The Organisation

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 85 years, and are now active in more than 80 countries.

The Opportunity

We are embarking on an ambitious and exciting change process, to make the organisation more relevant, bold, engaging, and effective in a dynamic and fast-changing global context in line with Plan International’s global strategy ¨All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (FY23-FY27)¨.

For the next three years, Plan International is embarking on a number of large-scale change initiatives. These include the deployment of an organisational-wide ERP suite of systems, and the strengthening of core business processes linked with project management, supply chain, finance and monitoring & evaluation (known internally as Your Organisations Data and Analytics Y.O.D.A.) Alongside these, we also have an ambitious financial sustainability programme that is being designed and piloted and will be rolled out across all regions in the coming years. Both of these will also impact our operating model, which will be designed and implemented beside these large-scale programmes.

These all aim to improve delivery effectiveness and reduce cost and risk in order to realise non-financial benefits and financial returns to the organisation.

This role will lead, manage and be accountable for Plan International’s strategies, programmes, operations and transformation in the ROA region. This currently includes 12 countries, and a regional hub, with a total annual budget for the region of €93,5m.

The 12 countries are organised by clusters to ensure balance in complexity and distribution of work to facilitate effective management oversight and support.

The Global Hub in the ROA Region oversees the realisation of Plan International’s country facing programming and influencing activities in the Region and holds business units to account for achieving maximum and timely impact in accordance with our purpose, values and behaviours, global policies, and as directed by the Members Assembly and International Board.

Dimensions of the Role

The role oversees a regional hub management team consisting of Directors of Sub-Regions who hold the line management for the Country Directors, Regional Finance & Operations, People & Culture, Safety & Security, Programme & Influencing, Humanitarian, Business Development and other related functions.

The Regional Director has overall accountability for regional performance and is the CEO representative for influencing, strategic engagement, fundraising and external representation within the region. The Regional Director sits on the Plan International Inc Leadership Team, the Plan International Global Team and periodically joins International Board and Committee meetings. The Regional Director is a member of the National Board of Plan Brazil.

The Regional Director will also lead and be accountable for the transformation and change needed in the region for the following large change programmes:

• strengthened programme delivery, through Y.O.D.A. and associated business strengthening.
• improved cost efficiency, through strengthened procurement, cost recovery and targeted operating model changes identified through FSP1 and Project Leap in GH, RH, COs and NOs and
• fit for the future operating model, reflecting the strategy roadmap, with Y.O.D.A. and FSP as key drivers.

Responsible for the successful development and delivery of Plan International’s strategy, programmes, and operations in the ROA region in line with Plan International’s global strategy and standards:

• Drive forward our ambition under the global strategy to achieve 100 per cent gender transformative programmes and courageous local, national, regional and global influencing for maximum impact.
• Continuously improve all elements of our operations in the region (grants, local fundraising and sponsorship management, security, supply chain and planning and performance) to ensure they demonstrate excellence in performance and deliver maximum value to all stakeholders including the girls we work with and for, National Organisations, donors, sponsors and partners. Ensure that Plan International’s dual mandate in development and humanitarian work is adequately reflected in all the region’s operations.
• Actively advance intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensure all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthen the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of PII through to Country Offices to further promote decision-making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promote the use of data driven evidence and digital solutions.
• Develop and lead a high-performing and value-based leadership team within the region, ensuring that people with the right competencies and values perform in the right roles. Managing and supporting the high performance of Directors of Sub Regions, Country Directors, and senior regional staff, strengthening attention to gender and diversity within staff teams, and ensuring optimal regional organisational structures. Sustaining the attention of the whole team on wider strategic resourcing issues and the strengthening of talent pipelines both for leadership roles and technical capabilities. Attracting, developing, progressing, and retaining a highly-skilled, motivated and diverse workforce. Role modelling and encouraging others to have honest and empowering conversations with individuals about their performance, potential, career direction and development. Driving and supporting our succession and talent processes at the global, regional and country levels and ensuring that staff across all levels feel empowered and supported to deliver at their best, feel pride in their work and develop their potential.
• Ensure effective acquisition and utilization of resources, overseeing effective fundraising, allocation, and utilisation of resources according to strategic plans, budgets, and financial standards, to ensure that resources are used to add the most value and to support cost-effective operations. Monitoring, guiding, and intervening as needed in the use of financial resources.
• Lead overall strategic planning and alignment, providing direction and leadership for the region, and contributing to the leadership of the global organisation.
• Lead the design and implementation of context-specific operating models to ensure Plan remains relevant and delivers increased performance and impact in a rapidly evolving region.
• Strengthen Governance in country offices to achieve the broad-based membership ambitions of the organisation in line with the Locally Led, Globally Connected strategic imperative.
• Agility, transparency, and legitimacy. Actively advancing intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensuring all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthening the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of Plan International Inc. through to Country Offices to further promote decision-making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Empowering Directors of Sub-region to effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promoting the use of data-driven evidence and digital solutions
• Identify and manage risk, ensuring that systems and processes are in place to identify, understand, and mitigate risks, as well as monitor and intervene as appropriate.
• Ensure compliance with Plan International standards and that systems and processes are in place to comply with plans, policies and legal requirements. Monitoring compliance of the same and intervening as appropriate.
• Build relationships and communicating internally and externally to strengthen a culture of collaboration, partnership, and learning within the region. Building and maintaining relationships with relevant partner organizations to support strategies and programmes, working with Directors of Sub-Regions and Country Directors to lead internal communications with staff within the region, as well as ensuring that information about the region is available to other parts of the organisation.
• Lead on Representation and Advocacy in the region and in global platforms, working closely with the Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer.

