Senior Managing Director, Humanitarian Portfolio

Summary

The Senior Managing Director, Humanitarian Portfolio leads and oversees the development, growth and performance of the portfolio of Save the Children’s US (SCUS) humanitarian awards, totaling over $300 million in annual funding. The Senior Managing Director will strategically engage with donors to position Save the Children as a humanitarian leader and partner of choice.

Within SCUS’s Department for Humanitarian Response (DHR), you will be a member of the Department Senior Leadership Team, reporting to the Head of Humanitarian Response, overseeing the Humanitarian Portfolio Unit, a team of approximately 30 individuals responsible for new business, proposal development, and award management in support of Save the Children’s country office humanitarian projects. You will champion a culture of continuous learning and business improvements within the Humanitarian Business Team (HBT), while ensuring accountability and consistency in the award making and management process from opportunities to closeout.

What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

Strategic Humanitarian Leadership and Oversight of SCUS Humanitarian Portfolio (50%)

• Oversee the Department of Humanitarian Response Humanitarian Portfolio Unit, ensuring SCUS provides strong and strategic new business development and award management support to country offices using an accountability driven customer service approach that promotes country-level leadership and ownership for a portfolio totaling over $300 million in award funding per year.
• Oversee strategic donor engagement with representatives of US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration (BPRM), private foundations, as well as other funders and humanitarian leaders, ensuring that Save the Children is well positioned as a humanitarian partner of choice.
• Working closely with the Head, Department Humanitarian Response, engage with SCUS’s Senior Leadership Team and SCI’s Humanitarian Leadership Team regarding priority humanitarian responses and formulate a comprehensive and timely support by SCUS to responses
• Serve as a member of the agency’s international programs and humanitarian leadership teams, playing an active role in creating and implementing Save the Children’s Humanitarian Business Team strategy and agency-wide annual planning and budget development
• Collaborate with SCUS Business Team leaders, technical colleagues and SCI counterparts to standardize and continuously improve processes, strengthening award management and new business development capacities, and strengthening strategic linkages and interdependencies between technical colleagues, COs, ROs, and account managers.
• In coordination with HP unit managers, oversee the optimal and efficient allocation of portfolio assignments, critically analyze portfolio needs, level of effort and support provided to COs, and recommend workforce needs and process improvements for effective and compliant management of portfolios.
• Serve as a representative on key cross-Member and cross-functional teams in support of SCUS and global movement strategy objectives, including change and transformation projects as appropriate.

SCUS Humanitarian New Business Development (15%)

• Lead efforts to meet annual humanitarian funding targets for funding from BHA and BPRM, and support efforts to meet funding targets from private sources, ensuring effective engagement with Save the Children country offices and technical advisors leading to the submission of high quality and successful funding proposals.
• Lead collaboration with colleagues in SCUS and across Save the Children to leverage Save the Children’s innovation and programmatic integration to demonstrate to donors the agency’s efforts to deliver cutting-edge and impactful humanitarian program strategies.
• Engage with Save the Children globally and provide strategic donor information to key colleagues to help them engage with donors to identify fundraising opportunities and overcome operational impediments.
• Identify sector wide trends within and across donors to find new opportunities and promote Save the Children’s responsiveness to donors.

SCUS Award Management and Compliance (15%)

• Ensure effective management of the full life cycle of approximately 100 humanitarian awards, including UNHCR and WFP awards (thought 2023), and global awards.
• Ensure SCUS navigates awards in high-risk countries with strong compliance and mitigation measures.
• Lead and participate in working groups to inform Save the Children’s design of tools and processes that improve award management tools, guidelines, and procedures.
• Oversee engagement with SCUS and SCI humanitarian technical teams to ensure adequate and appropriate technical support for program delivery.
• Lead team in ensuring SCUS provides timely award management support to country offices using a customer service approach that promotes country-level leadership and ownership; escalating issues where necessary to regional directors or other senior staff

Team Management (20%)

• In coordination with HP Unit Managers, lead, develop, train and supervise a growing team of approximately 30 staff in a rapidly changing donor environment and humanitarian landscape.
• Proactively budget for and in partnership with the People and Culture team, recruit permanent and temporary staff, and consultants to meet workforce and professional development needs.
• Actively lead new hire onboarding for the division, as well as retention, leadership development, succession planning to meet strategic goal.
• Model and uphold a team culture of knowledge management and sharing. Advise, guide, and mentor team members, including managers, as they troubleshoot challenges and develop plans to proactively address issues.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of a Bachelor Degree or equivalent experience, plus at least 10 years of relevant experience
• Proven experience within humanitarian context with responsibility for program development and award management
• Demonstrated success in raising substantial funding from relevant humanitarian donors including strong knowledge of USG humanitarian funding modalities and compliance, as well as UN agencies as donors and partners
• Successful experience leading, managing and developing high-performing teams, including strong managerial knowledge and skills to provide direction and support staff professional development and retention
• Proven ability to manage ongoing change in external and internal environments in an effective and transparent manner, while promoting staff engagement and morale
• Demonstrated ability to think and act strategically and proven ability to exercise independent judgment and discretion on significant matters with minimal guidance
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally up to 20% as required, including to humanitarian response settings
• Demonstrated ability to successfully communicate and collaborate with individuals and teams at all levels, both internal and external
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite
• Professional proficiency in spoken and written English
• Demonstrated commitment to fostering and maintaining and environment of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional proficiency in a second language (Spanish, French, or Arabic preferred)
• Ability to manage by influence internally and to work in a federated structure, experience with Save the Children preferred

About Save the Children

No matter your role when you join Save the Children, each and every day you will challenge yourself to devote your skills, talent and expertise to changing the world for kids. It’s an ambitious goal, and a meaningful one no matter how you see yourself professionally: an accountant, a writer, a data analyst, a teacher, a driver, a designer, or any one of the hundreds of dozens of roles we’re looking to fill every day.

You see, Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.

Our work for children and their families requires that we commit—at every opportunity—to work together to identify and dismantle persistent systemic and structural racism, inequality, and any other forms of discrimination in this country and beyond. As an anti-racist organization, Save the Children will not tolerate discrimination in any form—in our employment practices, amongst our staff, in our leadership or toward the people we serve. We stand in solidarity with all people to fight for equal rights, justice, inclusion, and belonging.

We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. Save the Children complies with all applicable laws.

Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse. In addition, it is Save the Children’s policy to create and proactively maintain an environment that aims to prevent and deter any actions and omissions, whether deliberate or inadvertent, that place children at the risk of any kind of child abuse. All our representatives are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with this commitment and obligation.

Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.