International Director Region Latin America & The Caribbean

SOS Children’s Villages International is the umbrella organisation for the global federation of SOS Children’s Villages. As a non-governmental social development organisation, we support children without parental care and families in difficult living conditions through services in care, education, health and emergency relief, and we advocate for the rights of children and young people, in alliance with a great diversity of partners. We work in 136 countries and territories, reaching over one million children, young people, families and caregivers each year.

SOS Children’s Villages strives to create and ensure a safe environment for everyone who engages with us internally or externally. An environment that does not expose children, young people and adults to harm, sexual exploitation and abuse. As a Child-focused organisation, people are the focus of organisational safeguarding aspirations. Our care approach is distinct in that it provides 24-hour direct primary care to tens of thousands of children and young people through a system of primary caregivers directly employed by SOS CV.

To support this important responsibility we are looking for an International Director Region – Latin America and The Caribbean.

You should have extensive experience working in Latin America, with regional or multi-county responsibility and be fluent in Spanish and English. The role will be preferably located in SOS Children’s Villages International office locations in Bolivia (La Paz) or Costa Rica (San José) but we are open to receiving candidates living in any of the countries where SOS is present in the LAAM region. We would support the provision of a work permit and moving expenses as required. The position is offered for a five (5) year term, with possibility for a further five (5) year extension.

About the role

The role is accountable for the leadership and management of the region in line with SOS CV’s vision, mission, values and policies. Reporting to the Chief Programme Officer, the IDR is supported by and leads a Regional Management Team (RMT) which includes Regional Directors of Functions and SOS Children’s Villages International Representatives (CVI Reps), who work closely with the assigned Member Associations (MAs). The IDR and team are in charge to support and monitor the MAs in their development endeavours.

Role purpose

• Enable and drive the rollout and adaptation of the federation’s Strategy in the region,
• Maintain synergetic and collaborative working relationships with all Member Associations in the region LAAM, the respective stakeholders (e.g. major donors and promoting/supporting associations (PSA) and other relevant agencies)
• Strengthen and maintain the affiliation, governance, and accountable performance of the MAs to the mission of SOS CV towards children in the region,
• Provide strong and ethical leadership and example to the region through the regional management team in accordance with SOS CV principles and values, and
• Active collaboration as a member of the General Secretariat Leadership Team by bringing the regional perspective and taking a share of the global leadership responsibility.
• Agree with the CPO on a strategy and an action plan for the region he/she is in charge of.
• Articulate SOS CV with relevant regional stakeholders, positioning the work of the organisation and generating awareness towards our target group.

Duties and Responsibilities

Governance

• Strengthen and maintain affiliation of MAs to the federation by communicating developments across the federation and being a strong and reliable partner.
• Set the direction and strategy for the region by ensuring the right mix of global and local needs.
• Guide the MAs in the region in their development to become holistically sustainable in their operations, and strong members of the federation; and where possible and reasonable, encourage and support them to increase financial self-sufficiency.
• Prioritise support to promote adequate Governance structures in Member Associations, which are functional and follow the SOS CV shared values and principles. This includes the implementation of the governance improvement plan developed for the MAs in the region.
• Set the direction for the Children’s Villages International (CVI) Reps in building strong MAs with good governance through the board and national management team development.
• Facilitate evidence-based improvements in the capacity of Member Associations to provide quality and timely delivery of programmes, projects and services.
• Develop capacities in the governance bodies of the MA to improve compliance with relevant organisation-wide requirements, inform and where necessary escalate matters of non-compliance to the CPO and/or other federation structures.

International Office Region (IOR) in LAAM

• Support the CVI Representatives and the Regional Directors of Function in their roles, supervise their overall performance and determine strategies to ensure that the role of the IOR is fulfilled adequately.
• Make sure that the right people are in the right positions, and promote a culture of learning and development for staff.
• Make sure that employees, SOS CV entities, and external partners are treated professionally, respectfully and according to the principles and values of the organisation (approx. 55 employees)
• Take primary responsibility within the IOR to ensure implementation and adherence to core policy standards in line with organisational values and ethics as guided by internal quality standards including, but not limited to, the Code of Conduct, Child Safeguarding, PSHEA, and Integrity and Compliance.
• Ensure diversity and inclusion within the IOR team; ensure gender equity with awareness of power imbalances.
• Manage and develop the IOR- LAAM in accordance with agreed plans and objectives, ensure the performance and delivery of objectives according to agreed plans:
  • Implementation of applicable standards for HROD, including recruitment processes, and performance management in alignment with target setting and development plans.
  • Efficient and effective setup of the IOR, meaningful task setting at the right level, flawless information flow and avoiding double work or duplication.
  • Provide transparency, and key KPIs on a timely basis.
  • Crisis management
• Take strategic and operational finance leadership in cooperation with the Regional Director of Finance.
• Determine working strategies for the team, evaluate the best set-up of the IOR LAAM and propose changes to the CPO.

Broader Federation and global organisation

• Articulate the work of the region and the Member associations with the priorities and strategies of the financing PSAs, facilitate interaction and promote an adequate working strategy for all parts.
• Ensure that the IOR interacts and shares knowledge with the internal stakeholders and Competence Centres by contributing practices and learnings to promote the development of the MAs in the region as well as contributing to the development of global knowledge sharing, standards, policies, and tools.
• Be a strong and supportive member of the global team of IDRs, thereby strengthening the global team as well as cross-regional work.
• Take up roles in development projects generally led by international working groups and/or Competence Centres.
• Monitor the rollout of standards and policies.
• Support crisis interventions.
• Jointly with MA, analyse the relevancy and efficiency of the programmes and projects, and determine working strategies and improvement plans to guarantee that all parties involved are meeting quality and organizational standards.
• Prioritise relationship building with MAs in the region and strong affiliation with the federation, its vision, mission and strategy.

