This position is based at our Luxembourg headquarters and requires regular office presence. The EIB offers you the opportunity to live and work in a truly international and multi-cultural environment. We also offer relocation support. The EIB, the European Union’s bank, is seeking to recruit for its Secretariat General at its headquarters in Luxembourg, a Deputy Secretary General/Deputy Director General*. This is a full-time temporary position at grade 8.

The appointment is for a term of up to five years.

The successful candidate will be offered a definitive duration contract (CDD) of 5 years which may be renewed or converted in accordance with applicable policies and rules.

*internal benchmark: Department Head

Applicants will receive an initial feedback in September/October. Assessment Centres for selected applicants would take place from October.

Panel interviews are anticipated from November.

Purpose

The newly created position will support the Secretary General in the leadership, management, coordination and supervision of the Secretariat General in the assigned areas of responsibility. The successful candidate will, under the authority of the Secretary General, have direct responsibility for all aspects of the Directorate’s departments relating to economic analysis and reporting, communications and corporate and institutional strategy. The role may evolve over time.

You will provide leadership, strategic coordination and operational alignment to the departments within the remit of the position. You will be responsible for developing and implementing a plan and strategy for departments within own remit to assist the European Investment Bank to achieve its strategic priorities and realise efficiency gains, providing direction and setting priorities for their team.

You will manage staff within own hierarchical structure in the delivery of this vision and strategy to achieve the objectives for the Secretariat General and to promote the efficient governance and institutional strategy of the Bank within own remit.

Operating Network

The Secretariat General is responsible for a wide range of activities and processes related to the core decision making and strategy definition within the Bank and related processes, including:

• Implementing and monitoring the decision-making processes in the Bank, and proposing, when relevant, changes in the governance policy;
• Defining corporate and institutional strategy at EU and national levels, and providing the background economic analysis to support it (including the Corporate Operational Plan);
• Providing economic analysis;
• Reporting on the EIBG’s corporate responsibility activities and managing relationships with NGOs;
• Promoting the EIB’s image, priorities and activities to the public through media relations, events and publications.
• Coordinating and developing relations with EU institutions, international and development financing agencies and NGOs. It is also responsible for the external relations towards all stakeholders and the civil society.

The Secretariat General comprises three pillars, each headed by a Deputy Secretary General with their own clearly defined remit or a Director-General in respect of the EIB Permanent Representative’s Office in Brussels.

One pillar, the Stakeholder, Corporate and Governance Pillar, focuses on serving the needs of EIB’s key stakeholders – shareholders, governing and control bodies and civil society. This Pillar comprises three departments:

• the Shareholder Relations and Institutional Matters Department;
• the Regulation, Governance and Corporate Responsibilities; Department; and
• the EIB Institute.

A second pillar, which will be led by the successful applicant, is the Economics, Strategy and Communications Pillar and which comprises three departments:

• the Group Strategy Department;
• the Communication Department; and
• the Economics Department.

The Economics Department focuses on economic research, analysis and reporting. The Communication Department in responsible for the EIB’s internal and external communication management, including developing communication strategies for the digital and real-word presence of the EIB and providing translation services. The Group Strategy Department’s key responsibilities relate to developing the EIB Group Operational Plan and developing and coordinating the implementation of institutional and operational strategy and strategic initiatives across the EIB Group’s Services including the Group-wide coordination of efficiency projects.

The successful candidate to head the Economics, Strategy and Communications Pillar will identify and nurture the synergies between the departments within the Pillar, giving the departments a clear and coherent direction for the areas within their remits and thereby reinforcing the efficaciousness of the EIBG in contributing to its mission and European priorities more generally.

Accountabilities

• You will provide strategic and coherent direction to the teams within the Pillar to bolster the EIBG’s ability to achieve its strategic priorities and deliver the Bank and the European Union’s mission.
• You will contribute to defining the EIBG’s strategies for implementing its own goals and the European Union’s objectives and communicating those strategies and vision to the teams within the pillar. You will:

Lead, motivate, develop and manage staff in own area of responsibility through the management team in place, ensuring that all staff has adequate competencies, training opportunities, technical resources and technical and personal skills to achieve their objectives.

Ensure effective communication, cooperation and knowledge sharing between all members within own area of responsibility and the EIB services across the organisation.

