The posting
Job Title: Pharmacy Director – East Africa
Location: Kenya, with East Africa regional scope
Department: Operations, Quality Assurance, Pharmacovigilance & Regulatory Affairs
Reports To: Chief Executive Officer
Direct Reports: Procurement Lead, Site/Warehouse Pharmacist, Quality Assurance Officers, Pharmacovigilance Associate & Regulatory Affairs Associate
About the Opportunity
Our client is a fast-growing, mission-driven healthcare and technology organisation working to transform how medicines and health products move across African markets.
The organisation works with public and private healthcare systems to strengthen pharmaceutical supply chains, improve medicine availability, and ensure pharmaceutical products are managed, stored, and distributed safely and efficiently.
As the organisation expands across East Africa, it is seeking an exceptional Pharmacy Director – East Africa to provide executive leadership across pharmaceutical regulation, quality assurance, pharmacovigilance, procurement, warehousing, and supply-chain operations.
This is a highly senior and technically demanding role requiring a licensed pharmacist with extensive pharmaceutical regulatory and operational leadership experience.
The Role
The Pharmacy Director – East Africa will serve as the organisation's senior custodian of pharmaceutical compliance, regulatory conformance, product quality, and patient safety across Kenya and its expanding East African operations.
The successful candidate will act as the primary regulatory liaison with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), and other relevant regulatory authorities.
The role will provide executive oversight of the organisation's Quality Management System (QMS) and leadership across Regulatory Affairs, Quality Assurance, Pharmacovigilance, Procurement, Warehousing, and National Supply Chain Management.
The Pharmacy Director will also provide the technical and regulatory leadership necessary to support expansion into new East African markets while ensuring growth does not compromise pharmaceutical quality, patient safety, or regulatory compliance.
Key Responsibilities
1. Regulatory Affairs & Statutory Compliance
- Serve as the primary official liaison with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), KEBS, and other relevant regulatory authorities.
- Ensure pharmaceutical operations remain compliant with applicable legislation, regulatory requirements, and Good Distribution Practices (GDP).
- Lead product registrations, renewals, regulatory submissions, dossier follow-ups, licences, and permits.
- Ensure company pharmaceutical operations are conducted under the required supervision of appropriately registered pharmacists.
- Oversee regulatory requirements relating to pharmaceutical advertising, trademarks, and relevant intellectual property matters.
- Maintain organisational readiness for regulatory inspections and engagements.
2. Quality Management System & SOP Governance
- Provide executive oversight of the organisation's Quality Management System (QMS).
- Lead the development, implementation, review, and continuous improvement of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
- Ensure SOPs, work instructions, forms, and operational processes remain aligned with evolving regulatory and GDP requirements.
- Lead change-control processes and ensure operational changes remain compliant with regulatory requirements.
- Develop and maintain appropriate technical and quality agreements with manufacturers, vendors, registration holders, and third-party service providers.
- Lead the qualification, audit, and ongoing verification of pharmaceutical manufacturers and vendors against applicable GMP and regulatory standards.
3. Pharmaceutical Warehousing & Distribution Quality
- Ensure pharmaceutical warehouses and distribution operations comply with approved configurations, product flows, environmental requirements, and GDP standards.
- Oversee ambient and cold-chain temperature monitoring, including investigations and corrective action relating to temperature excursions.
- Ensure appropriate segregation and controls for inbound, outbound, reverse logistics, quarantine, rejected, high-risk, narcotic, and controlled pharmaceutical products.
- Provide quality oversight of sampling, quarantine releases, order verification, inventory controls, and FEFO/FEEFO processes.
- Review material inventory discrepancies and ensure appropriate investigations and escalation.
- Authenticate the legal and regulatory status of customers, suppliers, and distribution partners before engagement.
4. Product Recalls, Returns & Destruction
- Provide executive oversight of pharmaceutical returns, recalls, rejected products, and product destruction.
- Lead product recall strategy and execution in accordance with PPB requirements.
- Conduct or oversee technical quality assessments of damaged, returned, rejected, or potentially compromised pharmaceutical products.
- Ensure expired and rejected pharmaceutical products are destroyed safely, legally, and with appropriate documentation.
- Escalate significant product-quality or regulatory matters to management, principals, clients, or regulatory authorities where required.
5. Audits, CAPA & Non-Conformance Management
- Plan and oversee internal quality audits against PPB, GDP, ISO 9001:2015, and other applicable standards.
- Represent the organisation during external regulatory inspections and client audits.
- Lead investigations into quality incidents and non-conformances.
- Own and oversee Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) processes.
- Ensure corrective actions are implemented, verified, documented, and closed within agreed timelines.
- Monitor recurring quality issues and establish appropriate preventive controls.
6. Pharmacovigilance & Patient Safety
- Provide strategic and operational leadership of the organisation's Pharmacovigilance (PV) function.
- Ensure adverse events and Individual Case Safety Reports (ICSRs) are appropriately captured, assessed, documented, escalated, and submitted within applicable regulatory timelines.
- Maintain oversight of PV case-processing quality, reconciliation, documentation, and system integrity.
- Ensure relevant employees receive appropriate pharmacovigilance training.
