Director Awards Management, West Africa Full Time

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 50 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

The Awards Management Unit (AMU)

Established in January 2016, the Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Bonn, Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm, Geneva, Nairobi, Dakar and Amman. It has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing all funding from statutory donors. The Unit is organized into five pillars: Strategic Partnerships, Program and Grant Support, Compliance and Policy, Business Development, and Training. Under the Program and Grants Support Pillar, the Directors of Awards Management are responsible for each region’s full awards management lifecycle.

The AMU is a bridge between donors and country programs: providing expert technical advice to country teams, while maintaining high-level visibility to ensure general health of the regional portfolio. This unit ensures that donor compliance, policies and procedures are implemented consistently and supports all staff working across the project management cycle for all restricted funding from global government sources. The unit operates within a matrix management system across the teams in the US and Europe, driving functional integration between all relevant units and staff, ensuring that AMU staff support the IRC global strategy and priorities.

Crisis Response, Recovery and Development Department (CRRD)

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development Department (CRRD) have a growing portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs under their remit. This work focuses support in five key areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic well-being and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all these programs, there is a drive to address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced) – and the universal barriers they face.

The CRRD works across 6 regions globally, including West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The regional teams are the links between country offices and key HQ positions, and aim to support each country program with everything from strategic planning, compliance, evaluation, finance and logistics, to visibility, business development and awards management.

The IRC is present in West Africa since the 1990s and is currently operating in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The IRC in West Africa implements programs through the arc of crisis, emergency, humanitarian, and development contexts.

Purpose of the Role

The Director of Awards Management is a member of both AMU and the West Africa regional team and is tasked with direct support and oversight of business development and grants implementation to meet country and IRC-wide priorities. As part of the regional Senior Management Team, the Director of Awards Management ensures high quality guidance and support throughout the awards lifecycle to IRC country teams and external stakeholders. This is done by leading on/contributing to the development of best practice in business processes, overseeing the regional program and awards support team and representing country and regional perspectives. The WA Director of Awards Management acts as a connector, striving to establish a strong culture of collaboration across HQ, country and regional levels.

The Director of Awards Management ensures their teams and AMU colleagues provide key interface between the country offices, grants teams and the wider IRC in all aspects of award management for all donors (private and public) in their respective regions. This includes providing insight into the range of grants-related activities in the region, support for private sector and institutional donors, resourcing gaps in country teams and delivering training.

Direct Reports:

7 regional direct reports

Leadership of full Regional Program and Award Support (RPAS) Team (17 total members)

Key Relationships:

All pillars within AMU, IRC Inc, IRC UK, IRC DE and other European offices, CRRD, External Relations, Supply Chain, Finance, ECU, OGC, HR and IT

KEY ACCOUNTABLITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Accountable for excellence in proposal and award management support to country offices by leading and empowering the regional program support team in supporting the country-based grants staff, co-designing solutions, ensuring capacity building, partnership management, and coordinating support with stakeholders across the organization.

• Define and drive forward critical business decisions and processes that respond to the needs of regions, country programs, and the organization, including contributing to the development, deployment and utilization of financial and operational policies, procedures, and systems to deliver compliance with IRC and donor requirements.

• Lead and manage an ambitious and high performing regional program support team, acting as a trusted and accountable manager, mentor and professional resource, including promoting collaboration, enabling adequate resourcing and ensuring accountability.

• Responsible for maintaining regional level oversight of award portfolio and pipeline including:

o Supporting the regional Head of Business Development to work with country programs in setting and implementing their business development plans, attaining their targets through proactive planning and reviewing progress in support and consultation with regional leadership.

o Leading the team in developing and maintaining positive, strategic relationships with donors to sustain regional impact – providing insight/information into donor thinking and developments in addition to escalating issues as appropriate.

• Liaise with internal stakeholders including: Finance, Measurement, Ethics and Compliance, and Office of General Counsel to deepen understanding/application of organisational objectives and problem solving.

• Seek opportunities to introduce efficiencies and eliminate redundancies in existing business processes, including sharing of best practices across regions.

• Represent the voices and needs of the country grants teams to wider AMU, External Relations and IRC, and support strong collaboration in particular with AMU’s Business Development and Compliance & Policy teams.

• Ensure collaboration between country offices, the region and External Relations around private sector funding priorities. Alongside the CRRD Regional Vice President and Deputy Regional Director, represent the region in quarterly finance, business development, regional roundtable meetings and other key engagements as appropriate.

• Ensure responsiveness and appropriate levels of in-person and remote award management support to all country offices, plus serve as technical resource for country grant staff recruitment. This includes identifying resourcing gaps in-country grants & partnerships teams and finding solutions to ensure proper coverage of immediate needs while providing advice on structural changes for healthy portfolio management.

• Act as a key member of the WA senior management team with engagement in strategic oversight of the region. Support country programs on achieving their strategic vision through effective business development planning and efficient grant management.

• As a senior member of AMU, represent regional, CRRD, and team interests within the AMU.

• Lead on and support AMU and regional strategic priorities and initiatives more widely.

• Manage the West Africa RPAS budget, ensuring coordination with AMU and global finance as needed.

• Ensure identified issues are escalated and proactively work with leadership to find solutions.

REQUIREMENTS

• At least 7-10 years of experience with a relief and development NGO or multilateral agency

• International experience, especially in the region, preferred

• Program and/or grants management experience with key donors, such as USAID, FCDO, European Union/ECHO, UN agencies, and others

• Experience managing for donor compliance, proposal writing, budgeting, and representing implementers to donors

• Proven ability to lead, manage, and develop teams, including staff working at a distance

• Proven ability to manage multiple work streams and to coordinate across teams/functions

• Excellent relationship-management skills with colleagues in country offices and HQ, senior stakeholders, and donors

• Written and spoken fluency in English and French

• Ability to travel internationally approximately 15% of the time

Compensation:

Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

US Benefits:

The IRC offers a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. All US employees are eligible for sick time, a 403b retirement savings plans: up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus an 3-7% additional IRC contribution, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

In addition, full-time employees are eligible for 10 US paid holidays, 20-25 paid time off days, disability & life insurance, medical, dental, and vision insurance (employee contribution starting at $135, $7, and $5 per month respectively) and FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs. Part-time employees are eligible for a proportionate amount of paid time off. These additional benefits apply to employees who work at least 6 months within a 12 month time period.

Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.

Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.

Tagged as: International Rescue Committee, Senegal