Learning Strategist
Location: Cape Town
Working Practices: Hybrid | Mondays and Thursday in office and remaining days remote
Contract Type: Permanent
Working Hours: 10H00 - 18H30 SAST
Reports to: Head of Learning
Primary Purpose
The Learning Strategist leads the design and delivery of high-quality, research-based learning solutions that meet client needs and business objectives. They oversee the full project lifecycle, guide Learning Designers (instructional designers), and ensure outputs are pedagogically sound, within scope and budget, and aligned with best practice in online and blended learning. Acting as a trusted advisor, they represent OES in client engagements, build strong stakeholder relationships, and uphold agreed strategies and standards.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & People Management
- Manage and coach a team of learning designers ensuring performance deliverables are achieved.
- Provide coaching, performance management, and career/personal development of team members.
- Induction and integration of the learning design team into OES culture, values, and ethos.
Learning Theory, Strategy and Design
- Design world-class online and blended learning strategies in response to clients’ strategic, pedagogical and practical needs.
- Lead the 'discovery/analysis phase' of projects, including co-creation workshops/design sprints with clients and the wider OES team to develop solutions mapped to learning and business goals.
- Coach clients through a Design Sprint Process, following inductive models of curriculum design.
- Define learning and evaluation strategies in collaboration with client project leadership.
Leadership and Collaboration
- Collaborate with Project Management Office Managers and other leads to jointly ensure the success of the projects under their scope.
- Build and maintain strong client relationships as the primary client liaison for all learning and education related aspects.
- Present and champion learning and design concepts to clients as ‘the expert in the room’ on design calls.
- Collaborate with internal stakeholders to design and deliver exceptional online and blended learning experiences.
- Manage and coach a team of learning designers, assuring output and delivery standards.
- Produce evaluation reports based on data generated by course builders.
What does success look like?
- High-quality, research-based learning solutions that meet business goals and exceed client expectations.
- Projects delivered on time, within scope and budget, with clear strategic direction.
- Clients see you as a trusted advisor and expert in learning design.
- Learning Designers are engaged, supported, and consistently delivering strong performance.
- Clear evaluation insights demonstrate measurable impact and continuous improvement.
Requirements
Essential Experience and Qualifications
- Minimum of an undergraduate degree, preferably EdTech or education related. (Post graduate qualification is preferred)
- 5+ years’ experience designing theory-informed, strategically-driven online and blended learning experiences.
- 3+ years of experience in leading teams and line management of between 5 and 8 people.
- Exceptional technical knowledge of andragogy and pedagogy.
- Experience in curriculum and content design for face to face, online and/or blended learning experiences, ideally for adult learners.
- Experience working with senior stakeholders in client organisations.
- Experience teaching face to face, online and/or as part of a blended learning programme.
- Proven understanding of learning management systems and e-learning authoring tools.
- Excellent organisational and time management skills and an ability to work to deadlines.
- Exceptional communication skills, and a proven ability to build and maintain good relationships with colleagues and clients, both in person and while working remotely with teams based in other parts of the world.
- An ability to communicate confidently, clearly and effectively, both in written and verbal form.
- Excellent attention to detail.
Benefits
Company Information
OES is a vibrant and values-led organisation, and we are passionate about enhancing lives through education. We work with university partners, training institutes, and professional bodies worldwide, to develop and enable immersive and engaging learning experiences. We empower our teams to be student-focused, innovative, and embrace change with a growth mindset to ensure we achieve our vision of being the world’s most impactful enabler of education. We encourage our people to grow and develop through teamwork and a diverse range of projects, programs and challenging work. We trust our people to deliver, so when you work with OES, you will join a team who are empowered to impact every day.
Company Culture & Values
We are a people-focused organisation with a culture built around collaboration, connection, and working together toward one common goal. Our vibrant, values-led culture is grounded in four core principles that guide everything we do:
Passion and Perseverance: We love what we do (even though it’s not always easy) and take pride in creating transformative learning experiences. We bring a ‘can-do’ attitude to our work, tackling challenges and inspiring others.
Teamwork: We operate as cross-functional teams globally with trust and respect, celebrating success. We have fun while we work and enjoy collaborating with each other and OES partners.
Agility and Innovation: We are innovative, lateral thinkers who use our skills to do things better for our students. We thrive in ambiguity, embrace change and challenge conventional thinking.
Integrity: We do what’s right, and what we say we will do, every time. We value a culture of respectful feedback and believe that respect trumps harmony.
These are some of the perks* you can expect when you join the team:
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Medical allowance
- Commute allowance
- Flexible work for genuine career-life fit
- A healthy and supportive company culture
- Generous annual leave
- Paid maternity and paternity benefits
- Study leave
- Professional development and mentoring
- Culture Club events
- Company funded lunch and drinks every 8 weeks
*Policy T&Cs apply for certain benefits