New Deployments Lead, Africa

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About Zipline

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.

Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.

Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.

We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.

About You and The Role

Zipline’s long-range autonomous drone system is already delivering millions of medical products across Africa. As we expand into new countries and regions, we’re seeking a Deployments Lead to oversee all construction and deployment activities across the continent. This is a senior leadership role responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of new Zipline distribution centers, managing multiple country-level project managers and driving execution excellence, standardization, and scalability across all aspects of deployment – from site acquisition and permitting to construction, vendor management, and operational handover. You will serve as the central point of coordination between country teams, engineering, supply chain, and leadership, ensuring every site launch meets Zipline’s standards. You are a builder, leader, and systems thinker – someone who can manage complexity across geographies, align diverse stakeholders, and deliver consistent results at scale.

What You’ll Do

• Own deployment strategy and execution for dozens of new distribution centers across Africa, ensuring scalability for future global expansion.
• Spearhead global cross-functional coordination across Engineering, Supply Chain, Legal, Regulatory, Operations, and Business teams to ensure seamless execution of multiple deployments that consistently meets partner expectations.
• Work with real estate vendors and local authorities to identify and secure sites that meet Zipline’s technical and business criteria.
• Build and manage supplier and contractor networks in partnership with country teams, using rigorous selection processes to ensure reliable, cost-efficient, and high-quality execution of local site works.
• Manage multi-country budgets and resources, balancing cost, schedule, and risk while making tradeoffs that protect long-term scalability and operational excellence.
• Help hire, and provide mentorship, strategic direction, and performance oversight to a team of local deployment project managers operating in multiple countries.
• Capture and implement lessons learned from every launch to continuously refine Zipline’s global deployment playbook.
• Deliver clear, data-driven visibility into progress, risks, and performance metrics to Africa and global leadership teams.

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of experience in construction, engineering, or program management, including at least 3 years in a leadership role managing managers or multi-country portfolios.
• Proven success leading large-scale, technically complex projects from concept to completion.
• Experience building and leading distributed teams across multiple geographies.
• Exceptionally strong project management and organizational skills, with the ability to prioritize and make strategic tradeoffs under pressure.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills – able to influence without authority and represent Zipline effectively with partners, contractors, and government officials.
• A systems mindset, capable of designing scalable processes and frameworks.
• Grit, adaptability, and resilience to thrive in uncertain, constantly changing environments.
• Willingness and ability to accommodate more than 50% travel.

This role will be based in Africa, with extensive regional travel required. You must be eligible to work across multiple African countries and willing to spend significant time in the field during deployment periods.

What Else You Need to Know

Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state, federal or local law or our other policies.

We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!