About IRRI

Job Purpose

The Portfolio Development Senior Specialist is a member of the Strategic Portfolio Management Office, which oversees and provides administrative support for all portfolios, programs and projects throughout their life cycle. The office acts as a bridge between donors and researchers in the field, while providing portfolio level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance, and manage risk.

This position will supervise a team of Portfolio development staff responsible for managing IRRI’s pipeline and coordinating submissions of high quality, competitive proposals that would enable IRRI to obtain resources and support required to achieve its strategic goals. This will include management of proposal quality assurance, in-depth support and bid leadership, and will be accountable for the outputs and outcomes of the Portfolio Development Team. This position is also expected to demonstrate initiative, make decisions and provide support and advice autonomously but in line with the parameters laid out by the Head of IRRI Portfolio Management.

The position will also regularly coordinate with and advise Senior Management and/or the Research Leadership Team on: new funding opportunities as well as strategies for engagement; the status and overall health of the IRRI Pipeline – by providing essential indicators and analyses of resource mobilization performance of the Institute’s relevant units; and, trends, observed weaknesses and strengths of current strategies to raise and secure resources/funding in relation to IRRI’s research strategy, goal and objectives.

This position will be based at the IRRI Headquarters, Los Baños, Philippines and may only be filled by permanent citizens of the Philippines.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Supervise a team of Portfolio Development staff responsible for managing IRRI’s pipeline and coordinating submissions of high quality, competitive proposals that would enable IRRI to obtain resources and support required to achieve its strategic goals
• Develop and devise strategies in pursuing new resources and business opportunities that would enable IRRI to achieve its strategic objectives in terms of proposal development
• Develop and recommend institutional standards, workflows and policies that will improve IRRI’s eligibility to tap and receive funding from a wider set of traditional and non-traditional donors including through mechanisms such as accreditation
• Conduct in-depth research, gather intelligence and analysis of donor trends, competitors, incoming projects and programs and funders ensuring that research and development leaders are provided with data that would enable them to make informed business decisions
• Develop and implement processes and systems to ensure all business development intelligence documentation is systematically organized and easily accessible to enable expedient and efficient proposal development
• Periodically update and advise IRRI’s Research Leadership on the status and performance of resource mobilization efforts of the Institute and their implications to IRRI’s strategic thrusts and goal and objectives
• Partner with Finance and proposal leaders in the development of proposal budgets ensuring strategic input in the presentation of budget templates and cost narratives to ensure comprehensive and competitive submissions that meet donor specifications and IRRI’s internal standards
• Build a strong relationship with Business Development team to ensure effective, and up-to-date gathering of intelligence information for business development
• Maintain strong engagement with Research to ensure clear and effective two-way exchange of information on new funding opportunities, donor engagement and resource mobilization that are aligned with research priorities and current capacities or expertise
• Serve as the focal person with regards to proposal submission processes and provide technical inputs on the actual proposal writing to make them effective and responsive
• Train Portfolio development staff to understand and be able to educate proposal teams on donor requirements, regulations and necessary documents required in developing quality, accurate and timely technical and non-technical proposals
• Continuously improve sourcing activities of Portfolio development staff for new funding opportunities from both traditional and non-traditional donors, staff networks and partners to provide recommendations to the research leaders
• Design and continuously improve mechanisms and processes to communicate more widely, efficiently and effectively information on new funding opportunities to IRRI stakeholders including researchers, scientists and leaders
• Design and manage a dashboard that would provide essential information on the pipeline and funding forecasts which may be utilized to understand where resource mobilization efforts should be focused
• Develop detailed forecasts on staffing requirements and projections based on the submission of high probability bids and ensure timely submission to all relevant stakeholders
• Manage and continuously update and improve IRRI’s donor pipeline, tracking systems and other tools ensuring that all information is accurate and available at all time
• Organize and analyze outcomes of submissions ensuring that all relevant data would support recommendations to further improve success rates in the future
• Ensure quality control standards and approval processes are implemented for all submissions or documents shared externally

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Communication, Social Science, Finance, or other related field; with relevant professional experience of 5-10 years in resource mobilization and/or project development with 5 years of managerial experience
• Master’s degree in Business Administration, Communication, Social Science, Finance, or other related field; with relevant professional experience of 5 years in resource mobilization or project development with 3 years of managerial experience

Skills Required

Mandatory

• Experience of working in, and with, international organizations
• Strong project management experience
• Ability to operate spreadsheets, databases and word processing programs at a highly proficient level.
• Ability to facilitate project design processes, including applying theories of change and project logic to design, and develop work and management plans accordingly

Preferred

• Advanced knowledge of financial accounting and budgeting, as well as financial planning and analysis.
• Ability to synthesize and summarize large volumes of information quickly and communicate the main points to stakeholders

IRRI offers a highly extensive employee benefits package inclusive of globally-covered medical insurance, retirement plan, life and accident insurance and other allowances.

Join our team and be part of our story!

Please note only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
This position will remain open until filled.