Hybrid Deputy Director of Programs

at INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE

• Job title: Deputy Director of Programs
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Postgraduate Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Bogota, Colombia

About the role

• Deputy Director of Programs leading IRC's initiatives in Colombia and Venezuela. Overseeing program strategy, compliance, and team management amid humanitarian crises.

Responsibilities

• Lead efforts for sustainable program growth, proactively identifying opportunities for new programming initiatives and prioritizing opportunities for multi-year funding to support them.
• Implement IRC´s business development strategy in Colombia and Venezuela – identify donors and funding opportunities, widening and strengthening IRC’s donor base.
• Coordinate with the regional team, technical advisors, Colombia and Venezuela staff and partners for submission of innovative and high-quality proposals; take a lead role writing technical proposals and budgets.
• Collaborate with Comms, MEAL and Grants to implement IRC´s positioning strategy – sharing the impact of IRC´s work on clients in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
• Ensure, with Technical Unit staff, that project design reflects IRC program quality standards and industry best practices.
• Provide guidance, strategies and tools to ensure that program choices are based on needs assessment findings (primary & secondary data) and analysis, input from communities and clients, and a thorough understanding of context, technical best practices, and operational viability.
• Formulate integrated program initiatives so that technical sectors complement each other and promote mainstreaming of protection principles and gender-responsive approaches.
• Provide overall leadership and management of IRC Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela´s program portfolio, ensuring strategically coherent program direction, well-managed growth, and compliance with IRC and donor regulations.
• Support the Country Director to design, implement and update the Strategic Action Plan (SAP) for Colombia and Venezuela to guide decision-making and frame our value add, based on updated context analysis and needs assessments.
• Continuously seek out ways to build the capacities of the program team members, individually and collectively.
• Ensure that detailed, realistic and feasible project implementation plans are developed and adapted as needed to better address evolving contextual needs, in collaboration with program and operations teams.
• Coordinate with other members of the Senior Management Team on appropriate management, compliance and performance standards, as well as effective systems for budget management, knowledge management and risk management.
• Collaborate with the Safety and Security Coordinator to ensure appropriate security protocols are developed for effective but security-conscious program implementation.
• Support programming staff to collect, document and disseminate lessons learned and best practices, incorporating these into new project designs.
• With program staff, develop effective and outcome-oriented MEAL plans that accurately reflect the impact of our work on the lives of our clients, including methodologies and tools to strengthen the quality of data collection, analysis and reporting.
• Review M&E and accountability data with program staff to identify and address areas for operational improvement. Ensure feedback channels are responsive to client profiles and that client feedback is addressed and incorporated into adaptive management processes.
• Work through the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS), a comprehensive set of compliance tools to set up, manage, and close out partnerships and sub-awards.
• Liaise with partner organizations and support partnership staff to ensure that all partners understand their role and responsibilities and feel they can share feedback with the IRC.
• With support from partnership staff, lead the country program´s localization strategy, developing relationships with local actors and supporting operational and technical capacity sharing with strategic local partners with the aim to support their transition to receiving funds directly.
• Ensure quality grants management, compliance with donor requirements, and quality information management related to programs/ grants.
• Supervise all internal and external reporting with programs and finance, ensuring high-quality, well-written and timely reports meeting donor, IRC and partner requirements; conduct thorough reviews and/or revisions of all external reports compiled by the programs, grants and BD teams.
• Ensure that program and grants teams conduct routine monitoring visits to implementation sites to ensure donor compliance and quality program implementation.
• Coordinate with the program, grants and finance teams to ensure sound budget management, expense control and timely contractual documentation, including the submission of timely and complete financial reports.
• Ensure all program leads and grants staff adhere to IRC´s program management cycle and that programming staff are well trained to properly manage project budgets.
• Ensure that program coordinators and project leads review budget-vs-actuals reports on a regular basis; provide leadership and management support to ensure effective monthly grant review meetings.
• Mitigate any potential risk by collaborating with the finance and operations departments to ensure that programming staff fully understand financial and administrative processes involved in project budget cycles.
• Ensure the timely, complete and compliant close out of all grants.
• Develop a sound understanding of the IRC's programs to be able to professionally represent the IRC to implementing partners, the government and donors;
• Assist the Country Director developing strong relationships with donors, assisting with visits and in the development of appropriate advocacy actions;
• Forge and maintain solid cooperation with partner organizations through regular communication, cooperation and, where appropriate, joint decision-making;
• Act as the focal point for program-related communication between IRC country programs in the region and worldwide offices;
• Oversee programmatic inputs to advocacy efforts both in-country and globally.
• Identify, recruit, and orient new staff to the IRC, including operations (HR, admin, security, and supply chain), programs, compliance, finance, and partnership management. Orientation will be supported by focal points within the IRC.
• Lead or support the recruitment of key program positions including the development of terms of reference and technical tests and participation in interview panels.
• Create a supervisory environment that places clients at the center of our work; focuses on both team and individual results; sees mistakes as an opportunity to learn; and emphasizes the importance of collaboration, accountability and recognition as key elements of a successful work environment.
• Adhere to IRC's performance management system, providing regular, timely and thoughtful coaching, feedback, performance assessment, and professional development for all direct reports, while making sure that they do the same for their direct reports.
• Build capacities of programming staff in key project management principles, tools and approaches and ensure that these new skills are utilized on the job.
• Support high-performing staff to assume greater levels of responsibility.
• Provide leadership support for the successful implementation of and adherence to the IRC Global HR Operating Policies and Procedures.

Requirements

• Master's degree in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Sciences or a similar field;
• Minimum of 5 years managing teams in Latin America;
• Minimum eight years of management experience working in a humanitarian or development setting with a minimum of five years of INGO program management experience.
• Demonstrated successful leadership experience with a multi-disciplinary team in a cross-cultural setting, including active mentoring and coaching. Strong leadership, motivational and team-building skills;
• Experience managing security in a complex and rapidly changing security context.
• Established capacity to handle stressful situations in a healthy, constructive manner.
• Experience in managing protection, ERD and/or health programming, a plus.
• Confirmed ability to negotiate and work with partner organizations. Experience with organizational capacity strengthening and partnership building is helpful.
• Proven ability to develop winning proposals to public and private-sector donors. Previous experience managing programs financed by US government agencies, DFID, EU, foundations and private donors a must, with previous experience in competitive environments a plus.
• Proven ability to manage projects to completion on time, within budget, and with the anticipated results.
• Ability to respond to multiple priorities in a timely manner, producing high-quality outcomes.
• Strong budget and fiscal oversight capacities.
• Proven oral and written fluency in English and Spanish a must.
• Proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• 401(k) matching
• Flexible working hours
• Paid time off
• Professional development opportunities