Consortium Manager

Location:

Position Location:

Description

Position:                                 Consortium Manager

Location:                                Beirut, Lebanon with regular field visits to implementation areas

Job Category:                        Manager

Reports to:                             Country Director

Direct Supervision:             Consortium Management Unit (CMU)

Position Type:                       Fulltime

About RI:

Relief International partners with communities impacted by conflict, climate change, and disaster to save lives, build greater resilience, and promote long-term health and wellbeing. A registered non-profit in the U.S, U.K., France and Belgium, our work targets those fragile countries or communities that suffer from man-made or natural crises that impede human development. The people that we serve live in 15 countries across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia where the debilitating effects of political instability, forced displacement, and natural disasters are pervasive.

Position Summary: 

The Consortium Manager (CM) will be responsible for the overall implementation and monitoring of the project activities and the quality and timely achievement of the programmatic objectives and indicators of the project. S/he will facilitate collaborative partnerships between donor, consortium members and relevant external stakeholders. The Job Holder will ensure the successful implementation of the project while focusing on program quality assurance, donor compliance, coordination with external stakeholders, and grants management. The position reports directly to the Country Director for Lebanon. The Consortium Manager directly supervises the Finance Specialist, Grants and Compliance Specialist, Health Specialist, MEAL Specialist, IM Specialist.

Coordination and representation

• Responsible for providing oversight, strategic leadership, and guidance of the Consortium and maintaining an integrated vision among different actors while ensuring adherence to all programmatic strategy, project objectives, performance requirements, and donor compliance and regulations; Ensures representation to the Lead on behalf of partners.

• Ensure SOPs, tools and procedures are in place for managing processes and response across different consortium members, and allow rapid assessment, decision and response according to expected contractual achievements.
• Promote strong and positive communication with consortium team members and provide managerial and programmatic oversight.
• Facilitate and create good condition to ensure fluid communication between the consortium partners.
• Ensure that coordination of actions is articulated as a structural mean to improve the timeliness, inclusiveness, transparency and connectedness of proposed action within existing coordination set-ups.
• Serving as the key liaison with the Donor, consortium partners, and other stakeholders.
• Ensure the consortium actively coordinates with all necessary forums and stakeholders, including MoPH, UN agencies, sectorial Working Groups, to reduce on-going and future humanitarian needs, increase resilience and assist a durable recovery.

Project Management Oversight:

• Maintain a strong understanding of both operational and programmatic delivery, implementation progress and challenges across the consortium, and facilitate solutions in line with the consortium’s strategy.
• Support the Chair of the Consortium Management Steering Committee (comprising of CDs and/or PDs of each organization as delegated by the CDs) to ensure they are presented with key decisions and information such as operational and financial feedback and recommendations.
• Support the Chair of the Strategic Programmatic Advisory Group (SPAG).
• Provide guidance to the Technical Sector Specialists to deliver coherent support to the program and operations.
• Foster integrated programming and a joint field understanding of the consortium strategy.
• Facilitate the creation of joint programmatic initiatives and relevant referrals.
• Facilitate shifts in programmatic strategy.
• Interacte with external coordination bodies like the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) and health sector.
• Lead kick-off and mobilization of the project with all partners, and lead development of detailed implementation plan and ensure the delivery of the same.
• Ensure the global overview on efficient use of the financial resources.
• Have regular visits to field implementation sites as permissible per the prevailing situation.
• Work on contingency plans to allow continuation of the consortium humanitarian response, in case of context changes.

Project delivery

• Organize and chair a mobilization meeting at the beginning of the project.
• Coordinate delivery of the projects objectives for all consortium partners.
• Embed and promote donor compliance (including financial regulations, procurement policies and reporting requirements), ensuring inputs from all consortium members are represented and included.
• Safeguard the purpose of the program strategy and ensure the coherence of the project, making certain that the consortium moves in one direction.
• Ensure major risks and obstacles are identified and remedial actions taken with agreement of consortium partners.
• Ensure that lessons learnt workshops are organized and scheduled per the agreed upon implementation plan, and followed up on.
• Ensure accurate, high quality and timely grants management of the partners within the consortium, which will be led by the Grants and Compliance Specialist under the supervision of the Job Holder.
• Ensure proper financial management, procurement, administration and human resources needs of the program are conducted within the consortium policy and with the maximum benefit to the program and in compliance with donor and RI requirements.
• Ensure integration of gender sensitivity and capacity building into all activities as appropriate.
• Oversee the design of effective MEAL and IM systems for the consortium in close coordination with CMU MEAL and IM Specialists
• Convenes monthly meetings with Steering Committee.

Employee Supervision:

·       Overall team management, structure and oversight of the objectives of the Consortium Management Unit (CMU).

·       Ensure the high-quality management of staff to be directly supervised by Job Holder, this should focus on: employee relations; task delegation with timely follow-up/feedback provided; teamwork and collaboration; completion of performance evaluations; and leaves’ management among others.

·       Manage Staff Care issues with the direct reports on a regular basis; continuously monitor individual staff members’ capacity for self-care; and take adequate actions to ensure that staff well-being measures are in place and in alignment with the RI’s policies. Ensure an adequate attendance and participation in all Staff Care trainings as requested by the Organization and Country office.

Work Coordination:

• The Job Holder reports directly to the Country Director;
• The Job Holder will directly supervise the key members of the consortium management unit (CMU);
• Under the supervision of the Country Director, the Job Holder should coordinate closely with internal support departments: Operations, HR, Finance, as well as the MEAL Coordinator, Health Coordinator and Mental Health Coordinator to ensure accurate spending, compliance, resource allocation, and planning.

The Job Holder should take decisions related to the accountabilities outlined above seeking approval/ coordination from Country Director, Deputy Country Director Program, SCO Manager (related to procurement and logistics), HR Manager (related to recruitment, performance evaluations and other HR-related decisions), Finance Manager (related to budgeting, spending and other Finance-related decisions) and as appropriate. The CM will have approval authority for the project responsibility as per the Procurement Authority Matrix.

The Job Holder will be working from RI’s main office in Lebanon, which is located in Beirut. Occasional travel to implementation areas (across all of Lebanon) will be required to support project implementation.

Integrity

Adaptability

Collaboration

·       At least five years of managerial experience implementing complex donor-funded projects, with an emphasis on consortiums delivering humanitarian and/or development assistance to vulnerable communities and partnership management.

·       Experience with reporting, budgeting and grants management.

·       Graduate degree in Health, Program Management, or related field.

·       Solid knowledge of several donor regulations.

·       Strong leadership and management skills.

·       Attention to detail.

·       Team player with strong negotiation/ collaborative communication skills.

·       Dedication to the mission.

·       Fluency in written and spoken English.

·       Strategic thinking.

·       Strong communication, interpersonal, representation and negotiation skills.

·       Ability to work under pressure, both independently and with teams

·       Flexibility

·       Ability to work in a dynamic environment and to multi-task to meet deadlines

·       Promotes teamwork, contributes towards building team consensus and acts as a team player

·       Consistently approach work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude

·       Demonstrates ability to identify problems and take initiative to propose solutions