Chief of Party II, ChildSAFE

CRS is recruiting in anticipation of an award – recruitment for all candidates is contingent upon successful award of the project. Strong preference for candidates in the Washington D.C. area.

About the role

The Chief of Party II will provide vision, leadership, and overall management of a large, complex, multi-country child development, care, and protection project to serve vulnerable children, families, and communities. The Chief of Party’s strategic leadership, management, and technical knowledge will ensure the delivery of high-quality programming and advance CRS as a leading agency in child protection, family strengthening, family-based care, and integrated early childhood development.

The Chief of Party will serve as the primary point of accountability for overall project performance, milestone achievement, donor engagement, consortium and resource partner management, safeguarding, risk management, and compliance. As a senior leader, the Chief of Party II will proactively manage security and mitigate security risks while promoting locally led systems change, cross-country learning, government ownership, sustainability, and adaptive management.

Responsibilities

• Lead all aspects of the development, implementation, and consolidation of the assigned project, providing strategic leadership for multi-country implementation, ensuring alignment, coordination, and accountability across participating countries, technical teams, and project partners.
• Serve as the primary point of contact with the donor as well as public, private, and non-government stakeholders.
• Ensure the project is designed and implemented to meet donor expectations in terms of timely and quality results, milestone completion, and budget, including strategies for phase-out and sustainability.
• Lead coordination efforts between program and operations leads to ensure CRS program quality standards are adhered to.
• Ensure successful completion of project milestones through monitoring and verification of milestone-based deliverables, ensuring timely completion of project commitments and donor reporting requirements.
• Effectively lead senior programming and operations talent. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching and mentoring.
• Strategically tailor individual development plans and complete performance assessments for direct reports. Oversee the development of staffing plans and the recruitment process of senior staff.
• Proactively manage and mitigate risk by monitoring national and regional issues that may impact staff and programming. Ensure all CRS staff safety and security policies and plans are regularly updated and all staff understand and adhere to these policies.
• Oversee implementation of safeguarding and child protection standards across all project activities, partners, and participating countries.
• Ensure compliance with donor and CRS policies, including financial tracking and oversight of partner budgets, finance, administration, and donor reporting.
• Approve program expenditures, budget adjustments, and cost modification requests to donors in line with sound stewardship of donor and CRS resources.
• Represent CRS programming in international circles, highlighting innovative work. Publish program results and deliver presentations.
• Oversee the development of communication strategies and materials, complying with donor and CRS’ branding and marketing requirements and procedures.
• Manage relationships with consortium partner organizations, including organization of review/planning workshops. Coordinate the roles and activities of staff from other consortium member organizations to ensure implementation is in line with CRS partnership principles.
• Promote cross-country learning, knowledge management, and adaptive management, facilitating the use of evidence, data, and lessons learned to strengthen project performance and contribute to agency and sector learning.
• Create and maintain proper conditions for learning. Establish a safe environment to share ideas, solutions, and difficulties. Build the internal capacity to detect, analyze, and respond quickly to deficiencies.
• Identify performance gaps and training opportunities for CRS and partner staff and ensure the design and delivery of high-quality training and technical assistance.
• Provide strategic oversight of consortium partners, sub-awardees, and vendors, ensuring strong performance, compliance, risk management, and alignment with project objectives, donor requirements, and milestone commitments.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in international development, International Relations, or a relevant technical area.
• Minimum of 8 years of relevant management and technical experience.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience managing donor funds, including multi-country grants.
• Excellent knowledge and experience in budget management.
• Minimum of 5 years of staff management experience and abilities that are conducive to a learning environment.
• Experience coaching and mentoring senior program staff.
• Demonstrated experience of successful program management, including management of complex, high-value, multi-activity projects with complicated logistics.
• Established leader in sector as demonstrated by peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, etc.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in a related field.
• Experience in managing multi-country opportunities with high-profile donors.
• Experience managing complex USG awards in the field of child protection, child development, or care reform.
• Experience working internationally in Latin America, Africa, or Asia.
• Experience working with and supporting capacity-building activities with local governments to strengthen national systems for scale and impact.
• Experience engaging partners and strengthening partnerships.
• Knowledge of CRS partnership strategy.

Skills

• Ability to represent and present at high levels.
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office package (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), Web Conferencing Applications, and information and budget management systems.
• Excellent strategic, analytical, systems thinking, and problem-solving skills, with capacity to see the big picture and ability to make sound judgment and decisions.
• Excellent relations management abilities. Ability to relate to people at all levels internally and externally. Ability to strategically approach each relationship.
• Team leadership abilities with diverse and multi-disciplinary teams. Coaching/mentoring skills.
• Strong communication and presentation skills. Ability to develop tailored and persuasive messaging for varied audiences.
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions-oriented, and results-oriented mindset.

Languages

Fluency in English is required. Fluency in Spanish or French is a plus.

Travel

Must be willing and able to travel up to 35%.

Supervisory Responsibilities

Yes

Benefits

CRS offers U.S.-based staff a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, life insurance, vision, and a generous retirement savings plan. Salary and benefits packages for successful candidates employed outside the U.S. are based on the country of employment/in-country office where the candidate will perform the role.

About Us

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion, or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding.

CRS’ processes and policies reflect our commitment to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation. CRS welcomes candidates from the countries and regions in which we work. In the event the successful candidate is an expatriate, the anticipated duration of the assignment is informed by a term limit, based on the type and level of the job and the needs of the agency.