United States of America: Senior Director Organizational Measurement

Job Description

he International Rescue Committee (IRC) is among the world’s leading humanitarian relief and development organizations. For 80 years, the IRC has been at the forefront of every major humanitarian initiative to assist people uprooted by war, persecution, or civil conflict. IRC staff go to the toughest places, implement both immediate response and long lasting programs, and conduct the type of applied research and advocacy the aid community needs to continually push itself to find better solutions for people. In all its country programs and in the US, IRC team’s partner with local governments and others to achieve outcomes related to people’s health, education, safety, power and economic well- being.

The IRC’s technical expertise is housed within five technical units: Education, Health, Governance, Economic Recovery and Development, Violence Prevention and Response. In addition to this IRC also possesses a Research, Evaluation and Learning team and a Gender Equality Unit. These units are the hub for sectoral expertise and they provide IRC’s 35-plus country offices with technical advice, capacity building and a cross country view of what works to achieve outcomes in terms of both scientific evidence and practical experience.

The IRC recognized several years ago that while our focus on impact evaluations and research had put us on the cutting edge among NGOs for assessing contribution to impact; support to country programs on routine monitoring and use of data for decision making could be further improved. As the IRC developed a five-year (2015-2020) strategy, more systematic methods for tracking progress on achieving global outcomes had to be developed. This position was created to develop and implement a measurement framework that would enable the IRC to speak with confidence about the outcomes we are reaching across five outcome areas, as well as to improve our results across 400+ grants and contracts by adjusting program implementation in response to high quality and timely data accessible throughout the organization.

By using “measurement” in the title of this position rather than “M&E”, the IRC is explicitly emphasizing that we need a strong focus on the data itself. We aim to make systematic and organization-wide improvements to the quality of our data in terms of what we collect, how we collect it, how we interpret it, and how we use it. This position is a strategic one, and contributes directly to improve project implementation in the field.

Job Overview:

This position coordinates measurement efforts across our international programming, working very closely with IRC’s technical teams, IT application team, and with the regional measurement staff located in IRC geographies worldwide. The selected candidate will be a professional with experience implementing change efforts conceived to strengthen both leadership commitment to and field practice of results measurement. Because this director will be responsible for creating energy and buy in for outcome measurement across the agency and at many different levels, the selected candidate will need to have experience with change management in complex, international organizations and have the ability to lead through both direct reports and influence of peers and others throughout the organization. The successful candidate will be someone who has strong knowledge of the skills required in measurement and expertise building staff capacity in measurement, monitoring and evaluation; has created a learning with data culture in a team or organization; and brings expertise in the use of technology for measurement, awareness of the variety of systems available, and the capacity to partner with programs and technology teams to develop an overall strategy that can integrate a variety of needs, maturity and different types of data across IRCs many programs.

Major Responsibilities:

• LEADER: Act as the senior leader who brings vision, cohesion and pragmatism to create a strong culture of performance and collaboration in the implementation of the organizational measurement framework. The Senior Director will work across departments to build a common understanding of measurement, a strong network of experts and stakeholders, and a strong culture around the value and use of data. S/he will be expected to play a key role in the development of the next iteration of the IRC strategy.

• MANAGER: Provide guidance and coaching/training as well as provide and maintain a supervisory presence with direct reports. The Senior Ddrector is expected to nurture and develop his/her team and also lead other measurement colleagues, leverage diverse competencies, identify and promote talent, provide and receive candid and actionable feedback and create the incentives needed for a high performing and energized team of professionals.

• EXPERT: The Senior Director will be responsible for assuring IRC measurement efforts are both simple and of high quality, adding expertise and direction to improve IRC’s use of data. The director will oversee the development of training materials, and participate in training and mentoring IRC staff involved in measurement efforts.

Key Working Relationships:

Position reports to: Senior Vice President

Position directly supervises: Director of Data and Monitoring; COMET technology team (US & Nairobi-based) in partnership with IT

Technically supervises: Regional Measurement Action Coordinators

Other Internal and/or external contacts: Technical unit M&E focal points Technical Unit Directors, Regional VPs, Deputy Regional Directors for Programs, IT Applications Team, Outcome and Evidence Framework team

Qualifications

Education: Advanced degree in relevant field.

Work Experience: 10 years of relevant experience including work in developing and/or conflict-affected contexts, with demonstrated experience in project design and M&E and preferably leading change efforts to strengthen measurement.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Leadership and change management are a priority for this role, as well as expertise and experience in M&E of international aid. Knowledge of the trends and issues in international aid monitoring, knowledge management and measurement, experience training and mentoring staff as well as serving in a supervisory role, project management experience, and in particular the ability to manage multiple tasks and keep them on time and within budget, and a proven ability to coordinate effectively among a range of organizational units, diverse cultures and work experience. The chosen candidate will be a proven team player with excellent diplomatic skills, the ability to work with multi-cultural teams, and under tight deadlines. Strong verbal and written communication and facilitation skills required. Good understanding of the landscape of ICT related to program measurement.

Language Skills: Excellent spoken and written English essential. Proficiency in one other IRC relevant language (French, Arabic, Swahili, etc.) is a plus.

Working Environment: Standard office environment

Applications to be submitted on: https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/jobdetails.aspx?site=1&c=rescue&id=4580