Regional Director, Middle Eastern, Eastern and Southern Africa Full Time

The Opportunity

Plan International are embarking on an ambitious and exciting change process as part of our global strategy All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (FY23-FY27) to ensure that we are relevant, bold, engaging and effective in a dynamic and fast-changing global context.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Regional Director to lead Plan International’s strategies, programmes and operations in the Middle Eastern, Eastern and Southern Africa region. The region currently includes 15 Country Offices, organised by clusters to ensure balance in complexity and distribution of work to facilitate effective management oversight and support, and a Regional Hub, based in Nairobi, Kenya and has an annual budget of €220m. It is the responsibility of the Country Offices to implement the whole mission of Plan International in their respective countries and the Africa Union Liaison Office. The Regional Director has overall responsibility for the portfolio in the region and plays a significant role in driving changes to this footprint. Line management of the country directors is divided between two sub-regional directors.

The Regional Hub oversees the realisation of Plan International’s country facing programming and influencing activities in the Region and holds business units to account for achieving maximum and timely impact in accordance with our purpose, values and behaviours, global policies, and as directed by the Members Assembly and International Board.

Key Accountabilities

Country Office Performance

Accountable for the successful delivery of Plan International’s strategy, programmes, and operations in the MEESA region in line with Plan International’s global strategy and standards.

• Sign off country strategies and drive quality, ambition and alignment.
• Drive forward our ambition under the global strategy to achieve gender transformative programmes and courageous local, national, regional and global influencing for maximum impact.
• Ensure that Plan International’s dual mandate in development and humanitarian work is adequately reflected in the region’s operations.
• Strengthen culture of information sharing from the CEO of PII to Country Offices to further promote decision-making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability.
• Strengthen functional relationships from local, to regional to global for more effective and timely support to Country Offices.

Lead the effective allocation and utilisation of resources

Oversee the allocation, and utilisation of resources according to strategic plans, budgets, and financial standards, to ensure that resources are used to add the most value and to support cost-effective operations. Monitoring, guiding, and intervening as needed in the use of financial resources.

Strengthen Governance in country offices to achieve the broad-based membership ambitions of the organisation in line with the Locally Led, Globally Connected strategic imperative. This also includes strengthening legitimacy at local level through contextualising Plan’s localisation and decolonisation ambition.

Empowering Directors of Sub-region to effectively address non-performance through decisive action and nurture a strong culture of accountability for effective, efficient, and impactful delivery of programs. Promote the use of data-driven evidence, digital solutions and knowledge sharing.

Drive the design and implementation of context-specific operating models to ensure Plan remains relevant and delivers increased performance and impact in a rapidly evolving global and regional environment**.**

Regional Hub

Develop and lead a high performing and value-based leadership team within the region,

• Drive a positive and high-impact performance across the organisation
• Lead efforts to transform organisational culture, deepen engagement, and drive lasting change through embedding behaviours that are in line with Plan values and leadership principles
• Sustain the team’s focus on broader strategic people resourcing issues, fortifying talent pipelines for leadership roles and technical capabilities, and attracting, developing, advancing, and retaining a highly skilled, motivated, and diverse workforce.

Identify and manage risk, ensuring that systems and processes are in place to identify, understand, and mitigate risks, as well as monitor and intervene as appropriate.

External Representation and Communication

Lead on external representation, strategic engagement, and advocacy in the region and global platforms, working closely with the global strategy and external engagement unit.

Build relationships and communicating internally and externally to strengthen a culture of collaboration, partnership, and learning within the region and across the organisation.

Policies and Standards

Ensure compliance with Plan International standards and that systems and processes are in place to comply with plans, policies and legal requirements. Monitoring compliance of the same and intervening as appropriate.

Ensure that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility

Technical Expertise, Skills and Knowledge

• Significant experience in progressive senior international leadership roles in the humanitarian sector including proven leadership experience in Africa
• Demonstrable knowledge of the key debates in development, particularly around child rights and gender equality
• Practical knowledge of the requirements of donor compliance and financial management
• Practical knowledge of programming for development and emergency response
• Excellent presentation, written and verbal communication skills; commitment to open and transparent communication and highly developed diplomatic skills
• Business level fluency in English

Please follow this link for a full role profile; MEESA Regional Director 2025.docx

Tagged as: Kenya, Plan International