Job Description

JOB OVERVIEW
Our Journey
The organisation was founded in 2000 in response to the dramatic decline of protected areas due to poor management and lack of funding. We have a clear business approach to conserving Africa's wildlife and remaining wild areas. We currently manage 23 national parks and protected areas in 13 countries covering over 20 million hectares.
Our Organisation
African Parks has more than 5700 employees all of whom are conservationists in their own right. We operate in dynamic and ever-changing environments, and our work demands resilience, adaptability, and a deep respect for nature in order to ensure the African Parks Model is functioning optimally. Learn more about our model here
Our Technology
AP has a variety of different systems that are interconnected. The complexity comes not just with the different types of systems but the different operating models and environmental challenges of offline systems (due to intermitted/ poor connectivity from the parks).This results in a hybrid-hosted model of systems, security and accessibility. Furthermore, the master-data management for the system of systems becoming challenging due to the input source of information based on offline sources of data.
Why you should join our team
African Parks is developing an innovative solution that would enable decision making based on data from its ecological, social, financial and management systems brought together in a single environment. The enterprise architect role offers the opportunity to be an instrumental part in making this system a reality and thereby push the frontiers of big data-driven decision making in the conservation space. Your work will end up allowing a park manager to understand, in one environment, not only how land cover and species distribution in a protected area is changing, but also how those trends may relate to the community projects, security effort and deployment capabilities of the site.
You will be part of a small team trying to build something that hasn't been built before within the conservation space. You will be ensuring that data from different systems, devices and sensors all come together into a single dataset. Given the novelty of the intended end-product and the wide array of systems, sensors and devices you will need to interact with, the role requires somebody who is solution-oriented and has proven ability to familiarize and upskill themselves on how the technology works and how to get this data structured into our data warehousing for big data analytics. While you're in the weeds writing the codes, building the data pipelines and configuring the systems, you are able to keep an eye on how the data needs to be consolidated with that from other sources, and how it may be influencing decision making for better conservation outcomes.
African Parks manages large conservation areas in some of the most remote places in Africa, and we use many technology tools to assist with this. Whether it is knowing the location of a single lion in South Sudan or knowing where rangers have spent time patrolling for illegal activities. We aim to base decisions on accurate information from all over. The conservation technology department uses technology to gather information and assist on-the-ground teams to better manage conservation areas. We are responsible for all communications, ranging from the internet at head office to hand held radios to satellite emergency communications. We look at the message from the starting point deep in the parks, all the way through to where it is being used operationally on EarthRanger in a control room or on a report produced for management.
The conservation technology aspect
Looking for purpose, growth, and a bit of adventure? At African Parks is at the heart of transforming conservation across Africa through innovative technology and data-driven solutions. The Enterprise Architect role offers a rare chance to design and implement scalable systems that improve how protected areas are managed, enhance collaboration and optimize operational efficiency. You'll work with cutting-edge tools and technologies, partnering across teams to align Technology strategy with our bold conservation mission. Beyond shaping the technical landscape, this role supports continuous learning and professional growth in a fast-paced, purpose-driven environment. If you're ready to apply your expertise where it truly matters, African Parks offers a career that combines innovation, impact, and meaningful adventure.
Systems aspect
Looking for purpose, growth, and a bit of adventure? At African Parks is at the heart of transforming conservation across Africa through innovative technology and data-driven solutions. The Enterprise Architect role offers a rare chance to design and implement scalable systems that improve how protected areas are managed, enhance collaboration and optimize operational efficiency. You'll work with cutting-edge tools and technologies, partnering across teams to align Technology strategy with our bold conservation mission. Beyond shaping the technical landscape, this role supports continuous learning and professional growth in a fast-paced, purpose-driven environment. If you're ready to apply your expertise where it truly matters, African Parks offers a career that combines innovation, impact, and meaningful adventure.
IT Aspect
At African Parks, our IT team supports operations across 24 parks in 13 African countries, including some of the largest and most remote conservation areas on the continent. From savannahs to deep forests, you'll be enabling critical work in places where connectivity is a challenge, but the mission couldn't be more important.
We're looking for someone who can help us drive digital transformation in the conservation space, someone who understands that IT isn't just support; it's a strategic lever for protecting the planet. In Conservation IT, you'll be working at the intersection of innovation and environmental impact. Your skills will help scientists, field teams, and decision-makers access the tools and data they need to protect biodiversity, manage ecosystems, respond to climate challenges, faster and more effectively.
AP has a variety of different systems that are interconnected. The complexity comes not just with the different types of systems but the different operating models and environmental challenges of offline systems (due to intermitted/ poor connectivity from the parks).
This results in a hybrid-hosted model of systems, security and accessibility. Furthermore, the master-data management for the system of systems becoming challenging due to the input source of information based on offline sources of data.
The EA combines many different skills and experiences to address and solve business, information, and technology-related opportunities and problems. In many activities, the Enterprise Architect is the "glue" that integrates complex business systems together ensures security and accessibility is maintained and ensures the platforms are scalable.
This function provides the "glue" between the technical resources (Tech and vendors) and the business system owners.
The EA usually does not specialize in a particular system functionality but rather looks at how systems will behave together in an interconnected universe of the organizational LAN, WAN, hosted environments.
The technical documentation and EA illustrations allow for logical, physical, virtual and technical diagrams to show how systems will be accommodated for, how information moves between them and how technical hosting of these systems accommodate the operation.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Definition, implementation, and execution of the processes for the definition, maintenance, and conformance management of AP's systems architecture.
• Ensure all systems and business system owners understand the operating model of the systems and their touch-points between each other.
• Define the system of systems enterprise architecture diagrams that illustrate the integrations, virtual, physical and logical views of the platforms.
• Consult system vendors ensure contractual obligations define constraints and API, integration management.
• Ensure business representatives have data custodians for the management and reconciliation of data between core systems (such as finance and payroll), to ensure data integrity is audited and validated each financial cycle.
• Error management controls and procedures are in place and both technical teams and vendors understand their role in maintaining production systems.
• Disaster recovery procedures and business continuity is in place and tested where systems are reliant on underlying hosting within AP.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Enterprise Architecture diagrams
• API, middleware, store & forward queue definitions and ownership/ role agreement
• Error management: review, identification, resolution and reporting
• Vendor roles and responsibilities
• Technology, Super user and external vendor responsibilities
• Data integrity profiling and review frequency protocols
• Data warehouse platform architecture, the interfaces to downstream and upstream, the normalization/ data relational structure mapping to APIs
• Network management - WAN, WWAN, VPN, LAN standards and SOP
• Network monitoring solution - dashboards and notifications (incl escalation)

