Regional Director Latin America

All NRC employees are expected to work in accordance with the organization’s core values: dedication, innovation, inclusivity, and accountability. These attitudes and beliefs shall guide our actions and relationships.

What we are looking for

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is looking for an experienced, dynamic, and highly strategical individual to take up the role of Regional Director for Latin America who will be central in setting up the new Latin America Regional Office (LARO), develop and execute the regional strategy in line with NRC’s global strategy. Immediate priorities will be to ensure a strong regional office set up that is equipped to deal with changing situations on the ground and provide optimal support, management and direction to country operations.

The Regional Director is responsible for:

• Strategic and operational leadership to ensure the collective country priorities and approaches are relevant to the country specific contexts and wider humanitarian trends.
• Ensuring that the programmes in the LARO are managed and developed in line with NRC’s overall strategies and policies.
• A leadership culture, a working and learning environment in line with NRC’s values and leadership/management framework.
• Leading the Regional Management Team of county directors and the Regional Office team of technical professionals within programme, support, risk and compliance, advocacy, and health, safety, and security.

What you will do

1. Develop, follow up and report on regional strategy in line with overall NRC strategic direction.
2. Approval of Country Strategies and compliance of Country Directors for their delivery.
3. Duty of Care to all NRC staff and partners. Promote a safety and security, and risk management culture, ensuring development of, and adherence to, plans and trainings in line with NRC policies.
4. Promote accountability, the highest standard of ethics, including safeguarding, and adherence to the Humanitarian Principles.
5. Contribute to NRC advocacy efforts, nationally, regionally, and internationally, and represent and profile NRC at the different levels.
6. Ensure that partner -and donor relations in the region are maintained and further developed in line with regional NRC strategy and targets.

Please download the detailed job description to learn more about the position.

What you will bring

• Minimum 8 years of relevant leadership/management experience within the humanitarian field
• Experience from working as top-level manager in complex and volatile contexts.
• Broad network within the international humanitarian community and proven ability to represent an organisation at different levels.
• Experience from delivering results in complex and volatile contexts.
• Insight and awareness own leadership profile, strengths, and weaknesses
• Excellent communication skills and fluency in English and Spanish, both written and verbal.
• Knowledge of the context in Latin America East Region
• Understanding of and experience in responding to, the changing humanitarian environment, including shrinking humanitarian space
• Experience with country office start-up, exit and emergency response.

What we offer

• Duty station: Bogotá, Colombia
• Contract: national or international, 2 years
• Travel: up to 30%
• Salary/benefits: grade 13 on NRC’s regional salary scale, with accompanying terms and conditions for international contracts
• NRC is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to diversity without distinction to age, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, and physical ability.
• We think outside the box, encourage ideas, and give responsibility to all employees at all levels. You will have many opportunities to be heard and take the initiative.

Find out more about the benefits of working for NRC

Important information about the application process

• Internal candidates only: please click on the suitcase icon labelled “I am an employee” to be redirected to NRC’s internal careers site.
• When creating your profile, include your full name as given on your passport. Complete all the system-required fields for experience, employment history and education.
• Submit your application and CV in English, taking care to attach your latest CV.
• Applications that do not meet the minimum standards in terms of experience or qualifications will generally not be considered. Unsolicited applications not related to this specific job advertisement will not be considered.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. We receive many applicants for each vacant position.
• If you have any questions about this role, please email [email protected], [email protected] with the job title as the subject line.

Why NRC?

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is an independent humanitarian organization helping people forced to flee. Our 15,000 staff work in crises across 40 countries, providing life-saving and long-term assistance to millions of people every year.

Watch this short video to see NRC in action.

NRC’s Latin America region covers a total of eight countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and México. The region has an overall budget of approximately 60 million USD and 1,100 dedicated colleagues across the continent.

The region faces multiple complex emergencies, including the internal and regional impact of the crisis in Venezuela, the humanitarian consequences of the armed conflict in Colombia, and the pervasive high levels of generalised violence in the North of Central America and in Mexico. These conditions produce some of the highest forced displacement numbers in the world. According to UNHCR, there are over 15 million displacement-affected people, including 7,4 million Internally Displaced Persons across NRC’s programmes in the region. The region also witnesses record numbers of transcontinental population movements generating significant protection risks as people are obliged to cross borders often through routes where conditions are dramatic. Restrictive asylum and migration policies also create flows of deportees and returnees, who struggle to re-integrate into their communities and often face violence, retaliation, discrimination and exclusion. Those phenomena are accelerating across the region.

Given the increasing number of displaced people in need of humanitarian assistance in the region, NRC will establish a Regional Office in Bogota, Colombia from early 2024. This will ensure a centralized structure in proximity to the country operations and provide strategic guidance and oversight, coordinated support and management.

We are looking for people who are passionate about helping refugees and people forced to flee. Are you one of those people? If you are, NRC offers you the opportunity to:

• do demanding and professional work, often in challenging contexts.
• join a work culture that empowers every employee to share ideas and take responsibility.
• be part of a welcoming and supportive community committed to human dignity.

Learn more about NRC