Ensure that the EIB’s strategic priorities are efficiently developed, elaborated, articulated and implemented in alignment with EIB Group policies and procedures.

Ensure the efficient development and implementation of communication strategies in line with the communication strategies and priorities of the EIB Group.

Develop an overall strategy for the different business areas within own area having regard to the overall strategy and priorities for the Secretariat General set down by the Secretary General and having regard to the governance and institutional strategy in the Bank in order to give clear direction to own teams and enable proper and efficient decision making.

Establish and manage the resources and means to implement efficiently the EIB Group’s strategy throughout the directorate and the Bank.

Design, maintain and follow-up, in close coordination with the Secretary General, the appropriate organisational structure within team, key performance indicators and ensure the realisation of qualitative and quantitative objectives.

Ensure efficient and accountable use of resources in the realisation of own area’s mission.

Ensure that staff resources are sized, organised and used adequately and efficiently to achieve business objectives and take ownership of the overall efficiency of the used resources.

Organise, empower, manage and lead the decision-making in critical phases of key area processes in own area and throughout the Bank as a whole in order to deliver the results and objectives from the Secretariat General in compliance with EIB policies and governance.

Delegate and empower the execution of key area processes to the appropriate managerial or executive level. Ensure the follow-up of the realised objectives and pro-actively adapt if needs be.

Maintain constructive relationships with the different governing bodies (both managerial – Board of Governors, Board of Directors and Management Committee, as well as control functions – the Audit Committee) in relation to the responsibilities of own area to enable the Directorate to deliver its mission.

Represent the Bank externally within the network of EU institutions and bodies, IFIs and other relevant external counterparts.

Qualifications

• University degree (minimum an equivalent to a Bachelor), ideally in business administration, finance, economics, law, international relations or communications.
• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience in leading high-level positions of international multidisciplinary teams.
• At least 10 years of experience in managing and coaching staff, ideally in multicultural environments or international organisations (e.g. contribution to: determining team resources and skills; establishing objectives; assessing performance; delegating and supervising tasks; guiding, motivating, coaching and providing feedback).
• In depth knowledge of the functioning of EU institutions.
• Good knowledge of EIB objectives, business models and strategies.
• Solid understanding of finance and experience in banking institutions.
• Solid experience in economic analysis, in strategy definition through strategy projects and proven experience in setting and leading communication strategies.
• Strategic thinking and clarity of vision, sensitivity to business and political issues, analytical skills and sound judgement.
• Personal and professional credibility, with excellent communication skills.
• Empathy, excellent interpersonal, leadership, political and diplomatic skills; and ability to handle diverging interests, conflict and ambiguity. Resilience in business and people management issues.
• Creativity, openness to innovation and ability to support and manage change.
• Excellent knowledge of English and/or French (**) with a good command of the other. (Knowledge of other EU languages would be an advantage).

Competencies

Find out more about EIB core and managerial competencies here

To find out more about our eligibility criteria click here

(**) Unless stated explicitly as a required qualification, a good command of French is not a pre-requisite for hire. As both English and French are however official working languages of the EIB, proficiency in both languages is a pre-requisite for your future career development. Any language clause in your contract must be fulfilled in order for you to be eligible for a promotion (either via the annual appraisal cycle or via an internal selection process). Proficiency is understood to mean the attainment of level 5 of the Inter Institutional language courses, corresponding to B1.2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). The Bank offers appropriate training support.

We hire and value talent with unique characteristics, creating a work environment where they can be themselves. We believe that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion makes us a performing and innovative organisation. We encourage all suitably qualified and eligible candidates to apply regardless of their gender identity/expression, age, racial, ethnic and cultural background, religion and beliefs, sexual orientation, disability or neurodiversity.

We strongly invite applicants with a disability, neurodivergent profile or chronic condition to request reasonable accommodations at any stage during the recruitment process. Please contact the EIB Recruitment team [email protected] who will ensure that your request is handled.

By applying for this position, you acknowledge the importance of maintaining the security and integrity of the Information of the EIB Group. In case of selection for the position you agree to comply with all measures (policies, controls, document classification and management) implemented by the EIB Group to prevent unauthorised disclosure of any information or any damage to the EIB Group reputation.

This is an open campaign to consecutively fill open positions. The campaign will remain open until position is filled. Applications will be reviewed in order of receipt.