Senior Director, Operations at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Kenya

Major Duties and Responsibilities 

Overall 

• Responsible for supporting the realization of Regional and CO strategies in conjunction with the Africa Conservation Impact Director, driving controls and efficiencies, providing thought leadership, and championing CO strategic planning, performance management, and operational best practices. 
• Acts as a business partner to the rest of the regional management team to understand all necessary strategic planning, performance management, and operational aspects and needs for delivering the regional and country objectives and targets. 
• Provides support to Regional Directors for East and Southern Africa and for Congo Basin in managing country offices and provides advice to Country Directors on key strategic, performance management, and operational issues. 
• Acts as an escalation point for strategic and operational issues requiring global support; identify remedial solutions and oversee timely, efficient implementation as required. 
• Drives and supports transformational change initiatives to achieve sustainable, quality, and operational growth at scale. 
• Coordinates and supports the progress tracking of KPIs in the WWF International strategic plan, particularly Strategy 3 and 4. 
• Acts as a deputy to the Regional Directors on key issues and areas.  
• Performs other duties assigned by the Regional Directors for East and Southern Africa and for Congo Basin. 

OSP Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Realization 

• Leads the region and works closely with the Finance Business Partners – Congo Basin and East and Southern Africa in supporting the preparation planning and development of Multi-year Planning and Budgeting plans for the all the WWF International Africa offices that breaks down the OSPs to annual objectives, activities, KPIs, targets, and budgets. 
• Co-leads the region in conjunction with the Africa Conservation Impact Director and works closely with the Africa Regional Management Team (RMT) to monitor and evaluate the realization of the OSPs, encouraging learning and continuous refinement of the OSPs, and ensuring quality mid-term OSP reviews. 
• Ensures and assists Africa RMT in the communication and presentation of the OSPs and ongoing reviews to both internal and external stakeholders. 
• Note: Country Directors are accountable for their COs’ strategy and OSP realization and report to the Regional Director.  The Regional Senior Director, Performance & Organisational Effectiveness’ role as defined above does not supersede the CDs’ accountability. 

Country Office Performance Management 

• Supports the implementation and leads the adoption of the integrated performance system and robust management reporting to ensure review and improvement of performance of all WWF International Africa offices for strategy realization and to meet WWF International's Finance, People & Culture, Internal audit/compliance, administration, management systems, and network standards and KPIs. 
• Convenes and coordinates periodic performance reviews with all WWF International Africa offices of key strategic issues and KPIs, ensuring deep dialogue and action planning. 

Operational Excellence 

General 

• Provides direction to the Africa Country Offices operations teams and others to ensure alignment and compliance with WWF International policies, procedures, review and approval processes (including QA), and flow of internal communication to and from the region. 
• Finance 
• Working closely with the Finance Business Partners – Congo Basin and East and Southern Africa and Country Senior Leadership, provides a second line of defence by routinely monitoring the office risk management and internal control frameworks reinforcing an effective and exemplary risk and control culture and further strengthens the control environment. 
• Working with Global Finance, PMEL, Resource Mobilization and PSP teams, monitors CO cost recovery, and works with office teams to improve cost recovery including sharing of best practices on cost recovery approaches and guidance, adoption of fully costed budgeting methodologies, and building capacities as needed. 
• People & Culture 
• Supports and manages the Africa Director People & Culture in driving the right culture, values, people processes and talent management in the region, in alignment with P&C global objectives & strategies and WWF values. 
• Ensures the Health, Safety and Security of all Africa Region and WWF International Africa country staff by building capabilities and capacity as required and aligning and complying with WWF International policies and procedures. 
• Accountable for the implementation of operational structures and appropriate capacity to ensure operational excellence across Country Office operations teams to support effective and efficient conservation delivery. 
• Ensures implementation of Organizational Development initiatives from an operational perspective. Provides oversight and direction on OD assessments and processes, review of systems and organizational processes with a view to making them empowering, efficient and effective. 
• Procurement 
• Working with Global Finance, ensure appropriate processes and procedures are in place in COs with regards to purchasing of services, assets and equipment and contracting with third parties. 
• Crisis/Issues Management 
• Supports the Regional Directors and other colleagues in ensuring timely follow-up and actions to resolve crises and supports effective communication to stakeholders. 
• Risk, Compliance and Legal 
• Ensures the Scheme of Delegated Authority (SODA) is followed in the region and relevant reviews and approvals are provided by the Senior Director, Performance & Organisational Effectiveness and others in a timely manner. 
• Effectively and collaboratively identifies, escalates, mitigates, and resolves risk, conduct and compliance matters. 
• Improves operational processes and controls, enhances policy and procedures, and supports the development of a robust regulatory, legal and risk compliance framework by actively engaging with WWF International legal and risk & compliance units. 
• In consultation with the WWF International General Counsel, ensures that overall legal requirements of WWF are complied with and its presences and staff in Africa Region  
• Ensures that contractual partnerships and agreements include mandatory legal provisions and adherence to WWF standards and critical policies, are credible and up to date. 
• Audit 
• Collaborates with Global Finance, Accountability, Internal Audit and Regional teams offices to ensure all audits (Internal and External) are well coordinated and address relevant areas of risk.  
• Contributes to review of actions to address audit findings to ensure they are appropriate, ensures all WWF International Africa offices address external and internal audit finding actions assigned to them in a timely and high-quality manner. 

PROFILE 

Required Qualifications.  

• At least 15 years of professional experience in a senior strategy, country office management and/or operations leadership role, with demonstrated success in managing teams, office operations, and budgets at a regional level. 
• Proven knowledge and experience of the not-for-profit sector, preferably of environmental non-government organizations, governance, and regulatory compliance.