributes towards ensuring a high level of project performance in relation to results, budget, reporting and compliance.  He provides program management support and technical knowledge to ensure the delivery of high-quality programming and capacity strengthening programming.

Leo Magombo is a seasoned professional social development specialist with experience in using socio-ecological analyses. The past 12 years added a distinctive value to project/program strategies in a diverse range of sectors/themes. He is energized by challenge and think on his feet.

Leo has strong professional experience in strategic planning, policy development, organizational capacity assessments, business development, human resource & financial management, grants management, partnership & collaboration, organizational capacity improvement planning, results-based management, introspective analysis and benchmarking for workplace culture, and organizational performance metrics like balance score card. In addition, he possesses hands-on experience in rights-based frameworks, needs-based capacity building, issue-based advocacy, community engagement in the context of participatory development, community systems strengthening in the context of primary health care and child protection (community case management).

Leo has led large-scale, complex multi-sectoral programs within Malawi to achieve long-term and scalable results. He has served in various roles including Program Officer – Business Development & Grants Management for World Vision International; Team Leader for Johns Hopkins University Centre for Communications Program under One Community Activity, Project Manager for Theatre for a Change, and ECD Programme Coordinator and Program Quality & Development Support Coordinator for Save the Children International.He has strong professional experience in team management, government stakeholders’ management and worked extensively with PEPFAR/USAID, World Bank, DFID, ECHO, Comic Relief, including Child Sponsorship and Private Corporations funded Programs.

Leo joined FHI 360/ Malawi EMPOWER Activity from World Vision International/Malawi Country Office where he has been responsible for Grants Acquisition and Management, end to end processes from award to project implementation and reporting. He had a particular focus on a wide range of sectors including Health, Education, WASH, Food Security & Livelihoods and Humanitarian sectors where he served as proposal lead, ensuring support/engagement of technical sector specialists, grant finance officers, and other key departments in project design. Leo  made tremendous contributions towards identification; screening and assessment; and monitoring of partners for specific grants as well as developing and managing grant contracts, and MOUs with relevant partners and donors.

Leo as Team Leader with Johns Hopkins University Centre for Communications Programs provided project management leadership in the overall planning, implementation management, budget management, partnership coordination & management, human resource management, donor reporting, monitoring and evaluation of the PEPFAR/USAID funded project in assigned districts and portfolio. This included providing technical guidance to ensure smooth coordination of PEPFAR/USAID funded activities which included work around HIV sensitive Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) case management; Adolescent Girls & Young Women (AGYW); Social & Behavior change communications (SBCC); and all the 4-OVC domains (Health, Schooled, Safe and stable) to improve HIV case finding and linkage to care, retention in HIV care and treatment, Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT), Early Infant Diagnosis (EID), and HIV care and treatment services in Malawi. He also provided strategic direction and leadership in grassroot Soccer and Positive parenting skills training related to communication with young people and positive discipline strategies (Families matter; Sinovuyo kids & Go Families).

Leo also provided strategic leadership, Programme management, fundraising, partnership management, staff management and M&E for all the Save the Children ECD (ECD, Interactive Radio Instructions, Essential Package, Nutrition, HEART, ELM, NEEP) Projects in Zomba District for 5 years before he moved to the Head Office in Lilongwe, to work as the Programme Quality & Development Support Coordinator where he provided technical support in the review and development of Save the Children International +2016 Malawi Country Strategy and  management of Program Accountability data base. He led a Team of professionals that developed technical and strategic partnership guidelines for the mobilization and continued engagement of civic organizations, government departments and community-based structures.