TITLE: Regional Business Development Manager (East and Southern Africa)

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Resource Mobilisation

LOCATION: Based either in a country or regional office[1]

GRADE: 2

CONTRACT LENGTH: 2 years fixed term

CHILD SAFEGUARDING:
Level 2: either the post holder will have access to personal data about children and/or young people as part of their work; or the post holder will be working in a ‘regulated’ position (accountant, barrister, solicitor, legal executive); therefore a police check will be required (at ‘standard’ level in the UK or equivalent in other countries).

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Regional Business Development Manager (RBDM) for SCI led-funding will primarily lead on WFP and UNHCR business development opportunities in the region, while also providing support as required to all SCI-led /directly received related business development support across countries in their region (and others as may be required). SCI-led funding is a new portfolio within the Save the Children movement requiring a new way of working, new donors and partners, and collaboration across the Country, Region, and Centre offices. This role will provide guidance, surge support, and capacity building on business development, opportunity capture planning, proposal development and all related relationships with donors and partners.

As a result, they will act as the main focal point for all Country Offices in their region when it comes to any WFP, UNHCR, and SCI-led business development needs and capacity gaps, and are responsible for reporting on related pipeline and portfolio analyses. In so doing, they will actively support members and countries to identify, qualify and track all WFP, UNHCR, and SCI-led funding and partnership opportunities in a systematic manner in pursuit of both country and regional funding strategies.

Working extensively with others in the region, the RDBM will also support the wider team in tracking and analysing country and regional pipeline and portfolios, on capture planning for key must win new opportunities in the region, and for ensuring well-coordinated and competitive proposal management processes are used in all contexts. The RBDM will also centrally support and ensure that continuous learning is systemic across the region’s business development community. Where appropriate, the RBDM will also actively seek to grow the region’s income for the Movement, will lead on key multi-country funding opportunities and regional consortium partnerships as required, and will support the wider Regional Resource Mobilisation team/community in providing strategic leadership to member and countries on specific resource mobilisation needs, capacity and best practices for their region.

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Senior Regional Business Development Manager

Dotted Line: Resource Mobilisation team at SCI Centre

Key working relationships: Engages internally with regional resource mobilization team, PDQ and TEs, Finance, Awards, and Human Resources to coordinate deliverables and responsibilities across the regional office. Acts as the day-to-day focal point on all SCI-led business development related initiatives with COs across the region (and beyond as required).

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

Capture Planning and Opportunity Preparation – 25%

• Ensure that country, region and member offices collaborate effectively to gather and assess donor, partner and internal information relevant to upcoming opportunities related specifically to the WFP and HCR, as much as the wider SCI-Led portfolio.
• Work with Country offices to develop criteria and threshold for identifying and responding to critical and high risk WFP/UNHCR and other SCI directly received awards in the region.
• Facilitate regional GO/NO GO, PART and AMET approvals as well as Fundraising Protocol waivers for identified critical and high risk funding opportunities and awards.
• Strengthen country and regional office capabilities on long-term capture planning for related funding opportunities throughout the region.
• Support regional and country teams to define the staffing needs and identify team members to successfully bid for all related upcoming funding opportunities.
• Proactively address challenges that may hinder related proposal development process.
• Support country teams with access to and management of the UN Partner Portal for related opportunity and proposal submissions.
• For WFP opportunities specifically, ensure that country teams are working closely with SCUS’ Commodities Operations Unit, as soon as an opportunity is identified

Proposal Management – 25%

• Support country to ensure all necessary groundwork is completed in a timely and effective manner for all related WFP, HCR and SCI-led proposal development
• Supporting country teams in assembling related proposal teams, and provide effective proposal management at regional level as may be necessary
• Provide backstopping and direct surge support to COs to develop and submit proposals especially during the heavy WFP/UNHCR proposal development and submission season.
• Undertake timely quality assurance of all critical and/or high risk WFP, HCR and SCI-Led proposals to ensure high quality competitive proposals that successfully secure institutional donor funds at scale.
• Build the capacities of COs on WFP/UNHCR proposal development before, during and after the proposal season – collating key challenges, best practices, learnings and, share them across regions to improve future proposal win rate.
• Support country offices with donor negotiations on proposal timelines, budgets or agreements as may be required from time to time.

