Senior Director

Summary The Senior Director, Humanitarian Portfolio will lead the development and performance of Save the Children’s US (SCUS) humanitarian awards portfolio totaling over $315 million in annual funding. In this role, you will strategically engage with donors to position Save the Children as a humanitarian leader and partner of choice. Within SCUS’s Department for Humanitarian Response (DHR), the Senior Director will oversee a growing team of specialists responsible for program development and award management in support of Save the Children’s country offices. As part of the overall team management, you will enable the team’s success by setting standards and proactively supporting learning and professional development. You will oversee efforts to identify challenges, bottlenecks, and risks within humanitarian award management to identify solutions and improvements within the Save the Children movement. You will also ensure SCUS navigates awards in high-risk countries with strong compliance and mitigation measures. The Senior Director is a part of SCUS humanitarian senior management team, reporting directly to the Vice President, Humanitarian Response. What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties) SCUS Humanitarian Strategy and Donor Engagement (30%)

Engage with representatives of US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration (BPRM) as well as other funders and humanitarian leaders, ensuring that Save the Children is well positioned as a partner of choice
Collaborate with the Senior Director, Humanitarian Strategy, Quality & Innovation to leverage Save the Children’s innovation and programmatic integration to demonstrate to donors the agency’s efforts to evolve program delivery strategies
Coordinate with the Director, Humanitarian Partnerships to identify sector wide trends within and across donors to find new opportunities and promote Save the Children’s responsiveness to donors
Working closely with the VP, Humanitarian Response, engage with SCUS’s Senior Management Team regarding priority humanitarian responses and formulate a comprehensive and timely support by SCUS to responses

SCUS Program Development (15%)

Lead efforts to meet annual humanitarian funding targets for funding from BHA, BPRM, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Program (WFP) and private funding source -- ensuring effective engagement with Save the Children country offices and technical advisors leading to the submission of high quality and successful funding proposals
Identify competitive opportunities and provide strategic oversight to proposal development for complex, high-risk countries to ensure Save the Children is positioned to fulfill the necessary requirements, including identifying necessary risk mitigation and program quality measures, in consultation with relevant leadership and compliance advisors
Advise in high-level partner and consortium formulation to ensure Save the Children is strategically positioned within competitive humanitarian awards

SCUS Award Management and Compliance (20%)

Ensure effective management of the full life cycle of approximately 100 humanitarian awards with most programs delivered by Save the Children International, including engaging SCUS units, which are aiming to improve award management practices across the agency, based on feedback from the team
Support award management team to navigate increasing complexity of awards in high risk countries, including Syria and Venezuela to ensure Save the Children is aligned with donor compliance and continuously managing risk
Coordinate with the Director, Humanitarian Operations, to ensure appropriate support for proposals and awards that include food commodities.
Lead team in ensuring SCUS provides timely support to country offices using a customer service approach that promotes country-level leadership and ownership; escalating issues where necessary to regional directors or other senior staff

Team Management (25%)

Develop and manage a growing team of roughly 30 award management specialists in a rapidly changing donor environment and humanitarian landscape
Implement human resource management strategies (recruitment, orientation, retention, leadership development, succession planning) to meet strategic goals
For direct reports, ensure new staff orientation, work plan development, performance evaluations, timesheet management/approval, etc.
Promote professional development throughout the supervision of regular tasks, as well as specific opportunities for staff to build new skills
Oversee the team budget including effective use of specialist and award manager costs in budgets within funded awards

SCUS Internal Leadership (10%)

Serve as a member of the agency’s DHR leadership teams, playing an active role in creating and implementing Save the Children’s Humanitarian Business Team strategy and agency-wide annual planning and budget development
Participate in working groups to inform Save the Children’s design of tools and processes that improve award management tools, guidelines, and procedures.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor Degree or relevant equivalent experience
A minimum of10-15 years of relevant experience
Proven experience within humanitarian context, including field management experience in chronic or acute humanitarian crisis, with responsibility for program development and award management
Demonstrated success in raising substantial funding from relevant humanitarian donors including strong knowledge of USG humanitarian funding modalities and compliance, as well as UN agencies as donors and partners
Successful experience leading, managing and developing high-performing teams, including strong managerial knowledge and skills to provide direction and support staff professional development and retention
Proven ability to manage ongoing change in external and internal environments in an effective and transparent manner, while promoting staff engagement and morale
Demonstrated ability to think and act strategically and proven ability to exercise independent judgment and discretion on significant matters with minimal guidance
Demonstrated ability to lead and work effectively and respectfully across a range of settings and diverse cultures
Proven success in effective professional written and verbal communications in English
Willingness and ability to travel internationally up to 20% as required, including to humanitarian response settings