Head of Challenge Fund - CIFF Programmes

About MSI

MSI Reproductive Choices is one of the world’s leading providers of sexual and reproductive healthcare. We believe that everyone should have the right to choose. From contraception to safe abortion and life-saving post-abortion care, we are committed to delivering compassionate, affordable, high-quality services for all.

Today, our organisation has over 9,000 team members working in 37 countries across the world. Our success lies in the fact that MSI teams are locally led, entrepreneurial and results-driven, and are passionate about delivering high quality, client-centred care in their own communities. As a social business, we focus on sustainable delivery, efficiency, and funding models that are built to last, so that the women and girls we serve today will have a choice in the future too.

We know that access to reproductive choice is life changing. For some, it can mean the ability to complete an education or start a career. For others, it means being able to look after the family they already have. For everyone, it means the freedom to decide their own future, creating a fairer, more equal world.

About the Role

MSI seeks a Head of Programmes in their Global Programmes and Philanthropy (GPP) department to oversee a range of anticipated large grants funded by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (other foundation donors will potentially also be added to the portfolio).The Head of Challenge Fund – CIFF Programmes is responsible for the high-quality stewardship of newly approved and anticipated global and bilateral CIFF investments totalling over $70m to advance sexual and reproductive health services and increase modern contraceptive prevalence in six countries across West and Central Africa. 

The Head of will oversee a team of three staff and be responsible for supporting an upcoming $70 million portfolio to be implemented in six West and Central African countries. Reporting to the Associate Director, the Head of will oversee the internal start-up and delivery of the programmes and followed by the support to country programme and partners’ implementation, ensuring delivery of agreed deliverables (including payment by results KPIs). In addition, the Head will work across departments at MSI to ensure learnings across the organisation and the country programmes, reflecting the technical leadership of this exciting portfolio. Alongside the Associate Director, the Head will play a critical role in donor relationship management including complex cross-cutting reporting and co-funding management.  This is an exciting senior role that requires management, leadership and strong communication and facilitation skills analytical and problem-solving skills, excellent ability to work across teams to deliver results, and great attention to detail.

This role and project team is part of the broader team supporting CIFF investments. The team oversees the technical design and execution of strategic large scale foundations investments and is responsible for safeguarding and advancing MSI’s relationship with CIFF as a key contributor to achieving MSI’s mission. The team provides organizational leadership to ensure that MSI’s strategy, policy, systems, and capacities are responsive to donor priorities and investments.

About You

We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission and a focus on delivering measurable results. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully. You must be open-minded, curious, resilient, and solutions-oriented, and committed to promoting equality, and safeguarding the welfare of team members and clients alike.

To perform this role, it is essential that you have the following skills:

• Senior, strategic grant management experience including with complex, high value awards from large scale foundations and/ government donors.
• Experience negotiating changes to contracts and agreements with donors
• Experience leading, managing and mentoring a team; able to clearly articulate strategies that support a team to deliver results and respond to donor priorities
• Skilled in identifying, managing and escalating risk at project, donor and departmental level
• Experienced in building and managing strong, remote grant management relationships with internal and external stakeholders
• Experience managing compliance, performance and risk of sub-partners
• Skilled at communicating about complex and sometimes highly sensitive grant management issues with donors and other external stakeholders
• Excellent skills in communicating evidence, excellent facilitation skills with proven ability to synthesize complex technical component into easy-to-understand briefs or presentation.
• Experience and knowledge of global health or allied thematic area (desirable)
• Knowledge of the French language (written and oral) is preferable for this role.  

To perform this role, it is essential that you have the following experience:

• At least seven (7) years’ experience in international health programming, including experience in senior-level management positions supporting large, multi-country and complex projects.
• Experience leading, managing, and mentoring a team, including matrix management across organisational departments; evidence of supporting a team to deliver results and respond to donor priorities.
• Experience in identifying, managing, and escalating risk at project, donor, and corporate level, ideally gained through experience of managing a Payment by Results programme.
• Demonstrated experience in effectively engaging partners and managing multi-partner consortia.
• Understanding of the sexual and reproductive health and family planning fields (desirable)

Formal education/qualification

• Educated to degree-level essential, master’s degree desirable.

Personal Attributes:

We seek exceptional individuals who are aligned to MSI’s mission and entrepreneurial mindset. You must be a strong communicator, self-motivated and solutions-seeking, committed to driving social change in an environment that measures sustainable results and impact at an individual and global level. You must be able to work effectively with and across diverse teams and be comfortable with ambiguity. 

For this role, we’re looking for an individual who is:

• A strong supporter of the cause of sexual reproductive health and rights and a woman’s right to safe abortion (pro-choice)
• Quality-focused and results-orientated
• Willing to travel up to 4 weeks per year

Please click here to view the job framework

Location: London Support Office (hybrid working - 2 office days per week) or where any MSI country programme operates.

Full-time: 35 hours a week, Monday to Friday (for UK based team members).

Contract type: Permanent

Salary: £46,000 - £59,600 per annum for UK based candidates. Discretionary bonus + benefits. For all other locations, the salary will be banded within the national context.

Salary band: BG 10

Closing date: 14^th October 2024 (midnight BST). Interviews may take place before this date for exceptional candidates.

For internal employees applying from an MSI country programme, the role will be positioned within the existing salary structure of the country. Local terms and conditions of the country will apply.