Planning and Controlling / Steering

• Lead budgeting process in the region according to global guidelines.
• Budget of the IOR
• Prioritise and articulate the international function targets into the regional strategy and budget.

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Monitor the Regional strategy, make sound decisions to guarantee meeting the defined targets, and implement improvement plans when needed.
• Guarantee that the IOR provides efficient and timely reports to counterparts, and is an example of results-based management.
• Review the progress made in the region in the course of the annual review cycle.
• Monitor the rollout of standards and policies according to the plan.

Create and maintain an enabling environment for Safeguarding in the region

• Drive implementation of federation standards for Safeguarding children, adults, staff and assets across MA in the region and within the IOR itself;
• Act with integrity and support incident management, including of historic cases, in the region and within the IOR to ensure that the federation continues to live up to its commitments to maintain the highest standards to fight corruption and do no harm
• Support MAs to enact good governance and themselves live up to our standards expected by all in the federation
• Promote and role model a Leadership style that is responsible for ensuring a safe, supportive environment for everyone who engages with us

Experience and Requirements

Essential

• Commitment to SOS Children’s Villages’ vision, mission, and values.
• Progressive general management experience in an international organisation, including international children’s rights, human rights organisations, development or humanitarian NGOs or networks, or relevant corporate experience.
• Proven ability to manage and work with a dynamic and distributed team.
• Extensive experience working in Latin America, with regional or multi-country responsibility.
• Demonstrated ability to work across cultures and effective in building and leading diverse teams.
• Proven experience in managing change and a practical understanding of organisational culture.
• Knowledge of international trends, policies and programmes regarding children’s rights, social protection and international development issues.
• Experience in mobilising, maintaining, and steering stakeholder engagement in collaborative action, joint positioning, communication, and planning.
• Experience in crisis and reputation management.
• Experience in forging and driving partnerships.
• Good understanding of international development and humanitarian financing.
• Strong leadership, strategic management and communication skills.
• Positive outlook, persistence, democratic management style, and ability to work under pressure.
• Is open to change and able to generate followership among co-workers to manage the change processes effectively.
• Inclusiveness: being mindful of diverse perspectives and experiences, respecting and valuing every person equally.
• Kindness: showing respect and care for myself and others in all actions.
• Continuous learning: making an effort to learn, understand and grow as a person, and admitting mistakes.
• Initiative: speaking up when seeing things that are not right, not hesitating to act and adapting to change when necessary
• Results orientation: prioritizing safeguarding, looking for solutions and focusing on desired results.
• Role Model: acting as a role model for the organization and living its values inspiring and learning from others
• Strategic thinking: living the values and mission, setting realistic goals and translate them into actionable plans.
• Collaboration: removing barriers to participation, share decision making and build partnerships
• Empowerment: promoting inclusion and equitable sharing of power

Desirable

• Direct work experience with children and young people without adequate parental care, or from other vulnerable backgrounds and hard-to-reach communities is a strong asset.
• Experience in organisational capacity building, and managing organisational development and change processes.
• Experience in a global federated organisation.
• Prepared/willing to travel regularly

Qualifications

• Advanced (postgraduate) university degree in any relevant field in combination with minimum 10-15 years of qualifying experience in a relevant field.

How To Apply

Closing date: 30^th June 2023

To apply please click ‘apply for job’

As part of the application process kindly submit your CV and a cover letter, preferably in MS Word. All application documents (cover letter and CV) should be submitted in English.

Need help submitting your application? Please email us at [email protected]

Should you require access to information in a different format to facilitate your application please contact us via [email protected]

Please name your submitted files with the following reference: SOS_IDRLAAM

What We Stand For 

SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a caring and protective environment, which promotes its core values, and prevents and addresses child abuse and exploitation. We strongly condemn all forms of child abuse and exploitation, be it within or outside of our organization, and always respond to any case of proven, alleged or attempted abuse within our sphere of influence according to its nature. Efforts ensure that mechanisms are in place to raise awareness, aid prevention, encourage reporting and ease response. They range from human resource development actions such as training and counselling to measures such as suspension, dismissal, and legal action.

SOS Children’s Villages is committed to creating and maintaining a safe working environment for our staff, the children and young people and the communities that we work for. The organization prohibits harassment, exploitation and abuses by or of any employee, supervisor, manager, child, young people, community, contractor, applicant, or other individual with whom SOS Children’s Villages employees come into contact by virtue of their work. All employees are expected to carry out their duties in accordance with our prevention and protection against Sexual Harassment, Exploitation and Abuse policy.

In addition, SOS Children’s Villages apply a zero-tolerance concerning any fraud situation. The organization does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process.

Successful candidates will have to submit a criminal record certificate, current within the last three years. In accordance with the organisation’s child protection policy, these positions will be subject to criminal record checks.

Red Sea takes our responsibility towards protecting your personal data very seriously. The data you provide is processed in line with relevant data protection legislation. For the purposes of this recruitment, and as defined under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Red Sea is defined as the Data Controller.

Red Sea is committed to meeting the standards set out in our Equality and Diversity statement, acting in line with the UK Equalities Act 2010 and building an accurate picture of the make-up of the workforce in encouraging equality and diversity.