Regional Director – Africa & Asia At Relief International

Relief International (RI) is a leading non-profit organization working in 16 countries globally to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and chronic poverty.

RI combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact. Our signature approach – which we call the RI Way—emphasizes local participation, an integration of services, strategic partnerships and a focus on civic skills. In this way, we empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.

RI includes the four corporate members of the RI Alliance: RI-US, RI-UK, MRCA/RI-France and RI-Europe. Under our alliance agreement, we operate as a single, shared management structure.

RI is active in 16 countries around the world, including some of the most fragile: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities.

• RI employs 7,000+ staff and auxiliary workers
• 97% of staff are local nationals
• We only have some 90 ex-pat staff out of 7,000+
• RI spent $150 million in 2019 on our programs

Often, RI is the only organization providing assistance to highly vulnerable communities.

RI invests in four broad program sectors: Economic Opportunity, Education, Health, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. We design our programs to incorporate The RI Way: local participation, integrated programming, the development of civic skills, and complementary partnerships including with local NGOs, governments, and the private sector. RI supports solutions that reinforce and improve upon existing in-country systems. Where such systems do not exist or are chronically underperforming, RI’s crisis response lays the foundation for long-term, sustainable change.

About the Africa/ Asia Region

RI operates in nine countries in the Africa/Asia region: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, with a focus on the four RI sector pillars: Health, WASH, Education and Economic Opportunity.

RI currently employs more than 3,000 staff (direct and indirect) in the Africa/Asia region and implements a range of emergency response and development programs valued at approximately $50 million USD on an annual basis.

Position Summary

Directly supervising the Regional Senior Management Team (RSMT) and all Country Directors in the Africa/ Asia region.

The Regional Director is responsible for the overall regional and country strategic planning, successful program delivery, adherence to and compliance with internal and external policies and requirements. Leading on troubleshooting for major issues that arise through a solution-oriented approach and building team dynamic within the region that ensures holistic support to country offices with an aim to constant improvement across all key functions.

As relevant and feasible, the Regional Director should work closely with the RSMT to standardize ways of working across the nine country offices, in addition to harmonizing approaches with RI’s other region, the Middle East.

As a member of the Global Senior Management Team (GSMT), the Regional Director must advocate internally for support to address emerging challenges in Africa/Asia, champion new initiatives within the organization to be rolled out within the Africa/Asia region and contribute positively to making systems improvements for the entire organization.

Key Responsibilities and Duties.

Strategic Leadership:

• Work closely with Country Directors and Regional Team to elaborate a regional strategy including annual objectives, which guide support to country teams in alignment with the global organizational strategy.
• Support the management of country level strategic and annual planning, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
• Support and monitor progress against annual objectives and course correct as necessary.
• Prepare the region to be strategically positioned for new opportunities and prioritize needs to enable region to go for them.
• Participate and/or contribute to external fora (ie, Regional Director networks), activities, communications materials, and events to promote visibility and networking of RI.
• Advocate for resources, support, and development of key initiatives required of country teams and Regional Team with leaders across the organization.
• Serve as active and engaged member of GSMT.
• Ensure roll-out of initiatives spearheaded by GSMT across the region.
• Coordinate closely with Regional Director of Middle East to ensure harmonized approaches to regional and country management between the RI’s two regions to the extent relevant and feasible.
• Responsible for overseeing the financial management of the Regional Office and through the Regional Finance Manager.

Enterprise Risk Management

• Work closely with RSMT and CDs in the region on anticipating and mitigating programmatic and organizational risks, through introducing and ensuring constant improvement of country teams through systematic approaches, including but not limited to country risk registers, monthly country-level reporting, monthly portfolio review, incident management process, security planning and reporting, etc.
• Prioritize building and improving security capacity and processes at country level in all countries of RI and ensure that the internal policies for security are followed. Assume a leadership role in the roll-out and follow up of compliance and due diligence policies and procedures to country offices in coordination with other regional team members.
• Present calculated risks based on evidence-based assumptions to help identify actions and decisions that need to be taken in coordination with GSMT members as relevant, and support in developing action plans to move decisions forward, convening stakeholders, and leading follow up as needed.

Ethics and Compliance

• Work collaboratively with relevant GSO departments and Country Directors to ensure efficient and effective compliance measures and prompt and successful resolution of audits and investigations of alleged noncompliance and/or ethical issues.
• Ensure implementation of effective compliance communication and training programs for regional team and country teams as well as other efforts to promote an enterprise culture of integrity and compliance, both for new and existing employees.

