Senior Director – Emergency Planning At Canadian Red Cross

Title: Senior Director – Emergency Planning

Location: Remote, Across Canada

Type of contract: 17-Month, Full Time

Salary band: $84,000 – $122,000

The Canadian Red Cross (CRC), an iconic brand and one of the most inspirational not-for-profit organizations on this planet, is seeking a Senior Director – Emergency Planning to join our team.

You have a passion for helping others, and want to work with other dedicated individuals? By applying, you are taking a big first step to be part of an exciting organization

At the Canadian Red Cross, we are guided by our fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. We help people and communities in Canada and around the world in times of need and support them in strengthening their resilience.

Starting with the hiring process, we are committed to having an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and barrier-free work environment where everyone can reach their full potential. We encourage all qualified persons to apply, particularly Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, racialized people, and people with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, and others who share our values and contribute to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace.

We are looking for a Senior Director – Emergency Planning, you will work with Chief Emergency Operations (Canada and International), the Senior Director – Emergency Planning, will continue to build out the potential of this relatively new team. There is an opportunity in this regard: from documenting and further defining the team’s contributions to the annual readiness cycle; watch and plan for the emergent event-based readiness; to enhancing readiness service delivery to International Operations, to strengthening external relationships with organizations engaged in forecasting; to continuing to enhance the sophistication of hazard and risk mapping tools; and building out an exercise capacity. The Senior Director – Emergency Planning is responsible for ensuring that the ‘watch’ and ‘plan’ capacities are leveraged to their full potential and meet the needs of all internal stakeholders from the executive to field staff across both domestic and international emergency teams, as well as support services.

The Senior Director – Emergency Planning plays instrumental role in integrating documented lessons learned from the response into the readiness phase with a view to inform CRC operational strategies, capacity requirements, response tools and service offerings. This readiness cycle will enable organization to constantly learn, integrate lessons learned, adapt, and evolve. The Senior Director also oversees the development of readiness plans ensuring operations are designed to address emergencies of all types and magnitudes. In performing those functions, the Senior Director will work with a variety of external and internal stakeholders including emergency management experts from various levels of governments, academia, and international response coordination bodies.

In this role, you will:

Oversee the development and monitor the implementation of the Emergency Planning capability

• Oversee the development of core unit documentation, including the documentation of a readiness cycle articulating key annual deliverables and milestones; revised readiness standards for EMCI (spanning both domestic and international); and associated readiness dashboards.
• Work with internal stakeholders at all levels of the organization to better understand their needs in relation to readiness; existing areas of intersect and opportunities for collaboration and building networks of support including demonstrating relevance to the Executive.
• Act as the focal point for the team in key engagements with external stakeholders, including with the working group with the British, American, Australian and New Zealand Red Crosses.

Oversee the ‘watch’ capacity to forecast emergency and disaster trends, hazards, and vulnerabilities both in Canada and internationally to improve anticipatory readiness action

• Review, provide feedback on and approve production of weekly, quarterly, annual and strategic (3-5 year) hazard and risk forecasts.
• Leverage global best practice and existing resources to guide the development of the watch capacity, supporting the design of new tools for the collection, collation, analysis and presentation of forecasts.
• Guide watch lead in managing the network of geographic emergency readiness planning focal points, ensuring that staff management is effective within the matrixed model.
• Support the Watch lead in working with leadership in International Operations to develop and approve a staffing plan to ensure adequate resourcing in watch and plan capabilities within that team.

Oversee the development and monitor the implementation of the ‘plan’ function

• Ensure close collaboration between the ‘watch’ and ‘plan’ functions, as well as with other key internal stakeholders, facilitating introductions or encouraging new collaborations where possible.
• Approve key seasonal/quarterly planning deliverables and the possibility of emergent events including closely reviewing, providing feedback on and approving: the forecasted hazards selected to be used in the development of scenario-based plans, planning assumptions, draft scenario-based plans (including workforce plans), identified resource gaps across people/stock/systems and tools, and recommended remedial actions.
• Present the quarterly forecast, scenario-based plans and readiness status review to the Executive, obtaining feedback and approvals on the recommended remedial actions.
• Work with the ‘plan’ lead to convene and co-chair season-specific remedial action working groups, ensuring that individuals from a broad cross section of the CRC are engaged in just in time remedial actions to improve the organization’s readiness relative to the forecasted seasonal hazards.

Monitor the adequation of the CRC readiness posture against demands and trends in the field and recommend on future capacity requirement

• With a view towards constant improvement, and working closely with the Quality function, regularly assess and review CRC’s readiness postures and recommend how the CRC could improve its response effectiveness.
• Help inform development and further refinement of readiness and response capacities by liaising with service line owners and geographies ensuring circulation of knowledge, findings, best practices, and trends globally, as it relates to disaster trends, technical standards, and general approaches to EM response and recovery.

People Leadership – Build and maintain a strong team

• Drive overall talent development by creating an environment that supports positive employee and volunteer experiences and recognizes individuals and teams for contributing to the achievement of the organization’s priorities.
• Set the vision and priorities for the team, including developing and monitoring the Annual Operational Plan, quarterly reports, and budget.
• Incubate new capacities and potential both regarding new capabilities and deliverables as well as by mentoring and coaching all personnel (direct and matrixed reports).
• Provide leadership to the team members and those reported through the matrix structure in accordance with the vision, mandate and values as established by CRC leadership.

What we are looking for:

• Master’s degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in public administration, emergency management, trend analysis, social sciences, or equivalent is required.
• Minimum ten years’ or more of progressive operation management and planning, and/or project management experience.
• Experience successfully managing teams of diverse professionals, including remote or virtual management modalities.
• Experience in overseeing complex initiatives involving stakeholders across multiple fields of experience.
• Experience working in emergency management or comparable fast-paced fluid situations.
• Experience in managing a large portfolio of projects covering multiple disciplines.
• Proven ability to manage teams through times of change and maintain a client/service driven approach.
• Sound knowledge and understanding of the Canadian and Global emergency response systems.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex issues, analyze trends and make recommendation on program and capacity development.
• Proven experience in identifying and mitigating risks.
• Written and oral communication skills in English are essential and French is highly desirable.

Working conditions:

• May include long to moderate hours sitting and using computers and office equipment.
• Ability to work non-traditional hours on short notice.
• Ability to work in stressful and often ambiguous conditions.
• This position will require domestic or overseas travel to attend conferences, workshops, field trips and meetings as required.
• Must be able to be Medical Cleared for travel in accordance with established CRC Medical criteria in positions when travelling internationally
• Full vaccination against COVID-19 is mandatory for this position and operation (the CRC will however adhere to its duty to accommodate those who are unable to be fully vaccinated for a reason related to a human right protected ground)

If you require accommodation measures during any phase of the hiring process, please notify us as soon as possible. All information received in relation to accommodation requests will be kept confidential.

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