Myanmar: REGIONAL DIRECTOR, ASIA in Myanmar or Nepal

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.
In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions
into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Now, and for the future.

Program / Department Summary

The Regional Director oversees Mercy Corps' multi-million dollar operations in Asia, which serves populations in India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Nepal and Timor Leste. These are countries undergoing dramatic transitions that have the potential to create significant opportunity for development and change. The region is at the nexus of poverty and development, of disaster and resilience. The Regional Director will develop and implement strategies that is in line with agency direction and policy and supports country programs to develop a healthy portfolio that enables us to better meet our mission. Across the region there is booming private sector led growth, with many multinational companies seeing these countries as market opportunities as well as an area for them to develop new market channels and ways of doing business, focusing on the large numbers of poor. Mercy Corps actively engages with these private sector partners in the region and will expand on those strategic partnerships as a way of achieving greater impact.

General Position Summary

Mercy Corps is seeking a bold and creative leader with a passion for social entrepreneurship to be its Regional Director for Asia. The Regional Director is a member of Mercy Corps' senior 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. S/he is a resourceful and proven leader with a deep understanding of the region, its recent history, current trends and political environment, and who has held senior roles in large, complex organizations. The Regional Director is a leader par excellence to steer our team and programs toward impact-driven programming in the region. The Regional Director will develop and maintain productive relationships with internal and external constituents such as donors, private partners, foundations, and local governments. The Regional Director will champion the Mercy Corps' Cornerstones of Leadership to ensure that the teams are driving transformational impact in the region through groundbreaking innovations and influence in action strategies that positions Mercy Corps as the leader of change in the region and beyond.

Essential Job Responsibilities

STRATEGY AND VISION

• Articulate a compelling vision for the region and support country programs in setting country strategies.
• Contribute to the agency annual strategic plan and budget.
• Oversee and support the management of country level strategic and annual planning, development, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and administration of our programs.
• Connect teams to ideas, partners and resources to drive creative solutions for greater impact.
• Strategically position Mercy Corps for new opportunities in the region and prioritize and coordinate the preparation of concept papers and proposals.
• Promote thought leadership by ensuring that program innovations and successes are tested, analyzed, documented, and effectively communicated externally and internally.

INFLUENCE AND REPRESENTATION

• Develop and nurture culturally sensitive internal and external relationships and networks to ensure optimum communication and program success.
• Build strong constituencies that include Mercy Corps headquarters (HQ) and regional office teams, civil society leaders, government officials, donors, private sector partners, diplomatics and other actors.
• 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.
• Explore, evaluate and present innovative funding opportunities that support the objectives for the region as a whole.

TEAM MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP

• Provide and encourage development for field leaders helping them to develop highly effective diverse teams while remaining attentive to individual career paths and internal promotion.
• Participate in the recruitment, selection, onboarding, and training of regional and country teams.
• Collaborate with the People and Strategy team to ensure sound performance management and field access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national staff development.
• Support the development of systems to ensure that HQ and field staff supporting the regional program are trained and properly oriented in Mercy Corps' policies, systems, procedures and protocols.
• Mentor and manage Country Directors, Technical Directors and Regional Managers and ensure effective senior management team structures in each country.
• Demonstrate flexibility, resilience and ability to maintain positive relationships and composure.
• Maintain high ethical standards and treat people with respect and dignity.

PROGRAM OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

• Drive, track and support consistency of impact through program implementation in the region.
• Enable on-time, on-budget, on-scope implementation of regional initiatives, provide troubleshooting and guidance on management issues per Mercy Corps standards.
• Collaborate with HQ and regional teams to ensure highest program quality while supporting countries to apply Mercy Corps' Adaptive Program Management, gender policy and related frameworks.
• Mobilize and oversee effective human, material, financial and operational field support systems in the region, in cooperation with the appropriate HQ team.
• In the event of a major disaster work and/or liaise with Strategic Response Global Emergencies (SRGE) team for appropriate response.
• Ensure that country teams have effective communication mechanisms for learning and coordination to achieve optimal impact.

FINANCE AND COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT

• Support country leadership in developing and implementing program and operations policies and procedures according to Mercy Corps and donor policies.
• Oversee the management and resolution of audit findings.
• Ensure effective, transparent use of resources in compliance with Mercy Corps and donor policies.
• Oversee regional budget and other regional initiatives.

SECURITY

• Liaise with the Senior VP of Programs, Director of Global Security, and VP of Humanitarian Leadership & Response on crucial events, high-risk periods, incident reporting and security policy changes.

ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

• As part of our commitment to organizational learning and in support of our understanding that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities they serve, we expect all team members to commit 5% of their time to learning activities that benefit Mercy Corps as well as themselves.

ACCOUNTABILITY TO BENEFICIARIES

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts towards accountability, specifically to our beneficiaries and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging beneficiary communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our programs.

Supervisory Responsibility: Country Directors, Regional Resilience Director, Regional Manager and other regional team members.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Senior Vice President, Programs

Works Directly With: Executive Team (CEO, CFO, etc), Director of Global Field Programming, Technical Support Unit, other Regional Directors

Knowledge and Experience

• MA/S or equivalent in international development, political or social science management or other relevant field.
• 8 to 10 years' field 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 “hands-on” 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 essential.
• 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 US, EC, UN and other public and private donors, government grant and financial management requirements.
• Exceptional program and project conceptualization and design skills.
• Successful and proven negotiation, communication, organization, and prioritization skills and experience.
• Strong preference given to candidates with prior experience in Asia.
• Fluency in language(s) widely spoken in Asia is a plus.

Success Factors

S/he is 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 utilize strong relationships with staff, partners and donors and inspires others to take action. S/he must be resolute in achieving regional agency goals while maintaining an ability to adapt and respond to emergencies 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. S/he 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 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 written and verbal communication a priority.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The Regional Director will be based in Yangon, Myanmar or Kathmandu, Nepal. Both locations are accompanied location for partners and dependents. The Regional Director will be expected to travel at least 40% to all countries within the portfolio as well as to HQ and international fora. Mercy Corps team members represent the agency both during and outside work hours when deployed in a field posting or on a visit/Short Term Assignment to a field posting. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and Mercy Corps' policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

PI98671900

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