Incident Reporting and Management

• Have oversight of incidents at regional and country levels; ensuring investigations are correctly reported to Incident and Crisis Management Teams
• In coordination with the GSO Incident and Crisis Management Teama ensure incidents are reported to the appropriate donors and regulatory authorities, as appropriate

Quality Program Delivery

• Work closely with RSMT and Program Development Department to oversee and lead a broad portfolio of programs in line with the global, regional, and country strategies.
• Work closely with RSMT, CDs and Global Departments to promote continues quality improvement of country programs in the region.
• Work closely with the Humanitarian Department to support response in a timely and effective way to Humanitarian emergencies.

Human Resources and Team Management

• Provide effective leadership and management of the nine Country Directors and five direct reports on the SRMT, which includes but is not limited to: timely and meaningful performance evaluations (in alignment with RI’s policy and system), setting clear performance objectives, meeting regularly with each team member and following on status of their performance, support team members to meet objectives by providing resources, etc to do so.
• Lead by example on following internal processes, practicing self-care, remaining highly responsive and meeting deadlines, and ensuring respect and cultural sensitivity to all team members regardless of the topic.
• Hold senior staff accountable and work closely with the global HR department and other relevant internal stakeholders to take difficult decisions when necessary.
• Foster and nurture a transparent and collegial team dynamic at regional level that encourages collaborative approach to addressing complex issues in support of country offices that require multi-departmental input and support.
• Ensure learning and development of staff in the region, including direct reports (CDs and RSMTs), by providing training and development opportunities.
• Security and wellbeing of all staff and operations are prioritized and effectively managed in the region.
• Participate in key recruitment processes and decisions throughout the region.

Financial Management

• Through the Regional Finance Manager, oversee the financial management of the regional office and financial health of Country Officer within the region.
• Through the Regional Finance Manager, support all audit processes across the region
• Support the implementation of all relevant audit recommendations at regional and country level

Safeguarding

• Uphold and promote RI’s commitment to ensuring the safeguarding and safety of the vulnerable communities we serve.
• Consistent with RI’s safeguarding and protection policies, ensure all people who come into contact with Relief International are as safe as possible.
• Work closely and effectively with Country Directors and Global Safeguarding Manager to ensure the safeguarding is implemented across country operations.
• Support and develop systems that create and maintain an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and abuse and promotes the implementation of the Code of Conduct and safeguarding policies.

Culture and leadership

• You will ensure a positive and productive work environment which is free from harassment and bullying.
• Ability to demonstrate sensitivity and understanding of diversity and cultural differences, gender issues and the commitment to equal opportunities

Experience and qualifications required for the role.

• Track record of achievement in a previous, similar role. Proven field experience in team management, having served as Country Director previously; finance and administration; donor relations; and inter/intra-agency communications in progressively senior roles.
• Experience working in Africa and/or Asia region.
• Master’s degree in international studies or equivalent in international development, political or social science management or another relevant field.
• Strong understanding and experience in risk management.
• Significant program operations experience including direct “hands-on” skills in program development strategic planning, program implementation and evaluation.
• Extensive experience in managing both development and emergency programs.
• Demonstrated understanding of the critical development issues in the assigned region and significant experience with the challenges of operating programs in the region.
• Demonstrated proficiency and experience with US, EC, UN and other public and private donors, Government grant and financial management requirements.
• Exceptional program and project conceptualization and design skills.
• Successful and proven negotiation, communication, organization, and prioritization skills and experience.
• Strong preference given to candidates with prior experience in Africa and/or Asia.
• Fluency in English is required.

RI Values.

Guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, as well as “Do No Harm,” Relief International Values:

We value:

• Integrity
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Inclusivity
• Sustainability

Location: Nairobi, Kenya or to be negotiated within the time zone range of CAT to PKT; frequent travel in the region at minimum of 30% of time (dependent on developments with COVID-19)

Reports to: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Direct Reports: Regional Senior Management Team (5) and all Country Directors in Africa/Asia Region (currently 9)
Regional Team includes Regional Program Director, Regional Security and Access Manager, Regional HR Manager, Regional Supply Chain and Operations Manager, and Regional Finance Manager
Budget responsibility: Oversee regional budget