KEY RELATIONSHIP
Key stakeholders

• Technology Vendors and Partners
• Technology Management
• Business System Owners
• Super Users
• Regional Technology Teams
• Park Technology Officers

Indirect stakeholders

• End users
• Park management
• Peripheral IT suppliers and services
• Regional office staff
• Audit and risk team

JOB SPECIFICATION

• Engages business, system vendors, technology teams and defines the architecture models that illustrate the integrations, the security, network and hosting requirements.
• Security constraints, data segregation, data flows and data management for store-and-forward queues for offline management of systems.
• Design network device management and monitoring and systems accessibility management.
• The consultant in business process analysis and design, and service delivery, particularly with respect to the use of master data management to align business rules.
• Consults business systems owners to advise of constraints or rules that are dependent on physical system interoperability to ensure procures and rules are in place to govern data integrity.

KEY PERFORMANCE AREAS (Formal artifacts/ documents)

• Enterprise Architecture diagrams
• API, middleware, store & forward queue definitions and ownership/ role agreement
• Error management: review, identification, resolution and reporting
• Vendor roles and responsibilities
• Technology, Super user and external vendor responsibilities
• Data integrity profiling and review frequency protocols
• Data warehouse platform architecture, the interfaces to downstream and upstream, the normalization/ data relational structure mapping to APIs
• Network management - WAN, WWAN, VPN, LAN standards and SOP
• Network monitoring solution - dashboards and notifications (incl escalation)

Skills Required