Senior Manager, Safety

Nairobi, Kenya

req3208

Posted on: 22/12/2025

Why you will love working here

At IATA, we represent over 350 airlines worldwide, striving to make aviation safer, smarter, more sustainable, and inclusive.

• Our Values are not just words on a page - they are the energy behind everything we do: ONE IATA - We collaborate across teams, TRUSTED - We do the right thing, INNOVATIVE - We make tomorrow better, INCLUSIVE - We embrace diverse perspectives.
• With over 30,000 courses available, we believe in continuous learning and support your growth in an ever-changing industry.
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion are our priorities. We are certified by the Equal Salary Foundation, offering equal pay and family-friendly policies.
• We encourage community involvement through volunteering and strive to make tomorrow better for aviation and our communities. We offer time off so you can support causes important to you.
• We promote work-life balance with flexible work options, including remote and hybrid work, a generous 'work from abroad' policy, and you get your birthday off!

About the team you are joining

Reporting to the Head, Safety (OSS), the incumbent will be responsible for driving activities in the Sub-Saharan African Region to support continuous improvement in regional aviation safety.
Specifically, the Senior Manager, Safety will be responsible for utilizing centrally coordinated IATA policies and procedures to support advancements in regional safety performance; will take a proactive role to identify new, and emerging, regional issues impacting aviation safety and, collaborating with centrally located IATA experts, determine whether these issues are systemic or local in nature; lead the delivery of regional safety initiatives to support capacity building across industry.
The successful candidate will interface with the regional ICAO office, regulators and other pan-African associations on safety and regulatory matters. This includes representing IATA in various activity groups to ensure the positions of IATA are reflected in consultations and regional activities.
They will support initiatives to enhance safety throughout the region by influencing a network of high-level contacts within airlines, government authorities, relevant stakeholder groups, air navigation service providers, airports.

What your day would be like

- Leverage the IATA Safety Strategy to deliver on safety priorities, identified though IATA safety management activities and/or IATA governance groups, to achieve the timely implementation of IATA global programs or locally targeted action plans across sub-Saharan Africa.
- Identify, develop activities, and deliver safety improvement programs aimed to rectify any safety deficiencies within the region collaborating with governments, airlines, ANSPs and airports utilizing regional aviation safety forums. This may include the development of country specific safety strategies.
- Engage stakeholders, and actively promote, the IATA Safety Strategy around the three strategic goals relating to Safety Leadership, Safety Risk and Safety Connect to drive the:
- evolution of safety culture and reporting;
- identification, analysis, and prioritization of safety risks utilizing data-driven insights from IATA GADM and other data-sharing programs;
- growth of a safety community, connecting all IATA airlines, across the region.
- Support promotion, and engagement, with the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) program.
- Coordinate airline input during regional ICAO/CAA rule-making and standard-setting processes.
- Respond to tactical issues arising in day-to-day operations in the region as well as provide information and support to IATA member airlines during periods of disruption/contingency operations.
- Contribute to the commercial strategy and targets assigned to the region by promoting IATA products and services.

We would love to hear from you if

- Extensive aviation background/experience in positions involved in safety, operations, certification and/or regulation of civil air transport operations.

- A high degree of analytical skill and technical knowledge with working knowledge of ICAO standards and recommended practices, and industry best practice.

- An understanding of air safety investigation and/or risk-based airline auditing in a multidisciplinary environment would be beneficial.
- Comprehensive understanding of safety information sharing programs and data management methodology.
- Comfortable to perform under pressure to deliver outcomes upon clearly defined timelines.
- Confident to report regularly to core safety team on progress made, and challenges experienced, against pre-determined metrics for agreed objectives.
- Ability to deal with member airlines at a technical, safety and operational level with a positive approach to problem solving.
- Ability to effectively advocate across a wide range of aviation stakeholders promoting IATA activities.
- Diplomacy in relationships with contacts in government and other key organizations.
- Fluency in English, whilst knowledge of other languages will be an asset.
- Able to travel when required whilst managing a large and dynamic workload.
Travel Required: Y: 15%

Travel Required: 15