Portfolio Management – 10%

• Understand and effectively report on the region’s SCI-led pipeline and priority funding gaps, in particular the UNHCR and WFP portfolios, as agreed with CDs and regional leadership. These may include thematic/program gaps, co-financing gaps, and operational sustainability gaps.
• Regularly review and monitor the accounts co-financing and match funding gaps, report on them and work with the Strategic Portfolio Development & Match Brokerage Specialist at the Centre to ensure COs have updated information on their match gaps and are proactively/ timely fundraising to cover the existing match gaps to reduce reliance of the unrestricted funds to cover these gaps.
• Proactively work with the SCI Centre Resource Mobilisation teams to drive improvement in strategic portfolio planning across the movement.
• Ensure that country offices with UNHCR, WFP and other SCI directly received funding  are always kept updated about emerging changes in donor policy, strategies and tools and guidance and these changes are timely adopted and implemented at all levels.
• Work with the relevant Centre PFIP teams to review the account strategies, address emerging BD issues and collaborate on setting regional funding ambition and target for these accounts.

Partnerships and Relationship Management – 15%

• Have clear understanding of the UNHCR and WFP donor strategies and trends, strengthen COs knowledge of these, and help them develop donor specific engagement strategies and plans.
• Proactively guide and support country teams’ efforts to engage externally, build relationships, gather business intelligence, and generate new funding opportunities.
• Drive relationships with WFP and HCR regional bureaus, amassing pan-regional business intelligence, and generating new funding opportunities.
• Represent SCI in all regional donor meetings and sharing back information and Intel gathered with Centre and country offices as may be required.
• In relation to specific opportunities, support regional and country leadership decision making to form programming consortia, which strengthen both programming and resource mobilization outcomes.
• Gather and escalate emerging programmatic /compliance issues to donor regional bureaus and offices for discussion and influencing positive changes.

Capacity Strengthening & Knowledge Management – 15%

• With guidance and support from others in RRM and/or PFIP team, supports CO NBD, TE, IP-Ops, AM, PDQ and Finance staff with capacity on related business development.
• Ensure best practice ways of working for SCI-led business development, by leading regional BD Communities of Practice alongside CO NBD staff and relevant Members.
• Coordinates between COs and the RO resource mobilisation team to fill gaps in related business development and funding support, as necessary. When supporting on specific SCI-led funding opportunities, links with members to access intelligence, opportunities, and skills.
• Maintains strong knowledge management systems (OneNet, Workplace, Teams, etc.) on WFP, UNHCR and other SCI directly received accounts to support regional dissemination and uptake of best practices, communication and continuous learning within the COs and across the regions.
• Work with SCI’s HCR/WFP Partnership Lead at the centre to ensure external global account documents are kept up to date and shared out to COs.
• Supports staff within the region to adhere to Fundraising Protocol.

Humanitarian Response – 10%

• Drive effective and joined-up business development for humanitarian responses within the region.
• When necessary, deploy immediately to take direct leadership of first phase business development of Category 1&2 major responses as required.
• Provide sustained regional backstopping of business development over the life of the response.

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
• widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
• values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength

• approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity

QUALIFICATIONS 

Bachelors with 5+ years in donor and relationship management, business development, portfolio analysis and planning, and change management required.

Background in donor and relationship management, business development, portfolio analysis and planning, and change management required.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
Required

• 5+ years demonstrated experience identifying and securing funding directly from major government donors, multilateral agencies, corporate donors and/or foundations. (eg USAID, FDCO, INTPA/ECHO, UNICEF, etc)
• Specific experience of successful WFP and/or UNHCR proposal development is essential
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and facilitating the development of major proposals to institutional, trust, foundations and corporate philanthropic donors.
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex issues through critical thinking, analysis, definition of a clear way forward and ensuring buy in.
• A high degree of attention to detail and the ability to lead key tasks (eg proposal development) to on-time completion under significant pressure.
• Highly developed networking skills and ability to form productive working relationships with a wide range of internal colleagues and stakeholders (eg program technical, awards compliance, finance, program operations).
• Well developed interpersonal and communication skills including communicating with impact, influencing, negotiation, and coaching.
• A high degree of flexibility and adaptability in order to respond to changing needs. Ability and willingness to change work practices and hours in the event of major emergencies including travelling at short notice and for extended periods of time.
• Experience in project and change management related to organisational development projects and international, cross-functional teams with a proven history of delivering results.
• Fluency in English and/or French and/or Spanish is a must.

Desirable

• Previous experience with capacity building, learning, or training initiatives, ideally in the BD sector.
• Proven ability to write persuasive, competitive, and compliant narrative proposals for institutional donors.
• A detailed understanding on funding mechanisms for development work such as Save the Children’s.

Additional job responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding:

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Safeguarding our Staff:

The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI anti-harassment policy.

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.