Key Accountabilities

While leading all dimensions of the role, the Regional Director’s first and foremost task is to build and manage a strong performing team of Country Directors and senior staff in the region.

Typical key end results to deliver together with the team in the accountability areas are:

• People: A high-performing and value-based team, engaged and motivated, able to deliver on the ambitions set, promoting gender equality and diversity, and demonstrating a progressive raising of the bar in their performance.
• Strategy: Ambitious and targeted Country Strategies, new or updated, in line with Plan’s global strategy and ambition, that guide Plan International’s programmes towards increased impact, strengthened legitimacy, sustainability and continued relevance within each country context.
• Change: The world and the South, Central América and Caribbean region are changing rapidly and the role of international NGOs, such as Plan, needs to evolve to ensure we remain relevant within each context and as a global organization. The regional director and his/her team will lead change within the region and contribute to the development of changes at the global level. A key pillar in this effort is the achieving broad based membership to support the locally led, globally connected objectives.
• Quality: Ensuring our programmes become and remain state of the art and are in line with the latest global standards, demonstrating outcomes and leading to thought leadership and policy influence based on evidence through evaluations and research.
• Risk: Ensure that all countries comply with internal and external standards in security, disaster preparedness, sponsorship and grants management, finance and administration, demonstrated in progressively positive audit performance in all auditable functions and compliance with external reporting requirements.
• Resource Mobilisation: Ensure a healthy funding base for Plan International’s programmes in the region through effective acquisition, allocation, and utilization of resources.
• Compliance: Ensure our operations are in compliance with Plan International’s global management and programme standards and with external regulatory and donor requirements.
• Networking: Represent Plan International and strengthen collaboration and partnerships at the right levels and ensure the organisation is present in relevant networks and forums.
• Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

Key Relationships

Technical Expertise, Skills and Knowledge

Essential

• Significant experience in progressive senior international management roles.
• Demonstrable knowledge as a result of study, training or practical experience on the key debates in development, particularly around child rights and gender equality.
• Practical knowledge of the requirements of donor compliance and financial management.
• Practical knowledge of programming for development and emergency response.
• Working experience in South/Central America and the Caribbean, with experience in other regions desirable.
• Business level fluency in English and Spanish (desirable French and Portuguese).

Leadership Skills and Behaviours

• Striving for high performance: Strongly drives performance forward in area of the business for which they are responsible; involves others in setting and achieving goals; creates a strong sense of purpose within own part of the business and with stakeholders.
• Strategic thinking and innovation: Sets strong strategy in own part of organisation; makes an effective contribution to wider strategy; sees contribution of own part of the organisation in wider Plan and external context; balances future vision with practical delivery; critically evaluates work effectiveness and searches for better ways of working.
• Decision making and risk management: Sound judgement and decision-making in complex situations; alerts others to risks inside and outside the organisation; willing to make judgements about managing risks and ready to take responsibility for such judgements.
• Influencing and Communications: Effective communicator using clear messages drawn from Plan’s work; cross-culturally adept; ready to work to influence leaders in governments, international bodies, partners, and communities; can reach out and influence large groups of people; effective communicator with children and young people.
• Building effective teams and partnerships: Collegiate – acting as a team player, even if this results in adjustment of own priorities; develops mutually trusting relationships with complex partnerships to deliver excellent business outcomes.
• Developing people: Supports learning and a sense of mutual purpose in diverse teams; sets a strong learning culture in their part of the organisation; effective coach, equally at home with high performers and those in difficulty; uses opportunities across Plan to develop others.
• Self-awareness and resilience: Remains calm and positive under pressure and in difficult situations; plans own learning and development; aware of impact on others and adjusts own behavior accordingly; has a positive impact on those around them; leads major change while keeping staff and partners on board.

