Mercy Corps - Regional Director, Africa

Regional Director, Africa

Oxford HR | Candidate Pack

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible.

To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are safe, diverse, and inclusive and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

Program and Department Summary

The Regional Director oversees Mercy Corps’ operations in sub-Saharan Africa which cover eighteen countries across the continent, with the largest country programs in DRC, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, and Ethiopia. The region has an overall budget of over $800 million and annual expenses of nearly $200 million.

This is a thriving and growing region that includes Mercy Corps’ most innovative programming in the areas of food security, economic opportunities, water security, and peace and good governance. Mercy Corps’ programs in sub-Saharan Africa are undergoing both momentous humanitarian crises and significant development challenges that offer the opportunity to empower people to survive through crises, build better lives and transform their communities for good.

Moreover, Africa is also characterized by a high rate of urbanization and a massive youth population. Against this backdrop Mercy Corps’ focus in Africa has been on responding to ongoing humanitarian needs, while promoting good governance and conflict resolution, enhancing resilience, strengthening market systems, enhancing access to energy, finance and economic opportunities, and promoting youth employment and empowerment.

Mercy Corps continues to position itself as a key partner with many donors, government authorities and civil society actors, enhancing our ability to contribute to the process of positive change across the continent. Mercy Corps looks to actively engage and partner with an ever growing and innovative African civil society and private sector to achieve greater and sustained impact.

We are also keenly aware that executing our current and future programs on scope, on budget, on time and to a high level of technical quality across our portfolio is critical, while we continue to develop new approaches and leverage innovations to accelerate our impact and influence in the region. Mercy Corps requires an astute navigator able to steer our team and efforts toward ever-improving results for what represents one of the agency’s largest and most complex portfolios.

Powered by the belief that a better world is possible, Mercy Corps seeks an inspiring, creative and focused leader to further the impact, influence, and innovation of Mercy Corps’ humanitarian and development efforts in the region.

The Role

Title

Regional Director, Africa

Location

Nairobi, Kenya or Dakar, Senegal

Reports to Chief Operating Officer

Job Summary

Mercy Corps is seeking an inclusive, collaborative, curious, creative, and highly ethical leader who is dedicated to resilience; youth employment, market systems and rural and agricultural development; emergency response and early recovery, including cash assistance and financial inclusion; peace and governance to be its Regional Director, Africa.

The Regional Director is a member of Mercy Corps’ leadership team and excels at inspiring team members and partners into action to bring creative ideas to fruition and create meaningful impact for the region and beyond. They are a resourceful and proven leader who understands Africa, brings significant experience mentoring and empowering country-based leaders to grow and overcome challenges, has held senior roles in large, complex organizations, and has experience overseeing portfolios in the range of $100M US with more than 300 regional / country team members. They will be instrumental in the implementation of Mercy Corps’ ten-year strategy Pathway to Possibility and identify and organize the support structures and partnerships needed to achieve greater, lasting impact in the region. The Regional Director will develop and maintain productive relationships with internal stakeholders, and external constituents such as donors, private partners, foundations, and local governments. They will direct the Africa regional and country program leadership, ensuring that teams are strategically aligned, accountable and resourced.

The Regional Director will champion Mercy Corps’ Pathway to Possibility and its Programming Commitments to enable teams to thrive, while striving for impact in the region through groundbreaking innovations and influence that position Mercy Corps as the leader of change in Africa and beyond.

Essential Responsibilities

Strategy & Vision

• Lead the Africa Region in the alignment and implementation of the Pathway to Possibility in eighteen countries by ensuring the development of country strategic plans. Direct regional resources to deliver on articulated priorities.

• Oversee and support the management of country-level strategy, planning and development processes in line with Mercy Corps’ Pathway to Possibility, ensuring coordination and communication between countries.

• Elevate the region’s profile internally by representing at key internal meetings and liaising with support functions to provide the necessary support to country offices in order to execute their visions.

Influence & Representation

• Enhance Mercy Corps’ contributions as a leading global and regional partner using data, evidence and analysis to improve our programs, scale what works and influence others to build resilience in the face of conflict and climate change.

• Promote localization within the region by cultivating meaningful local partnerships, which include civil society leaders, government officials, donors, private sector partners, diplomats and other actors, that center communities and the people who are impacted by crises and climate change.

• Maintain strong contextual understanding and analysis of regional trends and represent Mercy Corps programs with national and international media as appropriate.

• Proactively engage with donors to shape and influence their strategies and funding priorities for areas that Mercy Corps deems critical for transformational change in the region and partner with donors to explore, evaluate and present innovative funding opportunities that support the objectives for the region as a whole.

Essential Responsibilities

Team Management & Leadership

• Build a safe, diverse and inclusive regional team, to meet organizational, regional and country team objectives. Ensure effective, accountable structures in the region and within each country with a focus on encouraging and building African talent and leadership.

• Recruit, onboard, supervise and mentor a team of up to eight, including Deputy Regional Directors, Country Directors, Technical Director, Regional HR Director, Regional Managers and Regional Program Team. Deepen the capacity of the team, their understanding of their roles and responsibilities, and ensure they are set up for success interacting with agency systems, policies, procedures, and protocols.

• Serve as an internal champion for country leaders and regional support teams and advisors, harness and prioritize organizational resources, advocate for the team’s needs, and proactively identify and address their concerns.

• Set and communicate clear success metrics for team members to promote accountability for organizational and regional priorities. Champion implementation of key organizational processes like Ethics training, All Voices survey etc. Provide constructive feedback informally and formally via regular one-on-ones and annual performance reviews.

Program Operations Management

• Enable on-time, on-budget, on-scope implementation of complex programs and regional initiatives, provide troubleshooting and guidance on management issues per Mercy Corps standards.

• Collaborate with global and regional teams to ensure highest program quality and technical excellence by supporting countries in their application of Mercy Corps’ policies and frameworks. Drive, track and support program impact and results in the region.

• Mobilize and oversee effective human, material, financial and operational field support systems in the region, in cooperation with the appropriate agency support team.

Risk Mitigation & Management

• Support country leadership in developing and implementing program and operations policies and procedures according to Mercy Corps and donor policies.

• Ensure compliance with security procedures and policies across the region as determined by global leadership.

• Proactively ensure that team members operate in a secure environment and are aware of policies.

• Oversee the management and resolution of audit findings.

• In the event of a major disaster, work and/or liaise with the Humanitarian Leadership and Response (HLR) team for appropriate response.

• Ensure that country teams have effective communication mechanisms for learning and coordination to achieve optimal impact.

• Ensure community feedback mechanisms are in place and that feedback loops are working effectively in order to identify and address community/participant concerns.

• Promote localization efforts by developing meaningful partnerships with a broad range of African actors including universities, research institutions, civil society and private sector.

• Ensure effective, transparent use of resources in compliance with Mercy Corps and donor policies.

• Oversee and manage regional budgets and other regional initiatives.

• Liaise with the COO, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, CFO, VP of Programs, Sr. Director of Global Security, and VP of Humanitarian Leadership & Response on crucial events, highrisk periods, incident reporting and security policy changes.

Supervisory Responsibilities

Deputy Regional Directors, Technical Director, Country Directors and Regional Team

Accountability:

• Reports directly to: Chief Operating Officer

• Works directly with: Executive Leadership Team (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.), Leadership Team, Programs and other departments (Finance, Compliance, Operations, People, Legal, Ethics, etc.), Technical Support Unit, Humanitarian Leadership & Response, Program Performance and Quality, Research & Learning, and other Regional Directors.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders:

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our country projects.

Candidate profile

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• BA/BS or equivalent in international development, political or social science management or other relevant fields; MA/MS a plus.

• 10 years’ country-based experience in senior management, i.e., Country and/or Regional Director including team management experience, finance and administration; donor relations; and inter/ intra-agency communications.

• Significant program operations experience including direct “handson” skills in program development, strategic planning, program implementation and evaluation.

• Extensive experience in managing both development and emergency programs. Additional experience working with the private sector is a plus.

• Demonstrated understanding of the critical development issues in the assigned region and significant experience with the challenges of operating programs in the region.

• Demonstrated proficiency and experience with USG, European and other public donors, government grant and financial management requirements. Experience managing high-value strategic partnerships with private corporate and foundation donors is essential.

• Exceptional program and project conceptualization and design skills.

• Successful and proven negotiation, communication, organization, and prioritization skills and experience.

• Strong preference given to candidates from countries in the region.

• Fluency in French is a plus.

Success Factors

The successful candidate will be a visionary tactician, able to see the big picture and establish broad strategy while being attentive to individual country and program needs and constraints. The Regional Director is a skilled communicator, able to develop and build trust-based relationships with team members, partners and donors and inspires others to take action. They must be resolute in achieving regional agency goals and cultivating safe, diverse, and inclusive teams while maintaining an ability to adapt and respond to emergencies and problems that arise and must ensure that mechanisms are in place to enable such response. The successful Regional Director will skillfully represent programmatic priorities of the agency to donors and regional partners while providing effective leadership to the Mercy Corps country teams. They will have high emotional intelligence, constructive mentoring skills and proven experience with capacity building and will be committed to long-term program sustainability and the delivery of high-impact activities and inclusive outcomes at the regional level. Successful Mercy Corps team members have a strong commitment to teamwork and accountability, thrive in evolving and challenging environments, and make effective communication a priority. The successful candidate will ideally be from Africa.

Candidate profile

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The Regional Director must be based either in Nairobi, Kenya or Dakar, Senegal. They will be expected to travel at least 40%, working in all locations within the portfolio as well as other HQ offices and international fora.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct e-learning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

How to Apply

All

To apply for this post, click on the “Apply” button on the job advert page, complete our online application form, and submit your CV and cover letter as two different documents, which should be prepared before applying as they will be considered in the application process. The cover letter should be no more than two pages long and explain why you are interested in this post and how your skills and experience make you a good fit.

The document should be saved in PDF in the following format: Your First Name-Your Last Name-Document Name-Date (mmyy) e.g., Pat-Jones-CV-012023-Organisation or Pat-JonesCoverLetter-012023- Organisation.

Timeline

Closing Date

8 May 2023

First Stage Interview Week of 22 May 2023 Final Interview

Selection process

All candidates will receive an update regarding their application after the closing date. We advise candidates to add the role email to their safe senders list and regularly check their spam folder.

Equality Statement

Equality and diversity are at the core of Mercy Corps values. Staff are expected to work collectively and individually to promote a constructive and sensitive approach to others from a variety of backgrounds, where the work of others is valued and respected.

Queries

If you have any queries on any aspect of the appointment process, need additional information, or would like to have an informal discussion, please email at mercy-corps-regionaldirector-africa@oxfordhr.com in the first instance.

correspondence, at this stage, should be via Oxford HR.

About Oxford HR

Oxford HR operates globally - mainly within the international development and charity sectors.

We carry out retained executive search mandates at board and senior management levels. We also offer human resource and organisational development consultancy.

Oxford HR has many years of experience in search as well as an extensive network of international development, social sector, corporate, public sector, and academic contacts from across the world. We carry out comprehensive and often international searches designed to meet the specific needs of our client.