Director – Emergency Preparedness At Mercy Corps

Department: Global Emergency Response Team (ERT)

Location: Any Mercy Corps office location globally or remote US/UK

Employee Type: Full-time

Reporting To: Vice President – Global Emergency Response

Salary: US only: Starting salary for this role will be $102,000 commensurate on experience, will be based on local benchmark for candidates outside of the United States.

Position Summary

The Global Emergency Response Team (ERT) provides the agency with timely and effective leadership to prepare for, respond to, and learn from humanitarian emergencies, develops sharp, well-timed and influential humanitarian analysis to inform program design and implementation, and supports agency leadership and regional and country teams with safety and security expertise.

The Director of Emergency Preparedness is an important new position on the Global Emergency Response team and will provide leadership to better define Mercy Corps’ vision for emergency preparedness and readiness at all levels of the agency moving forward, while also ensuring continued support is provided to country teams and regions on emergency preparedness efforts. Reporting to the Vice President of Emergency Response, the Director will collaborate closely with other departments (including the Office of the COO, security, crisis analytics, operations, finance, HR and others) on the initiative to review the agency’s approach and identify roles/responsibilities moving forward, as well as working to review standards and tools for emergency preparedness efforts. The Director will work closely with colleagues on the emergency response team to provide leadership both remote and in-person on preparedness, readiness, and contingency planning assignments at the country/regional level. This support may include both capacity building, facilitation, as well as leading on these efforts.

This role will interact heavily with members of the senior leadership team, regional leadership and country leadership teams. The Director will need to successfully build strong working relationships with these key stakeholders, and drive work forward to define a refreshed agency approach to preparedness for the future.

Essential Responsibilities

SAFEGUARDING RESPONSIBILITIES

• Actively learns about safeguarding and integrates it into their work, including safeguarding risks and mitigations related to their area of work
• Practices the values of Mercy Corps including respecting the dignity and well-being of participants and fellow team members
• Encourages openness and communication in their team; encourages team members to submit reports if they have any concerns using reporting mechanisms e.g. Integrity Hotline and other options

STRATEGY

• Provide leadership and vision to define and implement a refreshed approach to emergency preparedness and readiness at Mercy Corps, including at global, regional and country levels.
• Ensure there is clear definition of roles/responsibilities across these levels and departments once the vision/approach is developed and communicate these appropriately across the agency.
• Working closely with the global operations team and operational leadership at the regional level, develop and implement a vision for establishing pre-positioning partnership agreements for goods/services in emergencies for more rapid and efficient emergency response.
• Working closely with the security, crisis analytics, enterprise risk management committee, and others, develop a cross-department monitoring system to keep track of trends at the global level and share relevant information with the senior leadership at the regional/global level as necessary and better inform how to prioritize preparedness efforts across the agency.

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS LEADERSHIP AND SUPPORT

• Lead or support country/regional preparedness efforts including with emergency preparedness plans, scenario development, contingency and business continuity planning. This may include direct deployment to lead a preparedness initiative or assessment, making concrete recommendations to teams on actions to undertake, or may include supporting existing teams to lead their own preparedness exercise.
• Lead or support the delivery of trainings, capacity building/mentorship, and simulations related to emergency preparedness and readiness to Mercy Corps team members and partners. Ensure focus is on the practical application (and adaptation) of preparedness planning in addition to any theoretical concepts.
• Ensure preparedness efforts are appropriately linked (and not overlapping with) other aspects of readiness (e.g. Safety and security planning, business continuity planning, risk management frameworks).
• Working closely with technical colleagues, ensure preparedness documents/processes are streamlined, user-friendly across contexts/languages, and automated where possible/appropriate.
• Stay informed on the emergency preparedness landscape to understand practices/approaches implemented by peer agencies.
• Working with the relevant technical teams, develop a standard tracking system and dashboard for preparedness-related products developed across the various levels of the agency.
• Develop/adapt appropriate tools and guidelines for the agency on preparedness and readiness once the vision/approach is developed.
• Support the expansion of internal/external talent pools, including recruitment, onboarding or technical support for bringing on preparedness capacity.

REPRESENTATION

• Represent Mercy Corps in any relevant external community of practices or other relevant coordination for a related to preparedness and readiness and ensure appropriate feedback loops, information sharing and sharing of learning both internally and externally.
• Engage and stay abreast of industry standards/practices on preparedness and readiness, representing Mercy Corps in relevant workshops, technical discussions etc on these topics and identifying opportunities to ensure these standards inform our work/approaches on preparedness at the global and field level.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Demonstrated experience of key standards for humanitarian response such as SPHERE and CHS, with a solid understanding of the humanitarian architecture and IASC systems.
• Significant knowledge of industry practices and standards related to preparedness and readiness required.
• Experience with designing and delivering training and capacity building initiatives.
• Strong facilitation skills required, with an ability to cover theoretical and practical application of concepts at field level.
• Familiarity and experience with business continuity, contingency planning, risk management and safety/security management essential for success in this role.
• Excellent collaboration, communication and coordination skills required.
• Strong organization skills required
• Familiarity with development of automated tools/systems/dashboards a plus.
• Willingness and ability to deploy rapidly for preparedness related support to field teams for up to 4-6 weeks important.
• Willingness and ability to travel to Mercy Corps’ project sites and field locations, including traveling to insecure environments, is required.

Required Education and Experience

• A minimum of seven years of field experience in international emergency response programming or operations required, including demonstrable success in managing programs in emergency and transitional environments.
• Proven management and supervisory experience that includes:
  • Effective coaching, development, and management of individual staff and teams.
  • Proven leadership, self-motivation, and interpersonal skills.
  • Leading matrixed teams for successful results in non-hierarchical settings.
  • Working with teams of diverse backgrounds.
  • Ability to lead teams, handle negotiations and facilitate planning processes, including delicate transitions.
• HEAT training certification (or equivalent) or commitment to obtain within first month of the role.
• Significant field experience including direct management (programmatic and/or operational) in an array of complex humanitarian and emergency contexts across different regions.
• Excellent oral and written skills in English and in a second language, preferably French, Arabic or Spanish.

Supervisory Responsibility

External consultants or interns brought on to support preparedness efforts.

Budget Management Responsibility

None

Living, Travel & Environmental Conditions

This position requires up to 50% travel to support field teams, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited. Mercy Corps Team members represent the agency both during and outside of work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/short term assignment to a field posting. Staff are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. By applying for this role an applicant confirms that they have not previously violated an employer’s sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation and abuse, child safeguarding or trafficking policy. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct e-learning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

As an applicant, if you witness or experience any form of sexual misconduct during the recruitment process, please report this to Mercy Corps Integrity Hotline (integrityhotline@mercycorps.org).

As a safeguarding measure, Mercy Corps screens all potential employees. This is done following the conclusion of recruitment and prior to assuming full employment.

Our screening process is designed to be transparent and completed in partnership with new Team Members. You will have the opportunity to disclose any prior convictions at the conclusion of the recruitment process before the check is initiated. We ask that you do not disclose any prior convictions in your application materials or during the recruitment process.

All other duties as assigned.