Regional Operations Lead, Africa at Water.org

Key Responsibilities

Regional Operations Leadership (40%)

• Oversees development and implementation of regional strategies and initiatives that drive operational excellence and standardization by contributing to the creation and definition of processes, procedures, tools, policies, communications, and metrics, and managing compliance with the organization’s operating policies and procedures, including but not limited to:
• Ensure cross-functional support and contribute to solution-building to address operational, regulatory and statutory requirements related to maintaining entities and facilities.
• In partnership with Global Finance and HR leadership, define operational requirements for mechanisms such as Service Level Agreements to ensure adequate delivery of internal services and support from matrixed back-end functions.
• In collaboration with the PMO/OCOO, contribute to and deploy systems and tools with global teams to ensure consistent, high-quality project management.
• Act as the key point of contact with various functional leaders and team members, vendors, consultants, and others as needed to lead operations work streams, due diligence, and follow up as required to ensure assigned tasks are completed.
• Ensures compliance of award cycle performance standards for fund utilization and execution planning, such as grant spending projection, impact plans, including ensuring integration into region-specific processes and metrics for fund utilization and execution plans for all funding streams (Restricted, Flexible, Pooled, and Unrestricted, as applicable) including but not limited:
• Act as a strategic advisor and key resource to the regional business and functional leaders, contributing to the development of strategies, business goals and metrics.
• Operational Planning, Analysis & Reporting (40%)
• Oversees implementation of operational planning, monitoring and reporting processes to ensure region is positioned to meet organizational standards for cost, schedule, and resource utilization. This includes (but is not limited to):
• Ensuring regional leadership has insight on the number of projects and initiatives for the team, prioritizing new requests, supporting initial scoping, and allocating resources based on a deep understanding of the scope of execution and related portfolios.
• Supporting exploration and identification of risks and new opportunities as part of engaging with functional leaders and team members..
• Manages monthly cadence of program/partner performance reviews, regional and country operating reviews.

Talent Management (20%)

• Builds an effective and high-performing team that is integrated with the work of the regional offices, lines of business, enterprise PMO, and other functions across the organization.
• Partners with globally distributed, highly cross-functional and matrix-managed teams to scope and drive project outcomes through a highly collaborative approach.
• Understands and coaches’ team on execution of complex projects. This includes providing leadership on how to build pipelines, roadmaps, and work plans, and execution of complex initiatives with multiple projects and work streams.
• Lead performance management with direct reports by providing clear performance goals, offering regular, specific feedback on job performance, organizing team meetings and retreats, and working with individual direct reports to set and achieve professional development goals.

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher.
• At least 10 years of operations management experience in applicable field, with at least 5 years of people management experience.
• Track record of effectively leading operations with a complex array of partnerships and organizational objectives, with the ability to leverage strengths across functional areas; excellent project management skills.
• The successful candidate will have recruited, managed, and developed a strong team of professionals. This individual will serve as a “player/coach” to motivate and mentor her/his/their team.
• Experience leading strategic/operational planning and budgeting processes.
• Well-developed relationship management skills, lending to high level collaborative skills with internal as well as external partners and other organizations.
• A reputation for being a process-driver and thought leader, leveraging data to drive decisions.