Vice President, Technical, Arlington, VA
Social Impact is a global development management consulting firm. We provide monitoring, evaluation, strategic planning, and capacity building services to advance development effectiveness. We work across all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. Since 1997 we have worked in over 100 countries for clients such as US government agencies, bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, foundations, and nonprofits.
Position Description
The Vice President – Technical (VPT) will provide guidance, leadership and oversight for the technical divisions, specifically Performance Evaluation; Impact Evaluation; and Strategy, Performance, and Capacity Building. The VPT will be responsible for the technical quality and financial performance of the portfolio, growth of the portfolio through new business and the strategic deployment of personnel. This will include broad oversight and management of teams implementing up to 50 contracts and 5-10 proposals at a time. The VPT serves as a thought leader and will represent Social Impact at external events and develops relationships with clients and other institutions to promote Social Impact’s mission. S/he will oversee teams comprised of more than 60 full time staff.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Leadership and Management
- Sets vision and strategy with the technical divisions, oversees completion of strategy action plans for the technical divisions and achievement of related balanced score card metrics.
- Leads technical initiatives to systematize quality across the organization and supports the roll-out of standard approaches.
- Represents the company to donors, partners and collaborators to advance the interests of the company.
- Serves as a thought leader and high-level representative for SI in the wider development community.
- Has ultimate accountability for financial results, quality of work, contract compliance and client satisfaction for work completed by the technical divisions.
- Works with technical divisions to strategically deploy staff.
- Supports Directors in their day to day supervision of their respective portfolios of projects, staff, and proposals. Steps in as needed when issues are escalated to provide swift resolution.
- Coordinates closely with the Executive Vice Presidents to ensure a smooth and efficient operating environment.
Business Development
- Leads the technical teams to implement a growth strategy that systematically increases the revenue of the company in cooperation with the business development division.
- Supports the technical divisions to make strategic decisions on bids and consortium configurations and acts as a decision maker on technical and financial actions when required.
- Provides oversight of the technical quality of proposals.
- Develops opportunities with new and existing clients suggesting new ideas and possible opportunities for collaboration.
- Works with technical divisions to ensure that the business development targets are met.
Personnel Management
- Establishes a professionally satisfying and engaging environment for the technical division staff.
- Directly supervises Directors (up to eight) within the technical divisions.
- Mentors and supports the professional development of senior staff, including identification or development of internal learning opportunities.
Direct Service Delivery
- Provides senior level technical support on selected projects, such as designing or managing evaluations, strategy consulting, training, or other tasks as required.
- Assists with trouble shooting and problem solving when the need arises including delivering services to the client when required.
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES
- Recognized senior level expert in the monitoring and evaluation sector with strong management and people skills.
- Strong writing and verbal communication skills.
- Established networks within the management consulting and monitoring and evaluation community.
- Strong business development skills including proven proposal writing skills and ability to be a technical lead for proposals.
- Technical expertise in one or more thematic sectors (such as health, democracy and governance, education, civil society strengthening, environment etc.) a strong plus.
- Experience in several of Social Impact’s core technical areas including performance and impact evaluations, monitoring tasks, conducting training, managing or conducting learning and strategy development sessions and proven technical capacity building experience.
- Experience with financial management and managing contracts.
- Conference presentation and/or publication record.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced business environment.
- Willingness to travel internationally up to 20% of the time for selected technical delivery, representation of the company and business development purposes.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
- Master’s degree in relevant field or Ph.D in the Social Sciences.
- 15+ years of experience in monitoring, evaluation and management consulting in international development programs.
- Demonstrated experience with USG agencies such as USAID, MCC or others and/or other bilateral or multilateral agencies.