Director, Democratic and Inclusive Societies

Director, Democratic and Inclusive Societies.

Deadline: 6 november 2024.

FHI 360 partners with local communities to improve local government accountability, transparency, and responsiveness to citizens’ priorities and needs and help citizens mobilize to influence policy, improve lives, and build peace. The Director, Democratic and Inclusive Societies plays a pivotal role within the Strategic Growth group of FHI 360 Global Operations. Tasked with driving strategic growth and impact in this sector, this position oversees the Democratic and Inclusive Societies team, ensuring alignment with organizational priorities and fostering collaboration both internally and externally. Reporting directly to Senior Director, Global Technical Corps, the Director leads a diverse team of technical experts, navigating complex issues and spearheading initiatives to secure new business opportunities and advance FHI 360’s strategic goals.

This position can be based in any country where FHI 360 has a registered office, and where the candidate has relevant work authorization.

Responsibilities include

• Lead the development and implementation of the team’s 3-year resource mobilization plan, including identifying and prioritizing new business opportunities that are aligned with FHI 360’s democracy and inclusive societies technical area to achieve impact and align democratic and inclusive societies’ priorities with the global strategy and big global challenges.
• Facilitate the development of FHI 360’s thought leadership in democracy, rights, and governance through learning events, publications, and technical initiatives. Enhance the visibility of democratic and inclusive societies by mentoring and supporting the global team in delivering professional presentations, participating in conferences, and contributing articles and op-eds to publications and social media platforms.
• Build, support, and empower a team of diverse, collaborative, and high-performing technical experts. This includes supporting organizational priorities for locally led development, such as by establishing and nurturing a distributed team of democratic and inclusive society experts across the organization who support project quality, thought leadership, and strategic growth.
• Identify, secure funding for, oversee the development and launching of new technical products and services in line with the portfolio priorities.
• Oversee the design and development of new project activities and ensure that interventions are consistent with FHI 360’s strategy.
• Develop and implement a comprehensive client and stakeholder engagement strategy that fosters regular dialogue, information sharing, and ensures high levels of satisfaction among both internal and external clients in the delivery of all tasks.
• Cultivate a network of partnerships with other relevant stakeholders, including USAID, other government donors, the private sector, academic institutions, researchers, and implementing partners
• Collaborate effectively with other FHI 360 technical teams on complex, multi-sectoral challenges requiring democratic and inclusive society expertise.
• Lead annual budget planning, ensure accurate LOE projections and sufficient coverage for staff to support project implementation, thought leadership and business development.

Applied Knowledge & Skills

• Possesses comprehensive knowledge of theories, concepts, and practices related to democratic and inclusive societies, with broad technical expertise in democracy and governance methodologies. Demonstrates specialized knowledge in at least two areas, such as public accountability and oversight, civil society strengthening, civic participation and advocacy, good governance, or conflict mitigation.
• Demonstrated ability to build positive working relationships with senior government, funder, bilateral and international and national non-governmental organization representatives.
• Knowledge of non-profit funding streams, including government and philanthropic.
• Strong time-management, multi-tasking, and organizational skills.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Strong consultative and negotiation skills.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills to plan, organize, and manage resources for successful completion of projects.
• Excellent and demonstrated public relations, policy development, project management and diplomacy skills required.
• Adaptable to new approaches to doing business.
• Ability to motivate, influence and collaborate with others across all levels of the organization.
• Ability to take initiative and focus on results.
• Ability to learn new skills and systems, with an entrepreneurial work ethic.

Qualifications

• Master’s Degree or its international equivalent in civil society, international development, political science, international relations, public policy, social sciences, or a related field. We welcome candidates with other relevant certifications or their international equivalents.
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience and a master’s degree or, in lieu of a master’s degree, a bachelor’s degree and 13 years of experience would be considered.
• Minimum of 10 years working internationally in civil society strengthening, civic participation, and/or conflict mitigation or related fields.
• Experience partnering with major international funding agencies, private sector, and/or foundations. Extensive experience partnering with USAID required.
• Track record for successfully overseeing positioning, capture and business-development initiatives resulting in a continually growing portfolio of programs with diverse funding sources.
• Track record for forward-thinking planning and sound leadership.
• Strong people management with a record of recruiting, hiring, supporting and growing high-performing, diverse and inclusive teams.
• Proven experience leading change-management and organizational-development processes.
• Excellent writing and presenting skills.
• Fluency in English required; proficiency in additional languages preferred.

Travel Requirements

10% – 25%

This job posting summarizes the main duties of the job. It neither prescribes nor restricts the exact tasks that may be assigned to carry out these duties. This document should not be construed in any way to represent a contract of employment. Management reserves the right to review and revise this document at any time.

FHI 360 is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer whereby we do not engage in practices that discriminate against any person employed or seeking employment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, protected Veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law.

Our values and commitments to safeguarding: FHI 360 is committed to preventing any type of abuse, exploitation and harassment in our work environments and programs, including sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment. FHI 360 takes steps to safeguard the welfare of everyone who engages with our organization and programs and requires that all personnel, including staff members and volunteers, share this commitment and sign our code of conduct. All offers of employment will be subject to appropriate screening checks, including reference, criminal record and terrorism finance checks. FHI 360 also participates in the Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS), facilitated by the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response. In line with the MDS, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any substantiated findings of sexual abuse, exploitation and/or harassment during the applicant’s tenure with previous employers. By applying, job applicants confirm their understanding of these recruitment procedures and consent to these screening checks.