Background information about the job or company (e.g., role context, company overview)

We are an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to tackling poverty and suffering in the world’s poorest countries. Concern Worldwide began working in Kenya in May 2002 with the development of an urban programme in Nairobi. Our work expanded into a multi-sectoral programme focusing on urban and rural livelihoods, primary education, HIV and AIDS...

Role Purpose:

This role will enable a high-performing, decentralised team to refresh its motivation and deliver innovative, context-appropriate solutions for crisis-affected populations. It will focus on coaching Concern’s and partners’ Resilience and Durable Solutions Teams—particularly their leadership—to adopt new mental models, challenge assumptions, and test locally led aid approaches that expand program outcomes. It also requires clearly communicating complex concepts (e.g., trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis, cognitive bias) to build shared understanding, alignment, and confidence. The role strengthens leadership capacity, promotes adaptive programming, and ensures learning and evidence guide decision-making and influence wider humanitarian practice

Key Responsibilities:

Empower Concern's and Partners' Resilience and Durable Solutions Teams to:

Innovate and make good decisions:

Propose realistic but innovative means for expanding the mandate and ability of front-line-staff to make strategic decisions and innovations.

Support design of structures and incentives to make hard decisions and practice hyper-adaptation, including short- and long-term budgetary flexibility.

Contribute to transformational changes in resilience and extreme poverty:

Design and implement high-impact, multi-sectoral programmes.

Reach for innovative new levels of program impact.

Challenge traditional notions of cost-effectiveness by demonstrating transformational impacts through locally-tailored, locally-led programming.

Challenge traditional notions of the value of scale by supporting programs that spread decentralized approaches for unique interventions rather than scale specific interventions.

Productively Communicate:

Tell the story of their innovative approaches, results, learning and contributions in a way people can remember.

Evolve ahead of a changing aid industry, to become an example and influence how others in the wider industry imagine their work in the future.

Elevate leadership from within — 2-year goals for the role:

Concern staff have developed the team-leadership, adaptive-management, and organizational-change capabilities to take on senior roles like this one.

The team has shifted its underlying mental models across the Thought Leadership areas described above and reinforced this shift through structural changes to Concern's operational and management structures.

Strategic Leadership and Programme Direction:

Provide leadership to resilience and durable solutions programming, ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.

Team Culture and leadership:

Source, develop, and test better approaches to building and sustaining team culture and organizational change; lead by example and give others space to make pivotal decisions, build reputation, and grow as leaders.

Systems thinking:

Apply the Cynefin Framework as a foundation and draw on a diverse range of systems-thinking tools from there. Candidates may find it useful to be familiar with The 55 Minutes (James Stauch et al.), or with the dialectic approach.

Hyper-Adaptive Programming:

Articulate and design hyper-adaptive program and operational structures that enable decentralized, evidence-based decision-making and innovation at scale, and empower field teams to take ownership of programme delivery.

Human Centred Design:

Apply human centred design principles and approaches across all relevant work.

Value for Money:

Move beyond traditional and established mental models of return on investment and scaled impact; find or develop conceptual articulations and help programming demonstrate the VfM of:

Area-based program impact

Locally-tailored programming to contribute to new typologies of programme outcomes

Complex systems change

Mitigatory actions as a core humanitarian response in areas of recurrent crises

Advocacy, Influencing, and Representation:

Represent Concern — in Nairobi, internationally, and in technical working groups, clusters, and coordination platforms; and grow the team’s capacities to do the same.

Develop position papers, briefs, and messages to support strategic advocacy and influencing efforts.

Plan strategic events and visits where Concern staff can demonstrate their approach to and learn from other stakeholders.

Support visibility of programme impact to donors, partners and external stakeholders.

Donor Engagement and Resource Mobilisation:

Identify and pursue new funding opportunities aligned with Concern’s strategic priorities.

Build and maintain strategic relationships with key donors and partners.

Lead or contribute to the development of high-quality funding proposals — sourcing technical content from the team and strategically structuring flexible budgets.

Ensure effective donor reporting and compliance requirements are met.

Knowledge Management, Learning and Evidence:

Lead documentation of programme learning, including case studies and briefs that exemplify the team's programmatic and operational innovations — including Value for Money.

Promote the use of evidence and learning to inform programme design and strategic direction.

Support research, evaluations, and learning initiatives that advance the team's longer-term vision for its work in Somalia.

Facilitate internal knowledge sharing across programmes and teams, developing and/or adapting tools and materials to facilitate the process.

Coordination and Integration:

Contribute actively to country programme leadership and strategic direction.

Proactively support Programme Director efforts toward effective integration, collaboration and synergies across sectors and programme components.

Support effective coordination with partners, consortia and external stakeholders.

Promote approaches that strengthen local ownership and partner-led design and implementation.

Qualifications or requirements (e.g., education, skills)

Required:

Minimum 5–7 years of relevant experience in aid or social impact.

Proven experience in programme design, portfolio management, and managing multiple teams.

Strong communication and facilitation skills across diverse audiences, and an ability to distil complex ideas into clear, authentic, memorable messages and to coach others in doing the same.

Excellent emotional intelligence (EI/EQ), empathy, and respect for others — especially when things are not going to plan.

Experienced in team culture- and leadership-building that is conducive to innovation, quality, and sustainable impact.

