Location: Open to considering candidates who are currently based in the following locations: Portland, OR, Washington, DC, London or Edinburgh, UK, or Nairobi, Kenya.

Position Status: Full-time, Regular, Exempt

Salary: The salary range for this position is $91,000 - $101,667 USD

***Accepting applications through Friday, December 23rd.*

About Mercy Corps**

Mercy Corps is powered by the belief that a better world is possible. To do this, we know our teams do their best work when they are diverse and every team member feels that they belong. We welcome diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be stronger and have long term impact.

The Department Team

Mercy Corps alleviates poverty, suffering, and oppression and works to build secure, productive, and just communities in over 40 countries around the world. Our Program Department supports field-led work that delivers measurable impact.

Mercy Corps’ Technical Support Unit (TSU) is a key part of the Program Department. Mercy Corps’ TSU houses subject matter experts whose mission is to help our global teams apply the most effective solutions to the world’s toughest challenges, while building our global reputation and resources to do so. By advancing technical excellence the Unit plays a key role in driving Mercy Corps’ impact, innovation and influence around the world. Current TSU teams are: Food Security and Nutrition; Resilience; Economic and Market Development; Financial Inclusion; Agriculture Systems; Governance and Partnerships; Peace and Conflict; Youth, Gender and Girls; Environment, Energy and Climate; Technology for Development; and New Initiatives.

The TSU helps set agency-wide strategy and develops strategic approach documents and other technical briefs for their practice area to inform the entire organization’s work. In addition, it offers technical expertise to offices worldwide - supporting country strategy development and assessments, and engaging throughout the program life cycle from project design and proposal development to quality implementation and evaluations.

As technical experts in their field, TSU Team members are well versed in global practices and abreast of sector specific trends. They also represent Mercy Corps with donors and other strategic partners, and inform and influence both internal approaches and global understanding on how to move the needle on some of the most intractable humanitarian and development challenges of our time, especially in fragile settings. This agenda requires the team to know about progress and results across programs and paint a picture of the best that Mercy Corps has to offer based on thematic learning from across our regions. This drives innovation inside the agency, grows the portfolio, and fosters learning internally and with external stakeholders so that we can make a bigger difference in the lives of people we work with.

The Position

The TSU Director for Food Systems is Mercy Corps’ top global technical leader for programming across agri-food systems in fragile contexts. They will have a clear understanding of the impacts of current food crisis and a clear vision for the future proofing food systems in the geographies in which Mercy Corps works. The Director has extensive experience improving, restoring, and transitioning livelihoods across food systems. The Director will have a deep understanding of the inequalities within food systems and how to design programs that drive transformation and advance inclusive food systems. The Director will also understand the role of investing in food systems to advance resilient nutrition outcomes. The Director will be a recognized leader in advancing locally led solutions across food systems in fragile contexts. They will drive critical technical and funding partnerships, knowing that Mercy Corps can only excel at this work through catalytic collaboration with partners, companies, funders, governments and peer organizations. And they will leverage technology solutions to transform the scale, cost and impact of our work.

The TSU Director for Food Systems guides and facilitates the work of the team. They will partner with country and program leadership to ensure technical consistency across existing programs and grow the portfolio guided by strong vision. The Director will have experience working with and managing global teams in a matrixed environment. The Director is a strong influencer both inside and outside the Agency with the ability to communicate Mercy Corps’ technical strengths and overall vision. The Director will have extensive experience building and maintaining partnerships with private sector, NGOS, and key stakeholders in the countries where Mercy Corps work to ensure a country driven approach to delivering agrifood system solutions. They will be a member of the TSU Leadership team composed of other Directors and Senior Directors and work closely with other TSU teams on complex, multi-disciplinary programs.

