Head of Programme At Internews Europe

Location: France or United Kingdom

Duration: Permanent contract

Commencing: January/February 2022

Line manager: Director of the Multi-Regional Program Management Unit

Department: Multi-Regional Program Management Unit

Term & LOE: Full-time; 100%

Salary range: £63,743 – £67,221 (E1-E2) per annum

Internews overview

Internews empowers people worldwide with the trustworthy, high-quality news and information they need to make informed decisions, participate in their communities, and hold power to account. Our vision is to unleash human potential everywhere by turning on the bright light of information.

Internews is a charity operating internationally with administrative centres in London, Paris, California and Washington DC as well as regional hubs in Bangkok, Kiev and Nairobi.

Internews is passionate about our core values and about supporting positive change in the world. We pride ourselves on our commitment to innovation and flexibility. We believe that diverse teams are strong teams, and work to support an ethic of belonging, dignity, and justice for all people. Our current team includes a mix of genders, parents and non-parents, the self-taught, and people of multiple races, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourage candidates of all races, genders, ages, abilities, orientations, ethnicities, and national origins to apply, and actively welcome those with alternative backgrounds and experiences.

Program overview

The program currently manages 10+ projects in a dozen countries, funded by a mix of European and US public donors, with the overall objective of supporting access to information and freedom of expression. Internews seeks to contribute to this overall objective through provision of sub-grants and capacity building to approximately 80 media and civil society actors to meet the basic information needs of over 16 million citizens. The program has seen rapid growth and evolution over the past 24 months, and is expected to continue to grow over the short-to-medium term.

Main tasks and responsibilities of the Head of Manager

• Overall Programme Management: provide leadership and direction for the implementation of a portfolio of media assistance projects, ensuring that their goals are achieved while improving effectiveness and maximising impact. This includes direct responsibility for the programme management, strategic direction, financial management, fiscal integrity, quality and timing of deliverables, and management of relationships and capacity building of partners;
• Team Management: build and manage the efforts of the portfolio’s team, including Project Directors and Project Managers, Programme Officers, Project Assistants, as well as technology experts, web developers, journalism consultants, trainers and mentors in order to assure that high quality standards of professional training and related new media tools are delivered according to each project commitments;
• Compliance: overall accountability for ensuring that all the projects comply with donor regulations, laws, and Internews Europe’s policies;
• Oversight of relations with projects partners and beneficiaries: ensure that the projects teams (PD, PM, PO…) negotiate and manage contracts, supervise and monitor the implementation of activities, and ensure smooth communication with all parties involved;
• Oversight of local partners’ capacity building: ensure that the projects teams (PD, PM, PO…) provide organisational development support to local partners and beneficiaries in each country as appropriate; mentoring local partners staff through strong management, specialised trainings, upgraded resource materials and tools, and effective feedback;
• Regional and in-country environment and challenges: ensure that all the project teams maintain a thorough knowledge of the issues affecting the independent media sector and information space in each project’s target countries. Maintain tight relationships with the media sector, journalists, bloggers, change agents and a general understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing stakeholders in each target country;
• Risk management: manage risk and security during the project implementation, including the development of contingency plans and an understanding of digital and physical risk;
• Internal reporting: ensure regular and timely reporting and review of project progress to managers in keeping with Internews’ internal requirements;
• Official Correspondence: prepare or oversee the production of official communications, briefings and reports to donors and partners as required;
• Representation: represent Internews at external events including meetings, roundtables and conferences with government officials, partner organisations and other stakeholders.
• Business development: design business development strategies with the support Development teams in London and Washington and in discussion with the Director of the Multi-Regional Program Management Unit (PMU) ; with the support of Programme staff, DEV staff and ad-hoc consultants, lead on the design and preparation of concept notes, statements of interest and project proposals ; in coordination with the Business Development, maintain relationships with the relevant donors (regular calls and meetings);
• Programme Strategy: in discussion with PMU directors and the Senior management Team (SMT), lead on the definition and update of the Programme strategy (themes, priorities, countries…);
• Cross-PMU coordination: under the supervision of the Multi Regional PMU Director, maintain relationship and regularly coordinates with Internews Regional Directors for reciprocal updates and identification of synergies;
• Coordination with other relevant stakeholders: regular calls and meetings with relevant actors of the sector: other INGOs, UN, local CSOs, private and public donors;
• Reports to the Director of the Multi Regional PMU.

Experience/Qualifications

• At least 8 years’ experience in democracy, human rights, technology, and/or international media development, with experience in complex operating environments and closing space highly preferred
• Proven experience providing management of staff and remote teams
• Proven ability to deliver tasks on deadline, individually and through management of team members
• Excellent interpersonal and networking skills
• Excellent communication and reporting skills, both written and oral
• Experience writing successful proposals for both private and government funders
• An understanding of the vision/mission, core values and objectives of Internews
• Proven experience in business development and fundraising
• Strategic thinking capacity, and ability to turn strategy into relevant programming
• Substantive understanding of trends in international media development
• Psychological resilience and a sense of humor
• Fluency in written and spoken English

Recruitment Timeline:

Closing date for applications: 21 December 2021

Candidates must submit a succinct covering letter of no more than 2-pages explaining how they satisfy the requirements of the person speciation in addition to a CV highlighting relevant experience. The successful candidate will also be asked to provide three professional referees, one of whom must be from their most recent employer.

The above noted job description is not intended to describe, in detail, all the tasks that may be assigned but rather to give the job holder a general sense of the responsibilities and expectations of his/her position. As the nature of business demands change so, too, may the essential functions of this position.

This position can be based in either UK or France, the successful applicant must obtain the Right to Work in the chosen country to commence their employment