Deputy Director of Programs

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees delivers lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.
IRC Ukraine is entering its third year of response to the full-scale invasion by Russian in February 2022 and, as such, is an evolving country program into a new phase of the response. The office has three field offices, in addition to the main office in Kyiv, over 230 staff and 15 local partners. All programming activities are located in the East and Southeast of the country, in the areas along the frontline, in the sectors of protection (child protection, women & girls protection, and protection and rule of law protection), economic recovery & development, and health.

Job overview/summary

IRC Ukraine seeks a strategic leader for the Deputy Director of Programs (DDP) to lead the programs department, including MEAL, grants, and partnerships. The DDP is responsible for overall leadership in the design and quality implementation of IRC Ukraine’s programs to address clients’ needs and priorities. The DDP is responsible for providing strategic direction of programs, including leading in developing the Strategic Action Plan (SAP), conceptualizing and promoting innovations, and continuing to deepen the impact of IRC’s programs on the ground. The DDP ensures programming alignment with IRC Ukraine’s SAP and program quality within the IRC’s program quality framework, and the IMPACT Standards. The DDP actively participates in senior-level, internal, and external coordination and stakeholder engagement, including with donors, government and non-government partners, and IRC technical and regional support teams; oversees multi-sector project design and quality; manages sector teams to propose, coordinate, and deliver quality programs aligned with strategic priorities and client needs; and leads strategic funding opportunity tracking, – partnering and pre-positioning decisions. The DDP must be able to motivate and lead a diverse staff and effectively manage programs, partnerships, and budgets.

The DDP reports directly to the Country Director (CD) and is based in Kyiv, with frequent travel to field offices within Ukraine, currently Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Odesa. This position directly supervises Technical Coordinators for Health, Integrated Protection, and Economic Recovery and Development, the Grants Coordinator, the Senior Partnerships Coordinator, and the Senior MEAL Coordinator. The DDP is a key member of the Ukraine Senior Management Team (SMT). As required, the DDP may act as head of office on behalf of the CD.

Major responsibilities

Strategic planning and implementation
• Contribute to the implementation of the IRC Ukraine SAP Lite through committed investment in monitoring the SAP Implementation Plan (SAP-IP) and ensuring alignment of programmatic efforts with the SAP.
• Champion IRC’s global strategy, Strategy100, and promote innovation and creativity to advance key ambitions.
• Lead the development of an ambitious yet realistic FY25-27 SAP, ensuring collaboration and buy-in from within the country program.

Program Development and Design
• Ensure, with Technical Coordinators and HQ-based Technical Unit staff, that project design reflects IRC’s IMPACT program quality standards and industry best practices.
• Ensure all designed projects use the IRC theories of change and that outcomes are evidence-driven and evidence-generated.
• Lead efforts for sustainable program growth, proactively identifying opportunities for new programming initiatives and emphasizing multi-year, early recovery funding to support them.
• Provide leadership support to the program and grants teams to develop competitive, evidence-based, and cost-effective funding applications.
• Ensure collaborative program design processes that fully leverage local actors’ perspectives, experience, and expertise based on collaborative needs assessment processes.
• In coordination with technical and partnership staff, identify local NGO partners; develop and implement capacity-building protocols for the transfer of IRC skills and experience to local government and national NGO partners.
• Provide guidance, strategies, and tools to ensure program choices are based on needs assessment findings (primary & secondary data) and analysis, community input, a thorough understanding of context, technical best practices, and operational viability.
• Formulate integrated program initiatives so that technical sectors complement each other, promote mainstreaming of protection principles and gender-responsive approaches, and provide more holistic services to IRC’s clients.

Program Management – Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation
• Provide overall leadership and management of IRC Ukraine program portfolio, ensuring strategically coherent program direction, well-managed growth, and compliance with IRC and donor regulations.
• Continually seek out ways to build the capacities of the program team members, individually and collectively.
• Collaborate with the Deputy Director, Field Management (DDFM) to ensure that each field location develops and modifies detailed, realistic, and feasible project implementation plans as needed.
• Coordinate with other members of the Senior Management Team on appropriate management, compliance, and performance standards, as well as effective systems for budget management, knowledge management, and risk management.
• Ensure that Technical Coordinators conduct routine monitoring visits to implementation sites to ensure donor compliance, program quality, and effective collaboration with Field Coordinators.
• Promote and apply IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERs), ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills, and approaches are used by staff across projects with partners.
• Support programming staff in collecting, documenting, and disseminating lessons learned and best practices, and incorporating these into new project designs.
• Lead in coordination between program, MEAL and partnerships teams to ensure effective and appropriate M&E plans, including methodologies and tools to strengthen the quality of data collection, analysis, and reporting.
• Review M&E and accountability data with program staff to identify and address areas for operational improvement.
• Liaise with IRC’s relevant Technical Advisors regularly and proactively, pursuing technical guidance and support on quality implementation and new program design.

Grants Management
• Provide strategic direction in developing a funding strategy, expanding and strengthening donor base, ensuring quality grants management, ensuring compliance with donor requirements, ensuring quality information management related to programs/ grants, and supporting directly in all aspects of the proposal development and reporting processes.
• Supervise all internal and external reporting with programs and finance, ensuring high-quality, well-written, and timely reports meeting donor, IRC, and partner requirements; conduct thorough reviews or revisions of all external reports compiled by the Grants Coordinator.
• Coordinate with relevant departments Grants, Finance, and Field Management to ensure sound budget management, expense control, and timely contractual documentation.
• Collaborate with the DDFM to ensure project cycle meetings (PCM) are conducted at field level, and then support the Grants team with (PCM) at the central level engaging all relevant departments and units.
• Collaborate with the DDFM to ensure Field Coordinators review project spending regularly.
• Mitigate potential risks by collaborating with the Finance Department to ensure that program staff fully understand the financial and administrative processes involved in project budget cycles, and engage meaningfully with the DDFM and Field Coordinators on budgeting and spending.

External Representation and Advocacy
• Professionally represent the IRC Ukraine and its programming to implementing partners, the government, and donors.
• Assist the CD in developing strong relationships with donors, assisting with visits, and developing appropriate advocacy actions.
• Forge and maintain solid cooperation with partner organizations through regular communication, collaboration, and, where appropriate, joint decision-making.
• Act as the focal point for program-related communication between IRC country programs in the region, the regional Ukraine Crisis team, and headquarters.
• Oversee programmatic inputs to advocacy efforts both in-country and globally.

Staff Management and Development
• Create a supervisory environment focused on achieving team and individual results that emphasizes the importance of learning, productivity, accountability, and openness.
• Promote effective communication and collaboration with other departments, especially Operations, Field Management, and Finance, at all levels of program team.
• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to perform in their positions successfully.
• Adhere to IRC’s performance management system, providing regular, timely, and thoughtful coaching, feedback, performance assessment, and professional development for all direct reports while ensuring they do the same for their direct reports.
• Coach and mentor staff to strengthen their technical capacity, exchange knowledge within the team, provide professional development guidance, and lead to staff retention.
• Build capacities of programming staff in key project management principles, tools, and approaches and ensure that these new skills are utilized on the job.
• Manage recruitment, hiring, and development of high-performing national staff to assume greater responsibility.
• Provide leadership support for successfully implementing and adhering to the IRC Global HR Operating Policies and Procedures.

Key working relationships
• Position reports to: Country Director
• Position directly supervises: Technical Coordinators (Senior Integrated Protection, Health, Economic Recovery and Development), Grants Coordinator, Senior MEAL Coordinator, Senior Partnerships Coordinator
• Key Relationships Outside of Country Program: Senior Director, Ukraine Crisis; Senior Programs and Business Development Advisor; Global Program and Award Support (GPAS) Team; Technical Advisors; Regional Business Development Team (RAI RAM)

Requirements

• Minimum eight years of management experience working in a humanitarian or early recovery settings with a minimum of five years of INGO program management experience.
• Master’s degree in Development Studies, International Relations, Social Sciences, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in managing protection, ERD, or health, and experience working in partnership with local organizations, is strongly desired.
• Proven ability to develop winning proposals to public and private-sector donors.
• Experience managing programs financed by US government agencies, FCDO, EU, European donors, foundations, and private donors is a must, with previous experience in competitive environments a plus.
• Demonstrated excellence in human resource management, particularly in a multicultural environment, including staff development, training, motivation, and discipline techniques.
• Strong team and people leadership, management, organizational, and development skills.
• Proven ability to manage projects to completion on time, within budget, and with the anticipated results.
• Ability to respond to multiple priorities promptly, producing high-quality outcomes.
• Ability to take the initiative and proven ability to work creatively, innovatively, and effectively to make decisions with limited direct supervision.
• Demonstrated successful leadership experience with a multi-disciplinary team in a cross-cultural setting, including active mentoring and coaching.
• Strong commitment to humanitarian work and values.
• Proven fluency in English is a must, and Ukrainian or Russian is a plus.
• Strong competency with stress management in a complex and dynamic context.

Working Environment: DDP will be provided with individual accommodation. Some local and regional travel expected.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability.