Director of Operations

Justice Rapid Response is recruiting a:

Director of Operations

(Full time employment – Open-ended contract – Based in Geneva)

Organization and Position within the organization

Justice Rapid Response (JRR) is an intergovernmental initiative set up to provide a stand-by facility of more than 700 trained and rapidly deployable criminal justice and related professionals at the request of the international community to investigate, analyze and report on situations where serious human rights and international criminal law violations have been reported. The JRR Secretariat is composed of a small team to carry out JRR’s activities under the direction of the JRR Executive Director. The JRR Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland with an office in New York.

The Role

With a budget of about CHF 4 million annually, the JRR Team composed of 22 staff members and deploys more than 80 experts annually from its roster to provide technical support to justice processes worldwide. These deployments often take place in sensitive contexts, and in countries that require meticulous mission planning with a solid security framework. Over the past years, JRR has significantly grown the volume of its operations, supported, and worked with more partners, diversified its funding, thereby bolstering the impact of its activities. The Director of Operations is responsible for the safe and professional planning and implementation of all JRR’s activities and for leading the organizational development of JRR to meet its objectives.

To fulfill this role, JRR is looking for an experienced and dedicated professional, who combines solid experience in running and developing structures in the not-for-profit sector, with a good knowledge of international justice, human rights, or related fields in which JRR operates. The ideal candidate is someone who shares the values of the organization and has progressive management approaches to empower the persons working under their supervision. They are also someone who has managed staff security in sensitive and difficult country situations.

JRR offers a highly motivating and flexible work environment – with a cohesive and engaged team of professionals – who share a strong desire to further grow their impact to support access to justice for victims of international crimes and grave human right violations. Benefits are equivalent to what is offered by similar organizations in Geneva.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead the organizational development of JRR to enable the organization to fulfill its mandate in a professional, safe, and cost-effective manner.
• Enable the work of the JRR Secretariat (Geneva, New York, and decentralized staff) in a spirit of flexibility, autonomy, and staff empowerment. Lead the human resources operations and provide a safe, fair, diverse, and inclusive working environment for JRR’s staff. Ensure adequate office management and an IT infrastructure that meets the best standards and practices in terms of information management and cyber-security.
• Lead on organizational planning cycle – including the annual plan of work and budget – in collaboration with the Director of Finance.
• Keep an overview of all grants and projects in close coordination with the Director of Finance and ensure their flawless implementation.
• Oversee all contractual aspects related to the deployment of JRR experts, including the determination of the expert fee in accordance with JRR’s policies. Lead all aspects associated with the fulfilment of JRR’s “Duty of Care” obligations towards the experts deployed from JRR’s roster. This includes conducting the security threats and risks assessment, the issuance of security guidelines and the briefings of the security of experts prior to their deployment.
• Supervise the work of JRR’s three programmes – the International, National and Civil Society Programmes – and ensure that each programme is progressing towards their objectives as set in JRR’s annual plan of work. Define the way the work on existing or emerging cross-cutting themes (such as sexual and gender-based violence, violations affecting children, as well as financial investigation and asset recovery) is defined, organized, and led by the JRR team to ensure maximum impact.
• Supervise the work of the Roster Management Unit to ensure that the roster meets the needs of the international community, that the best experts are properly selected, vetted, and trained, and are deployable at short notice. Support the engagement with JRR’s expert community, the maintenance and development of JRR’s information system for operations (Salesforce), the compliance with data protection regulations.
• Build and maintain a solid network of comparable organizations to identify best practices, emerging trends and needs in terms of operations and staff management. Represent JRR to raise awareness about JRR’s work, build partnerships and mobilize resources. Replace the Executive Director in some events and public appearances as required.
• Contribute to the fundraising efforts of the organization by ensuring that the impact of JRR’s operations is well documented and available (M&E), seize new funding opportunities, stimulate, and support programmes to raise project funding and contribute to the diversification of funding at JRR.
• Participate in some deployments, outreach, and consultation missions as JRR’s representative.

Qualifications

• University Degree in a field relevant to JRR’s work complemented by a Master’s degree in business and administration (MBA), management and human resources, project management or equivalent;
• Knowledge of human rights/humanitarian law, international criminal justice or transitional justice;
• Minimum 12 years of relevant professional experience, of which at least 4 years in a senior management role.
• Experience in establishing, running, and developing an Inter-governmental Organization (IGO) or international NGO active in human rights, humanitarian law, international or transitional justice;
• Demonstrated international field experience in challenging security environments (conflict or post-conflict situation) with responsibility for the safety and security of staff.
• Experience in donor relations grant applications or managing large projects.
• Excellent language skills, including superior writing, speaking and presentation skills in English and French. Other relevant language skills a plus.

Competencies

• Organizational Governance: Skills and proven capacity in organizational governance and planning, human resources coordination, and management of internal processes;
• Leadership: Ability to lead and inspire a multicultural team both remotely and in-person;
• Flexibility: Comfortable working in highly flexible, decentralized environment in which autonomy, accountability and innovation are supported and valued;
• Teamwork: Ability to work in collaboration with colleagues in view of reaching organizational goals; to solicit input and value colleagues’ ideas and expertise; to be willing to learn from others; to place team agenda before personal agenda; to share credit for team accomplishments and to accept joint responsibility for team shortcomings;
• Communication: Ability to engage with diverse internal and external stakeholders**;**
• Political sensitivity: Ability to identify politically sensitive issues and address them accordingly;
• Travel: This role requires availability and willingness to travel regularly, including field visits.