The Organisation

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 80 years, and are now active in more than 70 countries.

The Opportunity

To achieve greater change in children’s lives we will dramatically transform how we operate, and we need to be bold, forward-thinking, and innovative individuals to steer our country operations, driving change and delivering results that will allow us to transform the lives of 100 million girls globally.

As Deputy Director of East and Southern Africa (MEESA) Region, you will be responsible for leading and managing the Country Directors – ensuring that each Country Office has a quality strategic plan in place to deliver Plan International’s strategic ambitions and enabling high performing teams to work together to deliver strong performance against agreed key result areas and standards.

The role requires courageous and inspirational leadership skills, a drive that delivers results and the ability to build strong and constructive relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.

As Deputy Director of East and Southern Africa, you will be able to demonstrate significant experience in international relief and development with specific skills and experience in strategy development and management, as well as program quality, accountability, and impact, working in partnership, change leadership, transition management, staff development, coordination, and teamwork.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Provide visionary leadership, direction, and motivation to Country Directors through an observable and passionate commitment to girls’ rights and equality for all children.
• Endorse each country’s strategic plan and annual budget/business plan, ensuring that they are fully implemented and fully in line with the global strategy.
• Build and maintain constructive relationships with National Organisation representatives and current / potential donors.
• Ensure that Country Offices have a robust grant acquisition strategy and support Country Directors in achieving their agreed annual revenue, cost and efficiency targets.
• Build and maintain a high performing Country Director team that delivers against Plan International’s strategic goals and measures, whilst demonstrating behaviours consistent with Plan International’s values and behaviours.
• Ensure countries demonstrate that Plan International’s standards of quality are being achieved and operate consistently within Plan International’s key policies and procedures, including programming, influencing, brand, risk management, HR, finance and cash management.
• Lead sub-regional strategy development and implementation in line with Plan International’s ambition in Region of MEESA and MERL
• Communicate organization wide and regional priorities to country programmes to help them develop and implement appropriate plans.
• Provide overall leadership to the sub-region as part of the Regional Management Team to ensure that the transformation process is effectively implemented and meets its objectives.
• Coordinate creative accountability and learning activities and seek opportunities to share this learning beyond the sub-region.
• Ensure country and regional priorities and perspectives are articulated to other key stakeholders and play an active role in influencing the wider organization.
• Participate actively in the Regional Management Team and the Regional Leadership Teams

Do you have what it takes?

To be successful in this role you will require courageous and inspirational leadership skills, a drive that delivers results and the ability to build strong and constructive relationships with both internal and external stakeholders. Change leadership and transition management will be critical to be successful in this role.

Your deep understanding of child rights and gender in development and knowledge of the concepts of sustainable development goals, community-based development and long-term social change will also be important.

You will lead by example in ensuring gender equality is evident in everything we do from staffing, to programing and influencing, to ways of working. You will work with your team to bring about the right culture that ensures we are champions for girls and gender equality.

Appreciation of the historical, security context, political environment, economic, social/religious and humanitarian context in East and Southern Africa or a comparable environment would be highly advantageous.

As a global organisation, working across multiple countries around the world, diversity is at the heart of our values of working well together and being inclusive and empowering.

We are fully focused on equality and strongly encourage female leaders to join our team.

For more details about this role, please click here.

Location: Must be based within the eight countries of the region. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe

Type of Role: Five-year fixed term contract

Grade: J. Competitive salary and package available

Closing Date: 18th July

Anticipated 1st round interview: 27th and 29th July