EnCompass LLC is seeking a Chief of Party (COP) candidates for an anticipated five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Accelerating the U.S.-India Partnership Platform (APP) Activity to be based in New Delhi, India.
The APP Activity will integrate Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) throughout the design and implementation of USAID/India’s activities and ensure that development activities funded by USAID/India achieve their intended results through strong performance management.
In addition to providing overall leadership, management, and technical direction, the COP will have experience working in performance management, organizational development, strategic decision-making, quality control, and project learning, preferably in the USAID context and CLA practices.
The COP will bring experience facilitating learning and building relationships with a variety of project stakeholders, including USAID, Government of India, academic institutions, private sector organizations, and civil society organizations. The COP will have high political acumen and strong leadership and management skills, with experience leading multi-cultural teams and a variety of work streams simultaneously. They must be an inclusive leader, who can navigate change with flexibility and emotional resilience. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience achieving results, with strong strategic vision and an understanding of systems approaches to programming. They will understand how to foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning and will maintain high self-awareness and personal improvement skills.
The position will be full-time and based in New Delhi, with travel throughout the country. We encourage qualified local professionals to apply.
Position Duties and Responsibilities
The COP will lead the activity, providing technical guidance to and supervising both project staff and consultants. The COP will be the primary point of contact with USAID staff, including the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer’s Representation (CO/COR).
Administration/Management:
- Serve as the main point of contact for the activity, providing vision, direction, leadership, and management for the contract
- Provide technical, operational, and managerial oversight to all aspects of the APP to ensure all activities, and deliverables are executed with quality and timeliness
- Establish and maintain highly collaborative working relationships with USAID/India and USAID/Washington, and the Government of India as required, along with relevant in-country stakeholders
- Serve as the primary point of contact for USAID and as the principal liaison with USAID staff, institutions, and country partners to exchange information and develop professional relationships
- Manage the country team, ensure technical capacity of staff; provide technical assistance and backstopping when required
- Ensure that all activities are undertaken in full compliance with EnCompass’ standard operating procedures, USAID policies and regulations, and national policies and laws
- Facilitate the development of quarterly and annual activity work plans and budgets and ensure the timely submission and quality of all activity reports, materials, and publications, compliant with the contract agreement
- Ensure documentation and dissemination of findings, impact, innovations, and lessons learned
- Ensure optimal use of human, financial, and physical resources to successfully meet project milestones, objectives, deliverables and targets
Technical:
- Responsible for the overall technical direction of the activity, ensuring quality and timeliness of all deliverables
- Promote sustainability of project activities with effective networking, linkages to other programs, capacity building of project staff, and institutional strengthening
Position Requirements
Qualifications
- A Master’s Degree and 12 years’ experience or PhD with 10 years’ experience in a social science, economics, business administration, development studies, international relations, public administration or a related field
- Minimum of ten (10) years of progressively increasing responsibility managing large comprehensive monitoring, evaluation and learning contracts of similar nature, size and complexity, preferably for USAID or other donors.
- Minimum of five (5) years of supervisory experience.
- Minimum of five (5) years of experience in monitoring and evaluation, program design, knowledge management and/or organizational capacity strengthening.
- Excellent communication, both verbal and written English skills required
- Experience managing complex relationships with a variety of stakeholders and ability to work with host-country governments at different levels required
Experience and Skills
- Prior experience as a chief of party (COP), or project director leading complex USAID-funded projects, as well as managing sizeable USG-funded contracts and budgets strongly very strongly preferred.
- Significant experience with USAID monitoring and evaluation policy and guidance required, including CLA practices.
- Demonstrated experience in performance monitoring, strategic planning, project design and implementation, evaluation, tracking data quality, data management, and/or training in performance management topics.
- Familiarity with USAID/India Mission or prior experience working in India or region
- Significant experience building MEL capacities of USAID staff, implementing partners, and government counterparts highly preferred
How to apply
Please submit CV and cover letter and complete the application: