The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees delivers lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.
The Global Awards Management Unit (AMU) and Business development
The AMU is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Nairobi, Berlin and Amman with staff presence in many other locations around the world. The AMU has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing funding from institutional public donors.
The Business Development Team, within which this role sits, is one of the directorates in AMU. The BD team leads IRC’s public business development globally working with country programs and technical units globally. Alongside our traditional humanitarian portfolio, the IRC BD strategy includes a renewed focus on large and long-term funding. This has already brought considerable success and is a major focus for the organization.
The Purpose of the Role
The Senior Business Development Advisor – Capture & Engagement (SBDA – C&E), MENA will advise on IRC’s efforts to strengthen our positioning and engagement, and lead capture efforts to support IRC’s growth strategy for public donors, particularly for longer-term and development funding. They will be responsible for leading successful planning on a portfolio of opportunities, in coordination with global Business Development, regional, country, and technical teams. Alongside the Head of Business Development (HBD), MENA, the SBDA – C&E, will play a key role in supporting MENA country programs in implementing and refreshing their BD Strategies.
The SBDA – C&E is responsible for identifying and qualifying leads for multi-year complex funding opportunities with bilateral and multi-lateral public donors. This position works closely with the Head of Business Development – MENA, Regional and Country Offices and Technical Advisors to support the implementation of Country BD Strategies, track strategic donor engagement, maintain donor mapping, outline long-term positioning strategies, identify and qualify leads and complete capture steps for concrete opportunities. The role works in close partnership with the BD Specialist, Pricing and Recruitment teams, who may take on proposal leadership for opportunities the SBDA – C&E has worked on.
The SBDA – C&E will support Country and Regional teams in growing their networks with key donor representatives, country and regional partners, national development professionals, as well as international candidates and peer organizations. This position plays a key role in the adoption of IRC’s Business Development Process and tools as well as coaching and formal training to IRC staff. The ideal candidate will have a successful track record of working on large-scale new business efforts in international development with USAID, FCDO and other multilateral and bilateral donors tailored to the context (e.g. EU, BMZ, etc), as well as strong familiarity with the MENA region. They will draw on their network within donors and peer organizations to ensure IRC is well positioned to apply for competitive development opportunities.
As part of a global capture and engagement team, the SPDA – C&E will have flexibility to support opportunities globally, including through remote and in-country support, with a focus on business development efforts in the IRC’s MENA region, which comprises country programs in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, OPT, Syria and Iraq.
Key Working Relationships
The SBDA – C&E reports to the Director, Business Development and is a member of the global Business Development team. They work closely with, and set priorities alongside, the Head of Business Development – Region, the Deputy Regional Director, the Regional Vice President, and the Regional Program Development Advisors. On specific bids, they serve as Capture Lead and collaborate with colleagues that constitute capture and proposal teams including Proposal, Pricing, and Recruitment Leads, Technical Advisors, and country office colleagues. They also collaborate with the wider Business Development Team and Awards Management Unit, including Strategic Partnerships and Compliance and Policy, the Crisis Response Recovery and Development Department, including Regional Leadership, Technical Excellence, and other key departments within IRC (such as Policy and Advocacy, Comms, etc) whose work may support business development efforts. They may serve as point of contact for external donor and partner collaborators during the opportunity positioning and planning stage, as applicable for the opportunity.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES
Planning and Strategic Leadership (25%)
• Collaborate with the Head of Business Development and Program Development Advisors to support the development and implementation of country program business development Strategies, specifically focusing on longer-term growth donors, aligned with the country strategy action plans (SAPs).
• Support IRC’s global Public Funding Strategy implementation, including through support to global strategic engagement and positioning with long-term donors.
• Co-facilitate business development planning or training workshops in collaboration with the Regional Head of Business Development and regional BD team.
• Conduct positioning work for prioritized donors and funding streams, including understanding donor needs, increasing IRC’s profile, and mapping key actors, in alignment with country BD strategies.