Demonstrated experience in coaching, mentoring, or leadership development roles

Experience supporting teams to improve performance and programme quality

Able to clearly articulate each of the Thought Leadership concepts described above.

Experience working on large donor-funded programmes — ideally with FCDO, EU, Irish Aid, World Bank, or UN agencies — and familiarity with general donor compliance concepts.

Strong experience working with and strengthening local partners, including through remote management arrangements.

Proven ability to work collaboratively with, and represent, an organisation to a variety of stakeholders including at senior levels — e.g. government, clusters, consortia, peer NGOs.

Demonstrable understanding of and commitment to safety and security protocols in Somalia.

Desirable:

Experience working in Somalia, the Horn of Africa, or a comparable context.

Experience managing relationships across complex consortium and stakeholder structures.

Experience clearly articulating resilience, early warning, and anticipatory action.

Any other provided details (e.g., benefits, work environment, team info, or additional notes)

Nairobi-based -50% Travel to project Locations (security permitting) in Somalia.

• Propose realistic but innovative means for expanding the mandate and ability of front-line-staff to make strategic decisions and innovations.
• Support design of structures and incentives to make hard decisions and practice hyper-adaptation, including short- and long-term budgetary flexibility.
• Design and implement high-impact, multi-sectoral programmes.
• Reach for innovative new levels of program impact.
• Challenge traditional notions of cost-effectiveness by demonstrating transformational impacts through locally-tailored, locally-led programming.
• Challenge traditional notions of the value of scale by supporting programs that spread decentralized approaches for unique interventions rather than scale specific interventions.
• Tell the story of their innovative approaches, results, learning and contributions in a way people can remember.
• Evolve ahead of a changing aid industry, to become an example and influence how others in the wider industry imagine their work in the future.
• Provide leadership to resilience and durable solutions programming, ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.
• Source, develop, and test better approaches to building and sustaining team culture and organizational change; lead by example and give others space to make pivotal decisions, build reputation, and grow as leaders.
• Apply the Cynefin Framework as a foundation and draw on a diverse range of systems-thinking tools from there. Candidates may find it useful to be familiar with The 55 Minutes (James Stauch et al.), or with the dialectic approach.
• Articulate and design hyper-adaptive program and operational structures that enable decentralized, evidence-based decision-making and innovation at scale, and empower field teams to take ownership of programme delivery.
• Apply human centred design principles and approaches across all relevant work.
• Move beyond traditional and established mental models of return on investment and scaled impact; find or develop conceptual articulations and help programming demonstrate the VfM of: Area-based program impact, Locally-tailored programming to contribute to new typologies of programme outcomes, Complex systems change, Mitigatory actions as a core humanitarian response in areas of recurrent crises
• Represent Concern — in Nairobi, internationally, and in technical working groups, clusters, and coordination platforms; and grow the team’s capacities to do the same.
• Develop position papers, briefs, and messages to support strategic advocacy and influencing efforts.
• Plan strategic events and visits where Concern staff can demonstrate their approach to and learn from other stakeholders.
• Support visibility of programme impact to donors, partners and external stakeholders.
• Identify and pursue new funding opportunities aligned with Concern’s strategic priorities.
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with key donors and partners.
• Lead or contribute to the development of high-quality funding proposals — sourcing technical content from the team and strategically structuring flexible budgets.
• Ensure effective donor reporting and compliance requirements are met.
• Lead documentation of programme learning, including case studies and briefs that exemplify the team's programmatic and operational innovations — including Value for Money.
• Promote the use of evidence and learning to inform programme design and strategic direction.
• Support research, evaluations, and learning initiatives that advance the team's longer-term vision for its work in Somalia.
• Facilitate internal knowledge sharing across programmes and teams, developing and/or adapting tools and materials to facilitate the process.
• Contribute actively to country programme leadership and strategic direction.
• Proactively support Programme Director efforts toward effective integration, collaboration and synergies across sectors and programme components.
• Support effective coordination with partners, consortia and external stakeholders.
• Promote approaches that strengthen local ownership and partner-led design and implementation.

• Strong communication and facilitation skills across diverse audiences, and an ability to distil complex ideas into clear, authentic, memorable messages and to coach others in doing the same.
• Excellent emotional intelligence (EI/EQ), empathy, and respect for others — especially when things are not going to plan.
• Experienced in team culture- and leadership-building that is conducive to innovation, quality, and sustainable impact.
• Demonstrated experience in coaching, mentoring, or leadership development roles
• Experience supporting teams to improve performance and programme quality
• Able to clearly articulate each of the Thought Leadership concepts described above.
• Strong experience working with and strengthening local partners, including through remote management arrangements.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively with, and represent, an organisation to a variety of stakeholders including at senior levels — e.g. government, clusters, consortia, peer NGOs.
• Demonstrable understanding of and commitment to safety and security protocols in Somalia.

• BA/BSc/HND
• Minimum 5–7 years of relevant experience in aid or social impact.
• Proven experience in programme design, portfolio management, and managing multiple teams.
• Experience working on large donor-funded programmes — ideally with FCDO, EU, Irish Aid, World Bank, or UN agencies — and familiarity with general donor compliance concepts.
• Experience working in Somalia, the Horn of Africa, or a comparable context.
• Experience managing relationships across complex consortium and stakeholder structures.
• Experience clearly articulating resilience, early warning, and anticipatory action.