Executive Director for Strategy, Programme & Learning

Are you an experienced and authentic leader who can lead DRC’s programmatic approach and our strategy 2025? We are looking for an Executive Director to lead the Department for Strategy, Programme & Learning. Join DRC’s Executive Management Team and lead one of the world’s largest international NGO’s in accordance with our mandate, strategic vision and our values.  

Who are we?

DRC has grown to become an international humanitarian organisation with more than 8,000 employees and 6,000 volunteers across 4 regions and more than 40 countries. Our turnover is more than DKK 3.5 bn. Our work covers all aspects of refugee issues based on humanitarian principles and human rights – we call it the full circle - “We are there”.

We work in conflict-affected areas, along displacement routes, and in countries where refugees settle. Our work is tailored to global needs and includes providing emergency relief, long-term durable solutions and strengthening the opportunity for a brighter future for refugees and displaced people. The Department for Strategy, Programme & Learning is responsible for DRC’s programming and holds overall accountability for DRC’s programmatic approach: the response framework with its three programme platforms – emergency response, solutions to displacement and addressing root causes – and DRC’s five core sectors. 

The Department consists of approximately 100 employees including 14 managers, split between three divisions/sub-departments:

• Effectiveness, Knowledge & Learning
• Programme & Policy
• Asylum & Refugee Rights

DRC’s five global hosted entities are also part of the Department. These are the Mixed Migration Center (MMC), Joint IDP Profiling Service (JIPS), Data Entry and Exploration Platform (DEEP), Humanitarian-to-Humanitarian Network (H2H) and Protection Information Management (PIM).

Colleagues in the department are working across the globe, with the majority working from HQ while other employees are based in our regional and country offices. We have a diverse workforce, and empowering work culture. Our main working language is English, alongside other DRC languages such as Arabic, Spanish, French, and Danish.

About the job

The Executive Director for Strategy, Programme & Learning is part of DRC’s global Executive Management Team (EMT) together with the Secretary General, the four Executive Directors for the Regions (EDRs), the Executive Director (ED) for Partnerships, Advocacy and External Relations, the ED for Operations, the ED for People & Organisation, and the ED for Finance, Risk & Supply Chain. The EMT sets the overall strategic direction of the organisation and is responsible for leading the entire organisation in accordance with the mandate, strategic vision, and values of DRC.

While the EMT sets the strategic direction of DRC under the guidance of the Executive Committee, in this role, you will facilitate the advancement, implementation, and review of DRC's global strategy.

In this role you will represent DRC, both internally and externally and communicate and lift DRC priorities internally across the organisation as well as externally to donors, policy counterparts and others.  

The Department of Strategy, Programme & Learning has until now been part of a larger Department for Programme, Policy & External Relations, which will be divided into two departments. Therefore, an important part of your role will also be to establish Strategy, Programme & Learning as a new department on its own while at the same time ensuring high-level strategic alignment across the organisation.
 

Key responsibilities:

• Represent, engage and facilitate momentum, internally and externally in close collaboration with your management team, EMT and the Secretary General.
• Lead the process of development, implementation and follow-up on DRC’s global strategy (currently DRC Strategy 2025) together with the Secretary General and EMT, supported and executed by the Strategy 2025 Advisor. In this position, you have the accountability of leading the global strategy development process as well as overseeing the overall implementation of the strategy, monitoring results, and providing overall strategy guidance to the organisation.
• Strategically drive and support programme and policy development as well as innovation within DRC’s key programmatic areas. It will also be part of your key tasks together with EMT, the Director for Programme and other senior managers to enable our programmatic priorities of building and maintaining a strong emergency capacity and enhancing our strategic position on the localisation agenda as well as ensuring that DRC’s programmatic profile is adapted to climate change.
• Ensure overall leadership of the department for Asylum and Refugee Rights, supported and executed by the Director for Asylum and Refugee Rights.
• Ensure overall leadership of hosted global entities, capacities, and projects in close collaboration with the department management team and facilitate that these global initiatives benefit DRC as well as the wider humanitarian and displacement community.
• Strategic leadership of DRC’s Effectiveness, Knowledge and Learning platform, supported and executed by the Head of Effectiveness, Knowledge and Learning.
• People management of direct reports including senior level managers and being responsible for overall people planning and well-being of employees in the department. You will also be expected to contribute to setting up appropriate meeting structures to ensure cross-collaboration across departments in HQ.
• Being accountable for elaborating the department’s budget and monitoring its implementation.
• Being part of the EMT and co-leading the entire organisation and inspiring leadership in DRC based on our leadership principle ‘freedom of action within responsibility’. You will also be leading, representing, developing and consolidating DRC in our regions and globally, while contributing to ‘One DRC’ by strengthening the cooperation and synergies across regions, countries and HQ departments.

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to have significant experience from the humanitarian sector, preferably with solid experience within strategy and programme. All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the Lead, Collaborating, Striving for Excellence, and Demonstrating Integrity.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

• Solid experience with executive strategic leadership
• Competencies demonstrating an inclusive, inspiring and facilitating leadership style, always striving to empower, motivate, and develop your team, while also seeking inspiration from others and consulting with colleagues
• High degree of emotional intelligence
• Significant experience with managing programme operations at a global level
• Experience with external representation with global, regional and national partners, local/government authorities, NGO partners, UNHCR and other relevant stakeholders 
• A master’s degree within a relevant field of study
• Fluency in English
• Other DRC languages such as Danish, French, Arabic and/or Spanish are an advantage

We offer

Contract length: Permanent

Workplace: DRC’s headquarters in Copenhagen

Start date: 1 June 2023 or as soon as possible

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and Lederaftalen between Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening og Lederne (agreement for managers), which can be found here: www.lederne.dk.

This is contractually a national position for which local terms and conditions apply. Our work conditions include, amongst others, a fair salary, fully employer paid pension contribution, six weeks of paid leave per year and flexible working hours.

Application process

All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV without a profile picture in English. Apply online on our page Current Vacancies at www.drc.ngo.

Closing date for applications: Sunday 16 April 2023. We expect to conduct interviews during the second half of April in our office in Borgergade.

Given the global nature of our work, DRC has a very diverse and international workforce. We have the strong ambition to better reflect this diversity also in DRC’s Leadership. While we consider all applicants and do not give preferential treatment to any group in the recruitment process, we welcome applications from candidates who belong to groups which are currently underrepresented in the Executive Management Team, including women and nationals from the countries and regions that we operate in. For more details on our commitment to equal employment opportunities, see also "DRC as an employer” at the bottom of the ad.

Further information

For questions regarding the vacancy please contact Charlotte Slente by email charlotte.slente@drc.ngo

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.