Essential Responsibilities

STRATEGY, INFLUENCE, and REPRESENTATION

Continue to iterate, develop and deliver Mercy Corp’ approach to food systems and food security and ensure it supports Mercy Corps’ new global strategy and responds to the evolving global food crisis.
Work with country and regional teams to develop and deliver food security strategies and priorities through investments in inclusive agrifood systems.
In collaboration with country leadership, identify partners and foster relationships in countries where we work to ensure country led approaches and solutions across programs.
Lead the agency in identifying and testing bold solutions that leverage technology advancements and innovations across agrifood systems to advance food security.
Spearhead technical partnership initiatives to increase measurable impact within our food security portfolio.
Serve as key external communicator for Mercy Corps in a wide range of public fora.
Identify long term external trends with the potential to affect or transform Mercy Corps work.
Strengthen Mercy Corps’ profile and representation through expert interaction with internal stakeholders, partner agencies, donors and other networks and groups in food security.
Position Mercy Corps as a thought leader in the sector, particularly on resilience, livelihoods, and market driven approaches in food security.
Participate in developing TSU knowledge management practices that lend coherence to TSU technical products as a whole and maximize impact through coordinated and creative dissemination practices. Identify and develop strategic funding partnerships for new or expanded field programs, in concert with others. Identify strategic grant opportunities to grow the TSU teams in ways that serve a broader TSU and Agency agenda.
Guide technical team research and learning agenda, identifying opportunities to explore key practical research questions that can inform programming and advance global practice.
Advance Thought Leadership and the Food Security Learning Agenda and related Knowledge Management plan that is coordinated with the larger Agency KM strategy and other TSU plans. Facilitate roll out in concert with other knowledge management leads across TSU and Agency.
Advance external Influence through work with other Agency leads, including Policy and Research, Program and Quality, Marketing and Communications teams to raise Mercy Corps global profile.
Strengthen Mercy Corps’ profile and representation through expert interaction with internal stakeholders, partner agencies, donors and other networks and groups. Speak at key events, highlight Mercy Corp’s evidence base.
Spearhead technical partnership initiatives, including with academic partners think tanks, local networks, private sector actors or others to enhance impact and influence.
Actively engage in internal relationship building, providing project and unit updates with other departments.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, SUPPORT, and IMPACT

Gather/analyze data and complete assessments to determine program needs and priorities and Mercy Corps' competitive advantage for funding
Provide counsel on strategic funding opportunities through prepositioning, technical design processes, and development of multi-sectoral program strategies.
Explore and maximize new lines of revenue, especially relating to "big ideas" or TSU-led initiatives. Emphasis will be on growth of the Food Security portfolio among strategic donors such as USAID; private corporations; and US and European institutional donors.
Provide technical support to a portfolio of programs including those in complex crisis environments.
Help improve and maintain standards of program delivery that comply with best practices, relevant regulations and requirements.
Strengthen capacity of Mercy Corps team members to use evidence based approaches in design and implementation of programs.
Guide teams to facilitate multi-team/multi country shared learning to standardize best practice, develop comparative advantages for new program development and advance strategic partnerships.
Identify opportunities to increase the adoption of data analysis and modeling to maximize program quality and impact efficiency
Collaborate with country and MEL teams to ensure that we appropriately capture impact and support the building of evidence and learning across the portfolio.
Develop and refine theories of change and related indicators; work with field teams both in their development and to test them
Work with Program and Quality team to ensure indicators continue to be relevant and accessible to programs, tools are created to effectively measure indicators and staff capacity is built.
Lead and support activities to understand and document the impact of our technical interventions, including analysis of outcome and impact data to inform technical briefs, corporate capacity statements, future program development.

TEAM MANAGEMENT

Fully embrace the Agency’s culture and values and actively work to achieve its goals relating to Gender, Diversity and Inclusion.
Create and sustain a work environment of mutual respect where team members strive to achieve excellence on their own team and embrace their role and responsibilities in advancing the shared goals of the larger TSU, to forge its reputation as a cohesive, strategic and responsive world class technical unit.
As a member of the Leadership group, engage with other Directors regularly on team plans and budget issues, work collectively to advance coherence across the Unit, and ensure communications flow to team staff in a timely manner.
Manage teams and financial resources to ensure they are working in line with Agency’s Impact, Innovation and Influence objectives and TSU strategic priorities.
Ensure accountability of team members for delivering on their individual workplans as well as adhering to TSU wide processes.
Conduct regular performance reviews, adhering to Agency personnel policies and practice.
Help team members identify and take advantage of opportunities, training, information and other resources to ensure professional growth and provide advice and encouragement to help them reach their full potential;
Empower teams to advance leadership in their fields and encourage/support professional growth

Supervisory Responsibility

The position has supervisory responsibility over Senior Advisors and Advisors.

