Happy is a Malawian development and humanitarian professional with over 30 years of multidisciplinary professional experience, over 20 of which have been at senior leadership level as part of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) working with national governments, the private sector, national boards, donor community, civil society among others. He has 12+ years of experience in country management roles with both local and international NGOs and these include; Habitat for Humanity Malawi, Malawi Scotland Partnership, SAFE Africa and presently Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM). Happy has also worked with World Vision Malawi (Regional Sponsorship Coordinator), Every Child UK in Malawi (Sponsorship and Grants Manager) and Anglican Council in Malawi (Head of Programmes).
In his present role as Executive Director for CHAM, Happy is responsible for providing strategic leadership and management for the biggest faith based non-profit organization in Malawi (10,000+ employees) and (USD35M+annual budget) implementing health programmes and providing health care services to 40 percent of the population through its 187 health facilities and also training up to 80 percent of the health care workforce through its 11 training colleges in Malawi.
Happy has solid programming experience of over 10 years at senior leadership level directing the implementation of all aspects of country programmes as an effective member of the SLT in line with organization’s policies, procedures and standards to ensure high programme quality and high impact in the field. In addition, as a result of this solid programme management experience, Happy has the ability to coordinate annual planning and budgeting processes including quarterly, semi-annual and annual reporting. As a result of this solid programme management experience at senior management level Happy is able to provide the needed technical direction and backstopping to the programmes team CHAM.
Happy has successful experience of negotiating and overseeing large grants and working with government, donor partners, such as USAID, FCDO, EU, GIZ, Scottish Government and UN agencies such as UN Habitat and UNICEF. For example, while presently serving as Executive Director for CHAM, Happy has been managing big US Government grants (USAID, PEPFAR and CDC) in excess of USD10M a year as Principal Investigator (PI) where CHAM is a prime recipient with multiple consortium members as sub-grantees. One of the sub-grantees is the Malawi National AIDS Commission (NAC), a government institution. In this role, Happy has been providing leadership and supervision to the sub-grantees and sub-contractors to ensure the projects meet their goals and reporting requirements. He also manages grants from other donors like the Health Sector Joint Fund (HSJF) which is a pool of donors such as KFW, Norwegian Embassy and FCDO in excess of USD5M a year for the Service Level Agreement (SLA) where vulnerable groups of people including under-five children and pregnant women access free health services in CHAM health facilities and government of Malawi pays with funding from the HSJF. This is besides leading that has just completed negotiations for funding from the Global Fund amounting to USD1.5M a year through the Malawi Ministry of Health where CHAM will implement a Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision (VMMC) Project in 84 of its 187 health facilities. Happy was also involved in the negotiations with the World Bank amounting to USD100 Million jointly with the Ministry of Health on behalf of CHAM.
Happy holds a Master of Science Degree in Leadership and Change Management from Leads Metropolitan University; Master of Arts Degree in Development Studies; Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Degree in Development Studies; Bachelor of Arts Degree with double majors in Development Administration and Sociology all from the University of South Africa.