Values Based Leadership behaviours – leading the organisation

• I contribute effectively to decision-making globally and across functions and work constructively with the wider Plan International federation, our governance structures, partners, and stakeholders.
• I work closely with strategic leaders in Plan International Inc. to help them reflect, listen to them, support them as individuals, develop their potential and aid their co-operation with each other and with Plan International more broadly.
• I am clear-sighted about both personal and organisational challenges and shortcomings, looking globally and across sectors to gain insight and find innovative approaches we might use.
• I take accountability for Plan International Inc. and our purpose, as a member of the senior leadership team. I look beyond Plan International’s interests at the root causes of inequality and how we can achieve the best progress and long term impact globally.
• I work with my peers to shape an ambitious and coherent strategy, aligned with our purpose and to ensure we can deploy the required resources, people, organisation, technology, culture, and partners.
• I celebrate our successes, clearly communicating what we need to do to our staff at every level and across locations. I consciously shape our culture through my own attitudes and behaviour, how I learn and my personal attention to safeguarding and gender equality.
• I represent Plan International Inc. at national, regional, and global levels with all key groups including politicians and the media, building relationships to increase our influence, make new opportunities and manage risks.

These behaviours are specifically aligned to feminist leadership principles.

Business Management Competencies

• Understanding Plan International Inc Context: Understanding the organisation, how it operates, its priorities and changing context.
• Deliver Results: Planning and managing resources, projects and partnerships for the effective and efficient delivery of results.
• Financial Management: Managing funds effectively through budgeting, forecasting, reporting, monitoring and cost-effective procurement.
• Analysis, information and digital working: Obtaining and analysing information as the basis for decisions; monitoring and evaluation; using and promoting digital solutions.
• Risk Management: Managing and mitigating business, legal, safety, security, reputational and project risks in line with Plan International’s standards.
• Managing Change: Integrating conscious change management and continuous improvement into work planning, processes and deliver.
• Managing People and Relationships: Working with others, managing people and promoting equity, diversity and inclusion.

Values in Practice

We are open and accountable

We create a climate of trust inside and outside the organization by being open, honest and transparent. We hold ourselves and others to account for the decisions we make and for our impact on others, while doing what we say we will do.

We strive for lasting impact

We strive to achieve significant and lasting impact on the lives of children and young people, and to secure equality for girls. We challenge ourselves to be bold, courageous, responsive, focused and innovative.

We work well together

We succeed by working effectively with others, inside and outside the organization, including our sponsors and donors. We actively support our colleagues, helping them to achieve their goals. We come together to create and implement solutions in our teams, across Plan International, with children, girls, young people, communities and our partners.

We are inclusive and empowering

We respect all people, appreciate differences and challenge inequality in our programmes and our workplace. We support children, girls and young people to increase their confidence and to change their own lives. We empower our staff to give their best and develop their potential.

SRI Executive is exclusively retained by Plan International to undertake this assignment. If you wish to be considered for this position, please forward a copy of your CV, along with any relevant documentation, to Ms Pallavi Kanikaram at [email protected] on or before 27 Nov 2023. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence as we pride ourselves on our professional service. We will revert to you as soon as possible when we have reviewed your application

Equality, diversity and inclusion is at the very heart of everything that Plan International stands for.

We want Plan International to reflect the diversity of the communities we work with, offering equal opportunities to everyone regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

Plan International is based on a culture of inclusivity and we strive to create a workplace environment that ensures every team, in every office, in every country, is rich in diverse people, thoughts, and ideas.

We foster an organisational culture that embraces our commitment to racial justice, gender equality, girls’ rights and inclusion.

Plan International believes that in a world where children face so many threats of harm, it is our duty to ensure that we, as an organisation, do everything we can to keep children safe. This means that we have particular responsibilities to children that we come into contact with and we must not contribute in any way to harming or placing children at risk.

A range of pre-employment checks will be undertaken in conformity with Plan International’s Safeguarding Children and Young People policy. Plan International also participates in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this scheme we will request information from applicants previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Please note that Plan International will never send unsolicited emails requesting payment from candidates.