Contract length: one year, with a possibility of extension
Full-time position
Location: Cox’s Bazaar/Dhaka, home-based until deployment
Travel: in-country travel
Reporting to: Head of International Programs
Translators without Borders (TWB) is committed to having a diverse team where individuals of all backgrounds collaborate and learn from one another. We believe we can be most effective with diverse experience and expertise in our team. We recruit on merit, actively seek diverse applicant pools and encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, age, gender identity and expression, national origin, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, marital or parental status, or sexual orientation, and welcome all types of diversity.
We offer in addition to salary:
- an innovative work environment with a diverse and passionate team
- 20 days of annual leave and 10 days of floating holidays
Plus during deployment:
- location-specific hardship allowance (if it applies)
- accommodation
- a 3-month Rest & Recuperation cycle, including additional leave and travel
The role
The Country Director leads TWB’s Bangladesh program. The CD works closely with the Country Management Team, empowering them to work together. The Country Director is the primary champion of TWB’s organizational culture. The CD should nurture a respectful and collaborative work environment in line with TWB’s values, ensuring that the country team strives for excellence, effectiveness and efficiency. The Country Director provides strategic leadership and oversight of innovative program strategies, has overall responsibility for organizational representation and partnership building, efficient and transparent fundraising, financial management and compliance, security management, advocacy and external communication.
Essential duties and responsibilities, other duties may be assigned
Team leadership
- Recruit, lead, empower and manage the high-performing team needed for the successful development and implementation of the country strategy
- Promote, model and take proactive steps to ensure a diverse, positive, innovative and supportive work environment
- Maintain close contact with other TWB Country Directors and with the TWB global team to ensure the country team learns from and shares with others in the organization
- Actively promote understanding of TWB’s Code of Conduct and safeguarding and PSEA policies, and associated reporting procedures across the team, and uphold TWB’s values (below) in their and the team’s engagement with communities, partners and colleagues
Resource mobilization and management
- Proactively seek and pursue opportunities to expand the depth and breadth of the program in response to need. This includes potential geographical expansion, including to neighboring countries
- Cultivate and strengthen relationships with existing and potential donors and act as their primary interlocutor
- Oversee the development and submission of funding proposals in order to ensure that country plans are sustainably resourced
Representation and coordination
Represent TWB and build the organization’s profile in-country, ensuring professional and productive engagement with local, regional, and national authorities, donors, private sector partners, and national and international civil society partners.
Engage with humanitarian coordination and strategy development to ensure that issues relating to language and two-way communication are taken on board by key decision makers and included in strategic documents
Collaborate and build on the partnership with Common Service partners and BBC Media Action to ensure smooth and collegiate relationship and coordinate on Common Service outputs, positions and outreach
Media and advocacy
- Lead on political and humanitarian context and trend analysis for the country.
- Lead TWB’s advocacy and media efforts in the country in close cooperation with the global Senior Advocacy Officer and Communication Senior Officer to ensure that language issues are highlighted.
- Act as spokesperson in-country, as delegated by the Executive Director and proactively and constructively engage with reputable journalists to promote coverage and understanding of language issues in the media.
Design and implementation of country strategies and plans
- Ensure that country strategies and plans are developed and aligned with global TWB priorities and initiatives and in line with current humanitarian and development plans.
- Lead on ensuring that TWB programs build an evidence base on the importance and impact of taking language into account in humanitarian and development programming.
- Ensure that programs and projects meet their goals and targets on time and within budget
Program delivery and grant management
- Lead the delivery and monitoring of program activities, in line with international humanitarian, donor and TWB standards
- Specifically, coordinate with other TWB teams to promote the use of appropriate language technology to inform communication strategies and risk communication content as an iterative learning and communication process
- Manage program budgets, monitoring, learning and reporting in line with TWB and donor requirements, and maintain business continuity
- Liaise between partner organizations and TWB’s language services team to ensure the timely delivery of high-quality translation, editing, and terminology services
Legal, logistics, security, financial and human resource management
- Serve as the primary budget authority in-country, responsible for ensuring all costs charged to projects are allowable, reasonable and correctly allocated
- Ensure that TWB has adequate security measures in place approved by the Global Security Focal Point and that security guidance is understood and adhered to by all team members, including visitors
- In collaboration with TWB’s global finance and HR team, ensure financial, logistics and HR systems and procedures compliant with legal requirements are in place and adhered to
- Lead the country team through the transition phase for TWB registration in Bangladesh to ensure compliance with all national rules and regulations.
The role will evolve along with the overall program as projects and activities develop to reflect the changing language and communication needs.
Qualifications
The Country Director should be an innovative leader with a strong sense of initiative, an understanding of the humanitarian and development sectors and senior management experience. They should be enthusiastic about the importance of improving the quality and accountability of humanitarian action through language and the participation of local civil society in these ecosystems. The right candidate is an energetic team player and leader committed to the challenge of managing an innovative program in a difficult environment. They agree with TWB´s core values and can work effectively in a diverse team in-country and virtually with team members based throughout the world.
Requirements
- Relevant university degree required
- 8+ years of program design and management experience, including institutional donor grants and budget management
- 5+ years of international aid experience, with a mix of humanitarian and development experience required
- 3+ years of experience as a Country Director, Program Director, or Chief of Party with a strong reputation for developing collaborative working relationships with local counterparts and relevant state actors and agencies, international organizations, and donors
- Demonstrated understanding of Accountability to Affected People, and communication and community engagement work
- Digital communication in community engagement and accountability experience a plus
- Demonstrated experience in mobilizing, organizing resources and establishing priorities
- Proven experience of managing staff security in complex and insecure environments
- Proven ability to manage staff and build cohesive, productive teams
- Excellent writing and presentation skills in English
- Knowledge of Bangla, Myanmar (Burmese) or Rohingya a plus
Essential aptitudes
- Strong diplomatic, negotiation, and leadership skills
- Active listening skills, and focus on solutions
- Strong ability to multitask, prioritize, and work independently with minimal supervision
- Good communicator, willing and open to engage in global discussions
- Attention to detail, thoroughness, accuracy, ability to meet deadlines under time pressure, and to work quickly and steadily in a focused manner
- Ability to deal with frequent changes, delays, interruptions, and unexpected events; flexibility and can-do attitude
- Demonstrated initiative, persistence, ability to problem solve, and enthusiasm for learning
- Good interpersonal skills; able to work well in a team-oriented, collaborative, cross-functional environment
- Ability to capacity build within the country team, encourage analytical thinking and skill development
- Ability to innovate to find creative solutions; willing and interested to explore new technologies
- Resourcefulness, capacity to get more out of small budgets
About Translators without Borders
Translators without Borders believes that everyone has the right to give and receive information in a language and format they understand. We work with nonprofit partners and a global community of language professionals to build local language translation capacity, and raise awareness of language barriers. Originally founded in 1993 in France (as Traducteurs sans Frontières), TWB translates millions of words of life-saving and life-changing information a year.
Core Values
Translators without Borders employees and volunteers are made of people who believe passionately about the value of this work and take personal responsibility for achieving the mission. Translators without Borders’ mission and organizational spirit embody the core values established in its strategic framework:
Excellence: As the leading voice for communicating humanitarian information in the right language, Translators without Borders is a leader in the translation industry and in the non-profit sector.
Integrity: Translators without Borders believes that every person, whether it is the people who we serve, our volunteers or our staff, has value, deserves respect and has inherent dignity.
Empowerment: Translators without Borders believes in using language to empower people around the world to control their own development and destiny.
Innovation: Translators without Borders recognizes and celebrates the power of innovation to address humanitarian and crisis issues around the world.
Sustainability: Translators without Borders recognizes that meeting our mission necessitates establishment and maintenance of a solid financial and organizational infrastructure.
Tolerance: Our staff and volunteers are highly knowledgeable and skilled; value each other, our partner and our recipients; create a supportive work environment; and, conduct themselves professionally at all times.
TWB may re-advertise the vacancy, cancel the recruitment, offer an appointment with a modified job description or for a different duration at its discretion.