EMpower
About EMpower:
EMpower, a global philanthropic organization, is dedicated to improving the lives and horizons of marginalized young people ages 10-24 in 15 emerging market countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Turkey. Through grants and other support (learning exchanges, technical assistance, thought partnering etc.), EMpower partners with ~125 local organizations working to strengthen education and livelihoods of young people, and to build their resilience, self-confidence, and well-being. Empower has offices in Hong Kong, Delhi, Singapore, London, and New York, as well as program staff in Ghana, Istanbul, Mexico, Argentina, and South Africa. EMpower is at an exciting time in our evolution and organizational strengthening. In the past few years, we have grown in staff size and global footprint, with a deliberate focus on fostering a workplace that ensures diverse perspectives, opportunities for contribution, and belonging.
Our Vision: We are building a world where all young people at the margins, especially girls, have the skills, opportunities, and power to live their full potential.
Our Mission: We partner with local organisations in emerging market countries, and other change-makers, to enable marginalised young people to transform their lives and communities.
Our Values:
- We experience and build a trusting connection with each other.
- Our commitment is sustained by our integrity.
- Together we drive flexible innovation.
Position Summary
The Vice President, Programs will lead EMpower’s programmatic work, including grant making and capacity building, contributing their significant expertise and strategic skills to shape EMpower’s future growth. They will be a dynamic, experienced leader, with deep programmatic knowledge and a systems thinking orientation. They will have significant management experience, enabling them to effectively lead and manage a strong and diverse team of program professionals across multiple global locations. They will be a key member of EMpower’s Senior Leadership Team, contributing to decisions around strategy, programmatic priorities, policies, fundraising, budget management, culture and values, and stakeholder relations. They will report directly to the CEO, based in NY, and oversee a team of 19 staff, including six direct reports. They should be based, and legally eligible to work, in one of the countries in which EMpower works.
Principal Responsibilities
Program Strategy and Planning
- Shape and own overall program strategy, including ownership of multi-year and annual plans and ensuring their alignment with organisational goals.
- Provide strong, effective internal leadership on program execution and evaluation.
- Identify and communicate key philanthropic trends re philanthropy and EMpower’s mission for utmost relevance of our work and uptake of best practices.
- Input and approve country strategies and other strategy documents.
- Proactively identify potential risks to program success and develop strategies, including evolved policies or practices as needed, to mitigate them.
Strategic Leadership and Communications
- As a key member of the SLT (Senior Leadership Team), shape organizational priorities, model EMpower’s values, problem-solve collaboratively, and proactively engage with EMpower’s stakeholders.
- Spearhead cross-functional collaboration (Development, Influence and Impact, Finance, People and Operations) to facilitate teamwork and optimise organisational effectiveness.
- Direct and lead program focused Board meetings (Strategy Trends and Results annual meeting, Grants Meetings, Global Program Committee)
Team Management
- Directly manage, coach, and leverage the capacities of ~5 regional Program leaders.
- Overall accountability and management of global Program Team.
Budgeting and Resource Mobilization
Produce and manage the global program budget to optmise impact, and ensure accountability and excellent stewardship of resources,
- Actively partner with the Development team in fundraising, including institutional funder strategies, proposal writing, reporting, presentations, engagement with major donors and prospects, and advancing our institutional fundraising aims.
- Work with Program and Finance teams to ensure financial reporting and financial data serves the effective management and implementation of grants and other program activities.
Grantmaking
- Oversight of grantmaking; ensuring adherence to organisational priorities, best practices and grant making parameters.
- Partner with regional programme leads in grants strategy and development.
- Review and approve grants proposed by Program Staff for funding.
Partnership and Representation
- Build strategic partnerships, coalitions, and collaboration with peers and funders; represent EMpower in working groups, peer collaboratives and initiatives.
- Contribute thought leadership based on our partners and organizational insights, to influence the sector to drive more smart resources to programs by and for young people.
- Build strategic partnerships, coalitions, and collaboration with peers and funders; represent EMpower in working groups, peer collaboratives and initiatives.
Learning and Evaluation
- Implement the necessary systems, processes, and tools to assess the effectiveness of programs, and foster learning, ensuring best practices and lessons learned are integrated to achieve desired program outcomes.
- Facilitate cross-learning, teamwork, and reflection by the Program Team to maximize program effectiveness, and, to refine programmatic learnings that can be shared with the wider ecosystem, in partnership with the Impact and Influence team.
- Support the production of key metrics to provide board and program committee members with the information required to understand program performance, portfolio composition and funding trends at organisational level.
Position requirements
We are looking for a dynamic systems thinker, strong communicator and excellent connector, with the ability to demonstrate superior people and management skills.
- 15+ years' work experience in international youth development or gender-focused philanthropy, with at least 8 of these in a senior management role.
- Demonstrated strategic analysis, program and systems thinking skills
- Experience in program planning and developing and managing budgets
- Experience in managing global staff teams - demonstrated ability to recruit, lead, coach and mentor, with a focus on talent management.
- Strong internal and external communication and people skills – equally comfortable and adept speaking with all stakeholders (young people, grantee partners, donors, board members)
- Excellent critical thinking skills and judgment - able to balance organizational perspectives and serve as a constructive sounding board to CEO, peers, team, and other colleagues
- Commitment to fostering collaboration and co-learning with geographically dispersed staff
- Extensive programmatic experience in Africa, Asia, and/or Latin America, and one or more areas related to EMpower’s mission: youth development, meaningful youth engagement, education, livelihoods, health and well-being, gender equity.
- Strong cultural competence with respect to philanthropy – understanding of power dynamics and sensitivity to the best use of grantees’ time and resources
- Experience working and partnering with foundations, other funders, and international organizations
- Pragmatic problem-solver; effective and comfortable making decisions, and dealing effectively with ambiguity and change management
- Willingness to uphold and actively demonstrate EMpower’s core values, fostering a culture of excellence, teamwork, integrity, and innovation, and adhering to high ethical standards of accountability and transparency.
- Ability to travel internationally up to 12 weeks each year, and to work flexible hours at critical times given global time zone spread
- Fluency in English; and ideally a degree of proficiency in one or more languages of any of our implementing countries.
- There is flexibility in respect of the location of the position; however, applicants must have the legal right to work in their desired location of residence.
Compensation and Benefits
EMpower offers competitive wages, benefits, and growth opportunities consistent with industry standards. Flexible benefits packages include health insurance and other insurance; pension plan with employer contribution/match; time off; and work/life benefits. Depending on the location of the candidate, the salary range for this position will be between 100k-150k USD. If the candidate is based in a country where we do not have an entity, they will be employed via our EoR provider.
How to apply :
Note : Flexibility regarding location of position as long as candidate is based in one of these countries in which EMpower works. (S.Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, UK, US,HongKong, Turkey). If the candidate is based in a country where we have an office (India, HongKong, US, UK and Singapore), they will be required to come into office once a week.