Re-advertisement: Innovation Manager (Design Lead), (P-4), Office of Innovation, Stockholm, Sweden, #126900 (Temporary Appointment – 364 days)

Please Note: This is a re-advertisement in order to expand the candidate pool. Previous applicants need not reapply as their original application will be duly considered.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, hope 

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations. 

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 fine-tuning the most promising solutions for children through a systematic portfolio management approach, and leveraging all stakeholders’ innovation energy, know-how and resources from intergovernmental, multilateral, private sector and non-governmental fora (think tank, academia) 

How can you make a difference?

This role will focus on leading a pilot initiative on integrating design practice across OOI for the first year, capturing lessons and based on those developing a longer-term strategy for design practice within OOI. 

1. Lead a multi-disciplinary design team to deliver on a select initiative 

• Leading a creative team that comprises of visual / graphic, interface and service designers, to deliver on projects that are already in the pipeline.

Provide creative leadership to the design team while also handling the stakeholder expectations—ensuring a fine balance between design rigor and timely delivery of service is maintained. 

• Create and sustain an inspirational environment for the fellow designers to thrive. Since design isn’t a core area of work for UNICEF, keep the design team motivated and our practices up to the global industry standards by constantly seeking outside of the UN space and bringing those learnings within the team

2. Create a long-term vision and strategy of implementation for design practice within the Office of Innovation 

• Develop a hypothesis for the need of design within OOI (Office of Innovation), using the select initiatives.
• In close collaboration with management team and the hypothesis established, propose a strategy, including resource needs and ways of working with other teams.
• Create a 2-to-3-year action plan—how can we action on the strategy for design?
• Design a monitoring plan to assess strategy and review its progress on ongoing basis.

3. Set-up a pool of design talent for the Office of Innovation, including through staffing, consultants, vendors etc 

• Identify human capacity and talent needs in design and support related recruitment processes.
• Refresh and evolve a design consultant pool.
• Support technical assistance team managing Global HCD LTAs and other recruiting/resourcing solutions.
• Update the existing pool of HCD LTAs, with a focus on creative agencies in the Scandinavian region.

4. Provide design-related guidance to select priority initiatives across the Office of Innovation 

• In close collaboration with management team, identify priority initiatives and allocate appropriate design resources (including for direct support)
• Provide direct design-related guidance for select initiatives.
• This could include facilitating ideation, validation and strategy sessions, structuring sprint exercise that can be piloted and templatize; user testing and prototyping of technical explorations; evaluating effectiveness of platforms and building alignment within and across teams on common challenges and/or work areas.

5. Provide design mentorship and strategic support to UNICEF Country Offices that contributes to embedding the culture of innovation beyond Office of Innovation 

• Working with UNICEF Country Offices, especially the Venture Fund investees, and providing them with design guidance
• This could include facilitating ideation, validation and strategy sessions, structuring sprint exercise that can be piloted and templatize; user testing and prototyping of technical explorations; evaluating effectiveness of platforms.

6. Engage in relevant planning processes and externally in relevant fora to represent the Office of Innovation on design 

• Identify opportunities for and contribute to documentation, communications and external engagement on OOI’s design work.

Please click here to access the full JD and related information.  JD TA Design Lead P4.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in product design, communication design, design strategy, service design, systems design or other relevant field.
  *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of eight (8) years of relevant professional experience in product design, communication design, design strategy, service design, systems design or related – and proven experience in translating complex ideas into unified storytelling visuals.
• A minimum of 2 years of experience leading creative teams on multiple projects of varying degrees and timelines and managing design resources and capacity.
• Experience in developing design-related strategies, structures and approaches, including defining staffing needs and developing teams and building capacity.
• Experience in independently managing and following through multiple projects and teams simultaneously, including establishment of systems to manage competing demands.
• A portfolio which exemplifies strong work for relevant design work, which shows both strong processes and attention to detail.
• Design skills across the print and digital spectrum and professional-level knowledge of design platforms like Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and digital prototyping tools like Figma.
• Knowledge of capabilities and limitations of web and mobile technologies and experience that extends beyond-screen based designs.
• A strong understanding of UNICEF programmes, goals and principles, UNICEF Innovation approaches and experience in a UNICF programme country desired.
• Experience working in complex, resource poor contexts is a plus.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

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

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (3) Drive to achieve results for impact (4) Innovates and embraces change (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (6) Thinks and acts strategically (7) Works collaboratively with others (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

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 benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
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 promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, 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.

Remarks:

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

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government 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.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.