Chief of Party

Chemonics seeks a Chief of Party (COP) for the ongoing USAID/Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) Iraq Regional Program II (IRP II). IRP II is strengthening the resilience of vulnerable communities by increasing collective action to address local challenges and empowering mechanisms able to alleviate shocks communities may face. The program delivers assistance primarily through small grants to a variety of partners including local government and civil society organizations. The Chief of Party is responsible for making key decisions and solving problems in short time frames while ensuring operational and program integrity. This long-term position is based in Erbil, Iraq, but may be subject to change in response due to security and operational requirements. The COP must have strong management and leadership skills and demonstrated experience successfully operating in sensitive political and cultural contexts. The COP is a member of the Senior Management Team, which includes both Chemonics and client senior leadership.

Responsibilities include:

• Responsible for making key decisions and solving problems in short time frames while ensuring operational and program integrity. Overall program direction is provided by USAID/OTI through the task order contractor’s officer representative (TOCOR) and country representative (CR)
• Responsible for financial and program management, oversight, and reporting of contractor progress and quality of performance in meeting the activity undertakings in this program
• The contractor’s designated person for overall management of the in-country relationship with USAID/OTI
• In close consultation with the CR, responsible for providing oversight of grant activities, including supervision of the program staff, ensuring appropriate grant design, ensuring that procedures are established and complied with for grant development, grant worthiness, grant implementation, management, monitoring, evaluation, and grant closing
• Under the guidance of the CR, and/or CR’s designee, responsible for contributing to the design and implementation of MEL at the activity and program levels and for ensuring that all programming is properly monitored and evaluated
• Developing familiarity with, and maintaining daily usage of, the USAID/OTI Activity Database, and ultimately responsible for ensuring that the relevant staff use, maintain, and upload weekly the Activity Database, and that data is consistent and complete

Qualifications:

• A minimum of (8) eight years of work experience and a minimum of a bachelor’s degree or (12) twelve years of relevant work experience without a bachelor’s degree.
• Relevant experience includes at least (3) three years managing field operations in complex, high-speed and challenging field operations in developing countries
• A minimum of (3) three years of supervisory experience
• Experience with programs that provide quick delivery of assistance in response to emerging windows of opportunity
• Experience with grant management, preferably in-kind and small grants
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge in establishing systems and overseeing all phases of a project life cycle, including start-up under limited time constraints, implementation, as well as program close-out is highly desired, but not required
• Experience in the hiring and supervising of host country local personnel and ensuring, when need arises, that they secure necessary training required to meet program needs
• Financial management experience, including budgeting; financial management (tracking, reporting and accounting); and procurement
• Experience with activity design, development, and implementation
• Experience with remote management in transition environments preferred, but not required
• Experience with political transition, peace-building, or post conflict programs preferred
• Fluency in English is required, Arabic or Kurdish language skills strongly preferred, but not required