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Senior Director for Food Security

Works Directly With: Other TSU Directors, Country Directors, HQ and program teams.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills

M.S./M.Sc. or equivalent or above in a relevant technical field is required.
6+ years of conflict and climate sensitive agrifood system programming, preferably in Africa. A deep understanding of livelihoods and food systems is required. Additional experience should include some of the following - knowledge of market driven, nutrition, and climate smart and natural resource management approaches
Additional experience should include:
Strong understanding of resilience approaches in food security programming and humanitarian and development work, as well as an understanding of conflict dynamics.
Proven ability to set a vision, drive an agenda, and successfully navigate differing opinions and competing agendas in a resource constrained environment.
Experience in monitoring and learning in reduced access contexts.
Established global, regional, country level professional networks and partnerships with key actors in the sector to increase scale and impact.
Building solid working relationships with donors, peer agencies, corporations, and foundations. Demonstrated representation and donor cultivation skills.
Proven leadership, self-motivation, and strong interpersonal skills.
Experience leading matrixed teams in non-hierarchical settings; and working with teams of diverse backgrounds.
Effective coaching, development, and management of individual staff and teams.
Exceptionally strong verbal and written communications and organizational skills required.
Experience producing and presenting policy and donor relevant research or other brief
Ability to work effectively under tight deadlines and in sparse working environments.
Willingness and ability to travel to Mercy Corps project sites and field locations, including traveling to insecure environments, is required.
Familiarity with major donors, e.g. USAID, FCDO, the EU and relevant foundations and corporations.
Fluency in English required.

Success Factors

The successful director must be a self-starter who demonstrates leadership in verbal and written communications, international and country level partnership development, and team management. Multi-tasking with proven ability to manage competing priorities, follow procedures, and meet deadlines is required. The director manages their team to have an impact on revenue, program quality, overall strategy and thought leadership. The director leads and nurtures individual team member development and works effectively with different work styles. The position must communicate and work with a variety of external groups including private sector partners, peer agencies, academic institutions, and donors. The director is flexible and creative in planning and problem solving, and has a proven ability to learn quickly, take initiative and be accountable for results. The director has the vision and drive to lead initiatives in the agency that are more than program development, that demonstrate understanding for the larger picture while remaining focused on and able to handle the details. The individual must have a high proficiency for working in a variety of cultural, political and religious environments and must be able to travel and work successfully in austere environments and maintain poise in stressful situations.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in the United States, United Kingdom, or Kenya and it requires up to 40% travel to support country programs, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited. Housing for this role is in individual housing and staff will have access to good medical services and the living situation is of a high standard.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme**.** We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.

As a safeguarding measure, Mercy Corps screens all potential US-Based employees. This is done following the conclusion of recruitment and prior to assuming full employment.

Our screening process is designed to be transparent and completed in partnership with new Team Members. You will have the opportunity to disclose any prior convictions at the conclusion of the recruitment process before the check is initiated. We ask that you do not disclose any prior convictions in your application materials or during the recruitment process.

Covid-19 Vaccine Policy for US-Based Employees

Mercy Corps has determined that, in an effort to protect the health, safety, and well-being of all Mercy Corps employees working in the United States, all U.S.-based employees must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, regardless of prior COVID-19 infection status. This policy is necessary to ensure not only the safety of our workforce, but the ongoing functionality of the organization.

This policy will be revised as needed to comply with federal, state, and local requirements, and to respond to changing guidance from public health authorities.

For new employees this requirement goes into effect within 10 business days of employment. Team members that travel are expected to comply with host-country requirements, including vaccinations. Failure to comply may impact your employment. Proof of vaccination or exemption must be provided.