Innovation Manager (Strategy and Capacity Building), P-4, Office of Innovation, Stockholm, Sweden # 00117601

The P4 Innovation Manager (Innovation Strategy & Capacity Building) works to support regional and country office build strategy, structures, partnerships, culture, and capacity for innovation within country programmes. The role is responsible for the development and roll out of tools, platforms, funding, and processes that support innovation strategy development and capacity building.

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built, we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, success…

The Office of Innovation (OoI) works to catalyze UNICEF’s and all its partners’ expertise and resources against key children-outcomes bottlenecks, with a view to continuously ideate and scale the most effective solutions with transformational potential at scale to achieve the child-related SDGs. 

The office is doing this by continuously exploring new ways of accelerating results for children, investing across a range of early stage solutions, and harnessing internal and external expertise towards continuously iterating and finetuning the most promising solutions for children through a systematic portfolio management approach, and leveraging all stakeholders’ innovation energy, knowhow and resources from intergovernmental, multilateral, private sector and non-governmental organizations. This takes place across 160 country offices. 

The P4 Innovation Manager (Innovation Strategy & Capacity Building) works to support regional and country office build strategy, structures, partnerships, culture, and capacity for innovation within country programmes. The role is responsible for the development and roll out of tools, platforms, funding, and processes that support innovation strategy development and capacity building. 

How can you make a difference? 

Under the general guidance and direction of the P5 Senior Advisor Innovation (Portfolio, Culture and Scale) #89335, and in close collaboration with relevant Senior Advisers across OOI, the post is responsible for:

1.  Leading and oversee implementation of OOI’s strategy for innovation to build culture and capacity at all levels of the organization to innovate and to effectively diffuse new innovations.

2. Leading capacity and learning field engagement, need finding and mapping to identify and prioritize areas for innovation learning and capacity building intervention by undertaking sense making of the expressed and unexpressed needs.

3. Lead and coordinate the design, development and use of new strategy development and capacity building tools, experiences and resources following design thinking, user-centered approach.

4. Establishing and managing a network of internal and external innovators for good.

5. Coordinating with the OOI Communication Team on their activities to raise awareness, promote and gather support for this knowledge management and capacity-building opportunities and resources. Engage in public speaking opportunities to highlight OOI approach and work

6. Engaging actively and network in the global ecosystem of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and related areas to horizon scan, source learning and capacity development resources, and exercise thought leadership to position and diffuse UNICEF’s innovation learning work.

7. Managing and supporting innovation-related mechanisms that enable UNICEF offices to access technical assistance, including through an Expertise Brokerage model i) as non-financial engagement within a partnership through the OOI P

8. Collaborating with OOI communication team on shared activities aimed at nurturing and strengthening a culture of innovation across UNICEF through internal and external communications channels.

9. Leading innovation incubation activities and providing mentorship support to colleagues requesting it in country offices.

10. Engage actively and network in the global ecosystem of innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, and related areas (including subject-matter specific areas as necessary with relevant Hub teams), to enable continuous awareness of current and emerging subject matter and learning approaches (e.g., experiential learning, digitally enabled etc) in this space. Also engaging with the purpose of identifying approaches, sources, and resources that UNICEF can adopt, adapt and evolve.

11. Manage and support innovation-related mechanisms that enable UNICEF offices to access technical assistance related to culture, capacity and engagement, including managing OOI’s Human Centered Design LTAs and creating new partnerships and structures to support the work.

12. Provide thought leadership to position UNICEF’s innovation work publicly; and identify and enable opportunities for UNICEF- designed and developed materials to be shared as global public goods where relevant.

13. Seek and use opportunities to address capacity building needs of government and implementing partners as an extension of the resources developed and/or inclusion in the learning experiences, where this is relevant.

14. Collaborate with OOI communication team on shared activities in respective annual work plans aimed at nurturing and strengthening a culture of innovation across UNICEF through internal channels (including the innovation newsletter, ICON, OOI SharePoint, Yammer etc) and external communications channels (including releases, unicef.org, social media channels etc.).

15. Mobilize funds to support incubation, pipeline development and capacity building initiatives including SPARK incubator. 

16. Manage a small team of professionals and consultants to ensure tools and platforms developed are used and improved, particularly with reference to coordination across HQ, Regional and Country offices.

17.  Plan and undertake mission travel to critical country offices where demand for support is made by senior country management.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Education:

An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in one of the following fields is required: Social Science or Humanities, Innovation-related field, International Relations, Business Administration, or another relevant technical field.

*A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2
additional years (10 years) of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.

Experience:

A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience is required at national and international levels in the areas of innovation and/or social and economic development and cooperation.

Demonstrated expertise in innovation practice, spanning start-up to scaling innovations, especially in the social and/or development sectors.

Demonstrated mastery in design thinking / human-centered design especially as applied to development programming is required.

Demonstrated experience in designing and implementing learning experiences from cradle to grave.

Experience of internal communications and / or culture change is an asset.

Experience working at UN helpful but not essential.

Experience in public advocacy, media engagements, and ability to produce intellectual leadership assets on innovation is an asset.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge and fluency of another UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

Core Values:
Care
Respect
Integrity
Trust
Accountability
Sustainability

Core Competencies:
Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (1)
Works collaboratively with others (1)
Builds and maintains partnership (1)
Innovates and embraces change (1)
Thinks and acts strategically (1)
Drive to achieve results for impact (1)
Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:  Job Descriptions – Innovation Manager (Innov Strategy and Capacity Building) P-4.pdf

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of measures to include a more diverse workforce, such as paid parental leave, time off for breastfeeding purposes, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, and discrimination. UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. 

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.

Contact: For any queries, please contact: swe-ooi-recruitments@unicef.org