Senior Director, Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning

The Senior Director, MEAL is a strategic and technical leader who leads a multifunctional team of roughly 35 specialist professionals to develop and implement IRC’s approach to Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning. In this role you will be responsible for a strategy to include the relevance, quality, quantity and use of data about our clients, our programs and our outcomes.

You and your team will work collaboratively with program delivery colleagues to advance top-quality M&E and MEAL best practices with our 40+ country programs across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Your team’s work is essential for delivering on the mission of IRC, as we cannot know the quality or impact of our programs if we cannot measure the inputs and outputs, and meaningfully evaluate those results to course correct, understand our impact, improve future programming, and drive client satisfaction. The Measurement Unit seeks to provide clear and practical solutions to team challenges around data collection, monitoring, interpretation, and usage, for delivery colleagues as well as technical support teams and program leadership.

The team is comprised of a range of technical and program quality functions in MEAL standards, MEAL Technology, Learning and Training, Client Responsiveness, Knowledge Management, and Country Support.

Position Overview

As the Senior Director MEAL, you will provide leadership in several critical capacities:

TECHNICAL LEADER: Lead the development, deployment and ongoing ownership of all MEAL technical standards and tools, for use by program and MEAL staff across 40 country programs and regional offices. Ensure high quality technical support is provided to regional and country leaders and to five Technical Units (Health, Education, Governance, Economic Recovery & Development and Violence Prevention & Response)

ORGANIZATIONAL LEADER: Own and implement IRC’s MEAL Strategy. Ensure that the Measurement Unit and its partners in other technical, regional and country teams have a clear vision for how data about our clients, programs and outcomes can be defined, collected, shared and used leveraged to improve planning, implementation, adaptation and learning. Generate buy-in and commitment to the strategy from inside and outside the Measurement Unit.

Develop and oversee two of IRC’s Strategy 100 Ambitions – Data and Clients.

Promote purposeful intra and inter departmental collaborations with colleagues as a key member of the Technical Excellence leadership team, the Crisis Response, Recover & Development Leadership Group, and as a member of the IRC’s cross-departmental Senior Leadership Group.

TECHNOLOGY LEADER: Own and deliver the MEAL technology strategy to develop and deploy electronic data collection, harmonized database systems and interactive data visualization across all IRC country programs. Lead a team of specialist staff including business analysts, solution architects, technical developers and quality assurance analysts.

MANAGER: As the leader of a large dedicated group of technical and program quality specialists you will bring vision, cohesion, experience, and knowledge to cultivate a strong and inclusive culture of performance and collaboration. You will proactively invest time and care in the support and development of IRC staff within the Measurement Unit. You will be responsible for the recruitment, engagement, and retention of a diverse team of individuals and help them to deliver in their various functions. You will oversee a departmental budget of approximately $2.5m USD.

Key Working Relationships

Report to the Vice President of Technical Excellence;

Lead the teams across data, monitoring and systems, client responsiveness, country support, data product development, and departmental operations functions.

Oversee the health and performance of wider team;

Collaborate with other Senior Directors; Deputy Regional Directors, CRRD Leaders; IT leadership; S100 Ambition Leads; Country Program leaders and other leaders from other departments.

Professional Profile

Success in this position requires an individual with outstanding leadership abilities, and deep expertise in MEAL across multiple humanitarian and development sectors.

Work Experience:

• A minimum of 15 years of relevant experience, with on the ground MEAL experience in a service delivery organization, NGO or comparable international agency required
• Experience with significant data and technology accountability;
• Experience in building and leading teams, collaborations and strategic partnerships;
• Experience in leading and managing within a complex global organization;
• Experience in leading innovation and/or change management processes for program quality improvements;
• Experience of managing budgets in excess of $2m

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Very strong leadership and management proficiencies including the ability to build a diverse team, foster an inclusive team culture, encourage confidence and trust and lead a team in a unified vision and strategy;
• Capacity to communicate effectively with IRC program leadership and to lead cross-departmental collaborations for strategic initiatives;
• Highly effective strategic planning and execution and decision making ability
• Understanding of the program life cycle and effective practices used by aid organizations to design, implement and measure the progress of interventions;
• Expertise in a range of cross cutting program quality approaches
• Excellent public speaking and writing skills are essential
• Committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for clients, being courageously collaborative with colleagues and continually adapting to a dynamic working environment;
• Demonstrated flexibility, creativity and enthusiasm, as well as a willingness to learn and to be continually adaptive within a dynamic and often self-directed working environment.

Education: Master’s in relevant field required

Language Skills: Excellent spoken and written English essential. Proficiency in additional IRC relevant languages (Arabic, French, Spanish, Kiswahili, etc.) strongly preferred.

Working Environment: Travel up to 25% of the time. Preferably based in one of our international hubs including NYC, Geneva, Nairobi, Other IRC locations may be possible.

Compensation:

Posted pay ranges apply to US-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

US Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. In the US, these include: 10 sick days, 10 US holidays, 20-25 paid time off days (depending on role and tenure), medical insurance starting at $145 per month, dental starting at $7 per month, and vision starting at $5 per month, FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs, a 403b retirement savings plans with up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus a 3-7% base IRC contribution (3 year vesting), disability & life insurance, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support counseling and care in times of crisis and mental health struggles.