Heifer International is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with disability.

The Program Management Systems Director will serve as a key part of the management team to deliver strategic direction, support, and guidance to the Global Integrated Program Management System (IPMS). This position requires a high degree of relationship management to collaborate with key stakeholders across the global organization. This position is also expected to be the primary liaison for working with other global system owners to ensure those systems are meeting the needs of our International Program teams who are the primary stakeholders. This would require this position to have strong management skills to facilitate planning and alignment across the enterprise. This role will work collaboratively to set business standards both technical and business processes that are responsive to the needs of stakeholders across the various levels of the organization. A background in international development, best practices in system management, and project management will be needed.

As part of an increased focus on being data-informed, Heifer International recently launched IPMS, which includes standard project management business process and practices and a supporting project management software based on NGO Online platform, to complete a set of core global systems. The Program Management Systems Director will play a crucial role in supporting Heifer’s set of core global systems and future developments to meet the needs of Heifer’s global program teams and to make global systems work across the organization.

This position will have direct line management responsibility for the Global IPMS project manager and will collaborate closely with global program leadership, regional program teams, regional Business Systems Analysts and Managers, Global Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) team, Global Finance and Operations, Enterprise Systems team, and like functions across the global organization. This position will also engage with peers at other INGOs and vendors/consultants as needed.

Collaboration; effective communication and engagement across multiple stakeholder groups; management of complexity and ambiguity; builds networks and strong relationships; human-centered or user-centered design thinking; complex systems leadership.

• Partner with country, regional, and global stakeholders to identify needs and opportunities to further develop agile user-centric global systems that respond to organizational needs.

• Partner with country, regional, and global stakeholders to identify needs and opportunities across global systems (financial system, project management, project design and funding, etc.) and develop use cases to support effective program management and data-driven decision making.

• Collaborate with global technology teams (including Enterprise Systems) for adaptation and development of core global systems to meet identified needs and use cases.

• Collaborate with regional Business Systems Analysts (BSAs), Enterprise Systems, and MERL to deliver and support analytical tools that aid in program and project decision making at country, regional, and global levels.

• Assure alignment of global systems necessary for effective and efficient program and project management

• In collaboration with key stakeholders and users, maintain project management business processes and practices that align with global best practices and are relevant to Heifer’s project, program and portfolio operations.

• Create visual dashboards in Power BI to provide meaningful insights from data and support decision-making processes.

• Collaborating with other teams within Heifer International to ensure interoperability of IPMS with existing systems.

• Maintain strong internal networks; effectively manage multiple stakeholder groups.

• Develop governing structures and routine communication practices for the IPMS portfolio of work.

• Guide work of both direct and dotted line IPMS staff

• Develop loops and recurring check-ins with stakeholders.

• Ensure consistent and clear communication around Global IPMS procedures and processes, emerging activities and requests, and final work products.

• Analyze data within the Global IPMS system and support an adaptive and learning environment across Heifer International.

• Collaborate with IPMS staff to train and build capacity around innovations in NGOO and other systems.

• Collaborating with regional and departmental trainers to design and roll out training for stakeholders.

• Provide Heifer staff with strategic professional development opportunities and refresher courses to stay abreast of the industry’s best practices.

• Provide strategic direction and leadership to move the Global IPMS Portfolio of work forward by engaging deeply with stakeholders and ensuring future enhancements and developments (software and processes) of IPMS are responsive to the voice of Heifer’s Programs teams.

• Lead new systems developments based on expressed needs for agile, effective, and efficient project management.

• Provide technical direction and support to the system development of IPMS that include system and integrations.

• Lead global oversight of Global system management to ensure data quality and integrity.

• Collaborate with other primary stakeholders on the development and integration of innovations into IPMS.

• Ensure appropriate connections between project management implementation and data tools used by Heifer’s local, regional, and global project and program managers and MERL.

• Create approaches (using tools like Excel, PowerBI, R, Stata, and SurveyCTO) to perform data wrangling and quality review and streamline future NGOO improvements.

• Stay updated with the latest trends and best practices in data management, data analysis, and project management to enhance Heifer’s data-driven decision-making processes.

• Master’s degree in, Project Management, Data Science, or other related fields.

• 10 years of job-related experience with a minimum of 8 years in international development-related roles in the areas of project, program or portfolio management.

• Demonstrated experience in supporting the development of project management systems, enterprise systems, or the like in a global, dynamic environment.

• Knowledge of project design and management methodologies, such as logical frameworks, results framework, theories of change, etc.

• Experience in project database development, processes, and management.

• Working knowledge of SQL and database platforms, as well as data visualization tools. Knowledge of how to define technology requirements in a way that describes the business need and that developers can build into the functionality of the system.

• Confirmed ability to lead, mentor, and empower a team.

• Proven experience in managing across multiple stakeholder groups, including senior leadership.

• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to identify barriers to change and develop effective solutions.

1. Well-grounded in the discipline of project management, monitoring and evaluation, and systems analysis.

2. Working knowledge of data science tools (e.g. Excel, PowerBI, SurveyCTO, Azure, Python, R) and related statistics and visualization programs.

3. Strong communication skills, including the ability to clearly and concisely articulate complex ideas both in writing and verbally. Demonstrated experience in giving presentations to a range of stakeholders.

4. Strong interpersonal skills, particularly the ability to comfortably work across diverse teams and cultural backgrounds to understand a range of perspectives and communicate effectively.

5. High level of professional enthusiasm and commitment to Heifer’s mission.

6. Demonstrated ability to get things done when working across the organization – taking a pragmatic approach and applying influence when working outside of formal authority.

7. Ability to focus, prioritize, and deflect distractions in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

8. Fluency in English required

9. Ability to travel to international offices and on-the-ground implementation sites.

a) Constant face-to-face, telephone and electronic communication with colleagues and external stakeholders.

b) Ability to work at a computer for extended periods of time.

c) Ability to assign and review the work of direct reports, as well as motivate and engage team members.

d) Willingness and ability to work outside of normal business hours.

e) Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed.

f) Ability to work with sensitive information and to maintain confidentiality.

g) Ability to work in a culturally diverse and global setting.

The expected base salary range for this role is determined based on the candidate’s country’s location. Please share your salary requirements in the applicant questionnaire when applying for the position.

Heifer International offers a variety of benefits for U.S. based employees working 30 or more hours per week.

• Health and wellness benefits including Flexible Spending Account and/or Health Saving Account

• Employee assistance program

• 403(b) retirement plan (match 1% employee to 2% employer up to a maximum of 4% match +3% employer discretionary contribution regardless of employee contribution)

• 22 vacation days in addition to 12 statutory and discretionary holidays, and 10 sick days per year

• Employer-paid life insurance and accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D)

• Professional development and annual merit increase opportunities

• Optional critical illness insurance, legal assistance plan and pet protection

• And more! Heifer International is an equal opportunity employer.