About the role

Reporting in to the Head of Multi-Country Cluster (MCC), the Operations Lead for the Middle East region is a member of the senior leadership team and provides strategic and representational leadership for the cluster on operational excellence, making things happen for programme colleagues and partners across multiple countries and connecting with other departments to facilitate programme and advocacy impact, aligning with organisational values and goals.

The post-holder will manage internal operations for effective programme delivery across the MCC, including ensuring that partners
(active, inactive, new) are supported with capacity assessments (POCRA), in line with Charter for Change commitments, and putting in place systems and procedures to ensure swift, compliant funding flows to partners in high-risk environments in line with Christian Aid’s risk appetite to maximise impact.

The role will ensure compliance to Christian Aid grant making policies though close cooperation with finance and partnership leads.

Some of the main areas of responsibility for the Operations Lead will include:

Drive our systems to enable better high-performance and delivery of strategy at MCC, aligning with organisational values and goals.
Foster a mindset of connection and collaboration across the priority countries that enable portfolio leads to achieve success.
Foster a team mindset to ensure that the Business Insight and Process Improvement Team work alongside the Tech Team to support improvements in ways of working and build towards operational excellence through systems developments and improvements to maximise impact.
Manage our risk appetite by planning well, having agile budgets, invest in innovation while maintaining our integrity as a UK registered charity and a going concern.
Drive the team to ensure adaptability and agility of our programmes, keeping our organisation lean, finding cost-effective solutions and streamline decision making to enable flexible and responsive to evolving needs and contexts within the MCC.
Oversee the digital platforms to ensure they secure and provide new ways to engage communities and develop new innovative technological use (including where AI is applied), to listen to and work with CSOs and other partners, as well as provide exciting and decolonial ways to gather data about impact across the MCC.
Manage internal operations for effective programme delivery and ensure cost efficiency by considering whether repetitive and/or non-core activities are best provided by a third party via outsourcing to finding cost-effective and streamlined solutions.
About you

Who we are looking for

Essential:

Fluent in both Arabic and English (written and spoken)
Degree ideally in Management Science or Organisational Development or substantial equivalent professional experience.
Substantial experience in business insight and process improvement on operational excellence (e.g. planning).
Understanding of development issues and best practice.
Highly developed ability in risk assessment in order to assess the organisation’s risk appetite and set risk.
Demonstrated ability to get things done in complex settings.
Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills, both verbal and written, and ability to build relationships with senior stakeholders and negotiate.
Detailed understanding and experience of programmes varying in size, complexity, thematic priority and strategic approach.
Highly developed analytical, creative and strategic thinking ability.
Desirable:

Significant leadership and management experience in organisational effectiveness, strategic thinking, planning, budgeting and monitoring.
Developed ability to provide thought leadership and innovative solutions.
Highly developed ability to represent in public and in the media.

Please send your resume/CV