International Rescue Committee is looking to employ a Senior Health Business Development Advisor

Job Description

The Health Technical Unit (HU) is organized in three sectors; health (including primary health, reproductive health, child health), environmental health, and nutrition. In 2020 the HU supports programming in 7 regions and more than 30 countries.

Established in January 2016, the IRC’s Global Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global unit spanning New York, Washington DC, London, Nairobi and Amman. It has responsibility for identifying, securing and managing all funding from statutory donors. The AMU is organized into five directorates: Donor Relations & Analytics; Grants Management & Frameworks; Compliance and Policy; Business Development; and Training.

Major Responsibilities:

In this role you will support the HU and country programs in business development and proposal preparation to win large funding opportunities, primarily from government and statutory donors, but also from private donors. Your responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Proposals: In-Depth Technical Leadership Support

• Identifying funding opportunities that are strategically aligned with country SAPs and organizational Business Development Strategy, including multi-country or multi-sector business opportunities
• Serving as the Technical Lead for public funding opportunities, including incorporating inputs from several specialized technical experts as well as country program staff
• Writing and editing technical sections of proposals when these form meaningful part of evaluation criteria/are non-standard, or a country program or AMU does not have the capacity
• Interpretation of donor solicitations and guidelines to ensure proposed activities are aligned with donor instructions
• Identifying technical resources for proposal development and clearly define roles and expectations of different TAs
• Support with technical inputs to teaming arrangements
• Coordinating all technical proposal reviews and ensure appropriate TAs are involved
• Consolidating technical inputs in case of multi-country/sector work
• Working with recruiters to identify key personnel and tailor CVs
• Reviewing of budgets; both for donor responsiveness and matching to theory of change and technical needs and narrative
• Serve as the HU focal point in management group for capture and proposal development for health opportunities and feed into strategic decision-making concerning partnership, recruitment, technical project design and other critical proposal development decisions
• Serve as the point of contact for AMU Program Development team for HU-led opportunities, lead on discussions for go/no go within the HU, and communicate decisions to AMU Program Development and Regional Vice Presidents as required

Proposals: Technical Quality Assurance

• Ensuring that technical narrative aligns with donor and specific call priorities and restrictions and uses language in line with donor strategies
• Review final proposal before submission
• Review of budgets both for donor responsiveness and alignment to technical narrative

Proposals: Partnerships

• Drafting and/or review of technical scope of work for teaming agreements
• Participate in and provide technical input into identification, vetting, and negotiations with consortia partners
• Coordinate and review technical inputs from partners on proposals
• Review partner budgets for technical appropriateness

Capacity development

• Contributing to organizational self-assessments and providing recommendations on organizational capacity building and systems development for enhanced competitiveness in the health sector
• Collaborate with AMU and HU grants managers to identify and position for upcoming opportunities, including developing and maintaining profiles of key partners
• Prepare and maintain capacity statements, donor and external facing materials to increase visibility and target key upcoming opportunities or priorities in partnership with Health Unit grants team
• Partner with AMU to develop capacity building for technical advisors on bidding and implementing large multi-year opportunities including commercial contracts including overview sheets on donor technical strategies and standard language
• Orientate and support current and new technical advisors on their role as technical leads for business development during capture, project design, and proposal drafting for large/multi-year opportunities

Coordination and Management

• Coordinate with HU Directors and Senior Technical Advisors to ensure adequate coverage for technical leadership and technical writing for large-scale/multi-year business development opportunities (both health unit-led and country-led opportunities)
• Identify external resources when needed and manage external technical consultants for capture and proposal development
• Participate in regular sub-sector meetings with STAs and sub-sector teams to discuss specific business development opportunities, internal strategies for fundraising, and share major updates related to business development (donor strategies, partners, etc.)
• Participate in relevant internal quarterly Regional Business Development pipeline calls and Technical Excellence Business Development pipeline calls, and advise on go/no go and resource allocation for prioritized business development opportunities for health
• Participate and represent the HU in internal working groups related to donor engagement and business development

General business development

• Work with AMU and other TUs to finalize go/no-go decision-making process for HU-led grants
• Represent IRC/participate in strategic donor/NGO events and provide feedback to appropriate staff
• Represent IRC at key strategic partnership meetings to discuss broader opportunities for collaboration and showcase IRC’s expertise as a partner of choice Support the implementation of IRC’s business development strategy and definition of the TUs role
• Maintain regular engagement with AMU (both regional, specialist, and strategic program teams) on BD strategy and pipeline opportunities
• Liaise with other IRC departments and teams on donor intelligence activities
• Lead development of standard guidelines for TU staff working on proposals in collaboration with AMU
• Support TA identification of and preparation for upcoming donor engagement opportunities

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Director of Country Support, Health Unit; and Director of Business Development, Specialist Team, AMU

Position directly supervises: Could potentially supervise other BD staff

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal: Regular communication with all Health Unit and Technical Excellence Grants, Operations, and Analytics Team staff. Close relationships with regional and country program teams as well as AMU. Interaction with other departments as needed such as communications, advocacy, finance, HR, and Global Supply Chain to ensure systems are supportive of technical and implementation competencies.

External: Serve as IRC program representative in interactions with donors, peer organizations, academic partners, consortia members, and foundations.

Job Requirements:

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Degree (minimum BA or BSc)
• You are able to facilitate project design processes, including applying theories of change and project logic to design, and develop work- and management plans accordingly;
• You have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the capacity to effectively handle a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment and negotiate with both internal and external stakeholders;
• You demonstrate ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in ‘remote’ and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals;
• You work productively and accurately while under deadline in a dynamic, demanding environment;
• Flexible work attitude: you enjoy working in a team environment and independently and ability to meet unexpected demands;
• You can synthesize technical information from a wide range of technical advisors into a coherent narrative
• You multi-task and prioritize effectively;
• You work well both autonomously and under remote management;
• You can travel at times with minimum notice and for prolonged periods of time;

Experience:

• 8+ years experience in developing and managing successful health, nutrition, or WASH project concepts and funding proposals for multi-million-dollar humanitarian / development work (for international NGOs) from governmental donors – including FCDO and US Government (USAID, OFDA, BPRM, etc.) commercial contracts and accountable grants/cooperative agreements
• 8+ years of working in development and/or humanitarian contexts on health/nutrition/WASH projects, preferably for an INGO or international organization (e.g. UN, major donor), preferably with some time spent in the field; line-management experience and longer term field posting in a relevant context preferred
• Experience building partnerships/consortia for development and humanitarian funding as well as negotiation of programmatic contractual arrangements with partners.
• Experience in strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.
• Experience in proposal budgeting is preferred.

Language:

• The ability to work (read and write) in English is required. French is an advantage.

Working Environment:  You may travel up to 50% travel in this position.