• Through standing meetings and on an ad-hoc basis, provide advice, analysis and guidance to Regional Leadership, Country Directors, and Regional BD on trends related to longer-term funding, ensuring leaders have relevant information for decision-making.
• Facilitate and support relationship building with key global, national, and local actors including assisting countries and technical units to develop plans, pitch documents, and other materials to support profile raising.
• Support the region, in collaboration with Head of Business Development, in effective relationship building, and maintenance of contacts, with peer organizations and other partners (including, where relevant, appropriate networks, coalitions, private sector, etc).
Opportunity Positioning and Planning (Capture) (50-60%)
• Coordinate opportunity identification and evaluation, including market research, competitive analysis, win probability and risk analysis, to supporting effective and timely Go/No-Go decisions.
• Serve as capture lead for specific opportunities, following the Business Development Process and tools:
• Lead capture kick-off meeting, planning and communication on the opportunity, ensuring country and regional colleagues, regional Head of Business development, BD Specialist team, Pricing team and Technical Advisors are appropriately engaged and informed of capture developments.
• Coordinate the gathering of intelligence on the donor, competition, and key actors, including through remote and in-country support to countries and region in planning effective engagement, in collaboration with Head of Business Development and other Business Development partners.
• Conduct thorough partner and competitor mapping and analysis to establish partnership strategies; lead and support partnering conversations to build competitive teams; advise on prior experience with partners and prime organisations; finalize teaming arrangements and relevant pre-award partner vetting processes, in accordance with IRC’s partnership system (PEERS).
• In line with IRC’s Partnership Ambition, and in collaboration with regional Partnership teams, contribute to increasing the volume and equity of IRC’s work with local and regional partners (with a focus on women-led national organizations).
• Lead process for identification and appointment of key personnel, facilitating discussions on management structure, grading, etc. in close collaboration with recruiters, technical unit, country office and regional colleagues.
• Facilitate capture phase reviews to identify and enhance IRC’s win strategies.
• Lead or support pre-design meetings to ensure project alignment with donor preferences, including guidance on appropriate implementation approaches (e.g. technical assistance, direct service delivery, etc), in collaboration with country and technical colleagues;
• Collaborate with pricing team to develop back-of-envelope budgets.
• Maintain complete and accurate electronic files, including partner meeting notes and documentation, capture workbooks, and internal trackers.
• Manage handover to proposal lead, remaining available for specific tasks (partnership and recruitment finalization/coordination, reviews, etc), as required, during proposal development phase.
Learning, Capacity Building and Training (10-20%)
• Collaborate with the global Business Development team to share learning and to develop and improve tools as identified in the BD team workplan, supporting improved knowledge management.
• Contribute to developing, updating, and delivering business-development related training, including roll-out and refreshers of the IRC Business Development Process, with a focus on promoting earlier and more structured capture efforts across the organization.
• Lead After-Action Reviews to collect lessons learned and share feedback beyond the region as part of the Business Development team’s learning agenda.
Other Responsibilities (5%)
• Support other BD and regional strategic priorities and initiatives.
• Participate in special projects, working groups and other tasks as assigned.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential
Skills, Knowledge, and Qualifications:
• Substantial experience leading positioning, engagement, and capture work and/or developing proposals for complex, competitive, multi-year, multi-partner humanitarian and development opportunities.
• Experience and strong knowledge of government/statutory donors, with a particular emphasis on development donors such as USAID, EU and FCDO.
• Strong familiarity with the regional context.
• Subject-matter expertise and experience in a sector relevant to IRC is a plus (e.g. health, education, governance, WASH, etc.).
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to convey complex concepts clearly and concisely in writing and verbally.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in ‘remote’ and multi-cultural teams; Experience collaborating with and supporting national and community-based partners.
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively.
• Ability to travel internationally (approximately 20% of time).
• Fluency in English.
**Standard of Professional Conduct:**The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.
Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.