- Maintain organisational readiness for pharmacovigilance-related regulatory inspections and client audits.
- Ensure serious or time-sensitive safety matters are escalated appropriately.
7. National Supply Chain & Procurement Leadership
- Provide executive oversight of pharmaceutical procurement and national supply-chain operations.
- Ensure effective management of procurement, inventory, warehousing, distribution, suppliers, and overall supply continuity.
- Drive strong order fulfilment and inventory accuracy.
- Minimise pharmaceutical stockouts and prevent unnecessary stock write-offs.
- Improve supplier performance and purchase-order lead times.
- Ensure shelf-life management and FEEFO controls are consistently applied.
- Balance supply-chain efficiency with regulatory, quality, and patient-safety requirements.
8. Leadership, Training & Governance
- Lead multidisciplinary technical teams across Pharmacy, Quality Assurance, Regulatory Affairs, Pharmacovigilance, Procurement, and Supply Chain.
- Establish clear accountability, performance standards, and development expectations for direct reports.
- Establish and oversee regulatory and GDP training programmes for relevant employees.
- Influence commercial and operational teams to maintain compliance across the organisation.
- Contribute to senior management and corporate governance discussions where required.
- Provide technical leadership during regulatory inspections, product recalls, quality incidents, and other high-pressure situations.
Key Performance Indicators
Success in this position will include:
- Strong regulatory and external audit performance with zero critical findings.
- Timely renewal of licences, product registrations, permits, and regulatory approvals.
- Timely closure of CAPAs and non-conformances.
- Effective QMS and SOP governance.
- Prevention of avoidable pharmaceutical losses resulting from temperature excursions.
- Full compliance with applicable pharmacovigilance reporting timelines.
- High pharmaceutical order fulfilment and supply continuity.
- Inventory cycle-count accuracy of above 99%.
- Reduction of critical medicine stockouts.
- Prevention of avoidable stock write-offs through effective FEEFO and shelf-life controls.
Essential Qualifications
Candidates must have:
- Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm) from a recognised institution.
- Active and valid registration and practising licence with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) of Kenya.
- Eligibility to fulfil all applicable statutory requirements to serve as a designated Responsible Pharmacist for pharmaceutical operations in Kenya.
A Master of Pharmacy (M.Pharm) or relevant advanced qualification will be an added advantage.
Experience & Track Record
The ideal candidate will demonstrate:
- Significant experience in a senior pharmaceutical leadership position such as Pharmacy Director, Head Pharmacist, Responsible Pharmacist, Head of Quality, Regulatory Affairs Lead, or Pharmaceutical Operations Leader.
- Extensive experience within pharmaceutical warehousing, wholesale distribution, logistics, supply chain, or another highly regulated pharmaceutical environment.
- Strong working knowledge of PPB regulations, pharmaceutical legislation, GDP, GMP, and pharmaceutical quality standards.
- Demonstrated experience managing pharmaceutical product registrations, regulatory submissions, licences, inspections, and regulatory authority engagements.
- Strong experience developing, implementing, and maintaining Quality Management Systems and SOP frameworks.
- Hands-on leadership experience with audits, CAPAs, deviations, non-conformances, recalls, investigations, and pharmaceutical quality incidents.
- Experience overseeing or working closely with Pharmacovigilance and Regulatory Affairs functions.
- Strong understanding of pharmaceutical procurement and supply-chain operations.
- Experience engaging senior government regulators, pharmaceutical principals, clients, and executive leadership.
- Experience supporting pharmaceutical operations across multiple countries or jurisdictions will be an added advantage.
Core Competencies
The successful candidate should demonstrate strong capability in:
- Pharmaceutical regulatory compliance
- PPB regulatory engagement
- Good Distribution Practices (GDP)
- Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)
- Quality Management Systems (QMS)
- Pharmaceutical product registration
- Pharmacovigilance & patient safety
- Pharmaceutical warehousing & cold-chain management
- Regulatory inspections & audit management
- CAPA & non-conformance management
- Product recalls & quality investigations
- Pharmaceutical procurement
- Supply-chain management
- Risk management
- SOP development & governance
- Executive stakeholder management
- Technical team leadership
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Multi-market pharmaceutical expansion
Who We Are Looking For
We are looking for more than a technically competent pharmacist.
The ideal candidate will be an experienced pharmaceutical leader capable of carrying executive-level accountability for the integrity of a growing pharmaceutical operation.
You should be equally comfortable engaging with regulators, leading a regulatory inspection, reviewing a quality system, managing a serious product-quality incident, overseeing pharmaceutical supply-chain performance, challenging operational decisions, and advising executive leadership.
Most importantly, you should have the judgement and technical credibility to support rapid business expansion while ensuring that product quality, patient safety, and regulatory compliance remain non-negotiable.
If you have built or led pharmaceutical quality, regulatory, distribution, and supply-chain operations and are ready to take responsibility across a growing East African platform, we would be interested in hearing from you.
Application Deadline;
Interested candidates should submit their CV to Our Website by latest Friday 9th October 2026.
For any inquiries, please contact us at +254 784 155 512.
Gap Recruitment Services Limited does not charge candidates at any stage of the recruitment process. We are committed to equal opportunity hiring. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted
