Regional Director - The Americas Hub

The Organisation

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.

We believe in the power and potential of every child. But this is often suppressed by poverty, violence, exclusion and discrimination. And it’s girls who are most affected.

Working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners, we strive for a just world, tackling the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children.

We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood. And we enable children to prepare for – and respond to – crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge.

We have been building powerful partnerships for children for over 85 years, and are now active in more than 80 countries.

The Opportunity

We are embarking on an ambitious and exciting change process, to make the organisation more relevant, bold, engaging, and effective in a dynamic and fast-changing global context in line with Plan International’s global strategy ¨All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change (FY23-FY27)¨.

For the next three years, Plan International is embarking on a number of large-scale change initiatives. These include the deployment of an organisational-wide ERP suite of systems, and the strengthening of core business processes linked with project management, supply chain, finance and monitoring & evaluation (known internally as Your Organisations Data and Analytics Y.O.D.A.) Alongside these, we also have an ambitious financial sustainability programme that is being designed and piloted and will be rolled out across all regions in the coming years. Both of these will also impact our operating model, which will be designed and implemented beside these large-scale programmes.

These all aim to improve delivery effectiveness and reduce cost and risk in order to realise non-financial benefits and financial returns to the organisation.

This role will lead, manage and be accountable for Plan International’s strategies, programmes, operations and transformation in the ROA region. This currently includes 12 countries, and a regional hub, with a total annual budget for the region of €93,5m.

The 12 countries are organised by clusters to ensure balance in complexity and distribution of work to facilitate effective management oversight and support.

South America Central America and The Caribbean Field Country National Offices

• Peru
• Paraguay
• Ecuador
• Bolivia
  • Honduras
  • El Salvador
  • Guatemala
  • Nicaragua
  • Dominican Republic
  • Haiti
    • Colombia
    • Brazil

      The Global Hub in the ROA Region oversees the realisation of Plan International’s country facing programming and influencing activities in the Region and holds business units to account for achieving maximum and timely impact in accordance with our purpose, values and behaviours, global policies, and as directed by the Members Assembly and International Board.

      Dimensions of the Role

      The role oversees a regional hub management team consisting of Directors of Sub-Regions who hold the line management for the Country Directors, Regional Finance & Operations, People & Culture, Safety & Security, Programme & Influencing, Humanitarian, Business Development and other related functions.

      The Regional Director has overall accountability for regional performance and is the CEO representative for influencing, strategic engagement, fundraising and external representation within the region. The Regional Director sits on the Plan International Inc Leadership Team, the Plan International Global Team and periodically joins International Board and Committee meetings. The Regional Director is a member of the National Board of Plan Brazil.

      The Regional Director will also lead and be accountable for the transformation and change needed in the region for the following large change programmes:

      • strengthened programme delivery, through Y.O.D.A. and associated business strengthening.
      • improved cost efficiency, through strengthened procurement, cost recovery and targeted operating model changes identified through FSP1 and Project Leap in GH, RH, COs and NOs and
      • fit for the future operating model, reflecting the strategy roadmap, with Y.O.D.A. and FSP as key drivers.

        Responsible for the successful development and delivery of Plan International’s strategy, programmes, and operations in the ROA region in line with Plan International’s global strategy and standards:

        • Drive forward our ambition under the global strategy to achieve 100 per cent gender transformative programmes and courageous local, national, regional and global influencing for maximum impact.
        • Continuously improve all elements of our operations in the region (grants, local fundraising and sponsorship management, security, supply chain and planning and performance) to ensure they demonstrate excellence in performance and deliver maximum value to all stakeholders including the girls we work with and for, National Organisations, donors, sponsors and partners. Ensure that Plan International’s dual mandate in development and humanitarian work is adequately reflected in all the region’s operations.
        • Actively advance intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensure all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthen the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of PII through to Country Offices to further promote decision-making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promote the use of data driven evidence and digital solutions.
        • Develop and lead a high-performing and value-based leadership team within the region, ensuring that people with the right competencies and values perform in the right roles. Managing and supporting the high performance of Directors of Sub Regions, Country Directors, and senior regional staff, strengthening attention to gender and diversity within staff teams, and ensuring optimal regional organisational structures. Sustaining the attention of the whole team on wider strategic resourcing issues and the strengthening of talent pipelines both for leadership roles and technical capabilities. Attracting, developing, progressing, and retaining a highly-skilled, motivated and diverse workforce. Role modelling and encouraging others to have honest and empowering conversations with individuals about their performance, potential, career direction and development. Driving and supporting our succession and talent processes at the global, regional and country levels and ensuring that staff across all levels feel empowered and supported to deliver at their best, feel pride in their work and develop their potential.
        • Ensure effective acquisition and utilization of resources, overseeing effective fundraising, allocation, and utilisation of resources according to strategic plans, budgets, and financial standards, to ensure that resources are used to add the most value and to support cost-effective operations. Monitoring, guiding, and intervening as needed in the use of financial resources.
        • Lead overall strategic planning and alignment, providing direction and leadership for the region, and contributing to the leadership of the global organisation.
        • Lead the design and implementation of context-specific operating models to ensure Plan remains relevant and delivers increased performance and impact in a rapidly evolving region.
        • Strengthen Governance in country offices to achieve the broad-based membership ambitions of the organisation in line with the Locally Led, Globally Connected strategic imperative.
        • Agility, transparency, and legitimacy. Actively advancing intersectional feminism and anti-racism and ensuring all leaders and staff exercise our values and behaviours. Strengthening the line of delegation and information sharing from the CEO of Plan International Inc. through to Country Offices to further promote decision-making closest to the point of impact while achieving a strong culture of end-to-end accountability. Empowering Directors of Sub-region to effectively address non-performance through decisive action. Promoting the use of data-driven evidence and digital solutions
        • Identify and manage risk, ensuring that systems and processes are in place to identify, understand, and mitigate risks, as well as monitor and intervene as appropriate.
        • Ensure compliance with Plan International standards and that systems and processes are in place to comply with plans, policies and legal requirements. Monitoring compliance of the same and intervening as appropriate.
        • Build relationships and communicating internally and externally to strengthen a culture of collaboration, partnership, and learning within the region. Building and maintaining relationships with relevant partner organizations to support strategies and programmes, working with Directors of Sub-Regions and Country Directors to lead internal communications with staff within the region, as well as ensuring that information about the region is available to other parts of the organisation.
        • Lead on Representation and Advocacy in the region and in global platforms, working closely with the Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer.

          Key Accountabilities

          While leading all dimensions of the role, the Regional Director’s first and foremost task is to build and manage a strong performing team of Country Directors and senior staff in the region.

          Typical key end results to deliver together with the team in the accountability areas are:

          • People: A high-performing and value-based team, engaged and motivated, able to deliver on the ambitions set, promoting gender equality and diversity, and demonstrating a progressive raising of the bar in their performance.
          • Strategy: Ambitious and targeted Country Strategies, new or updated, in line with Plan’s global strategy and ambition, that guide Plan International’s programmes towards increased impact, strengthened legitimacy, sustainability and continued relevance within each country context.
          • Change: The world and the South, Central América and Caribbean region are changing rapidly and the role of international NGOs, such as Plan, needs to evolve to ensure we remain relevant within each context and as a global organization. The regional director and his/her team will lead change within the region and contribute to the development of changes at the global level. A key pillar in this effort is the achieving broad based membership to support the locally led, globally connected objectives.
          • Quality: Ensuring our programmes become and remain state of the art and are in line with the latest global standards, demonstrating outcomes and leading to thought leadership and policy influence based on evidence through evaluations and research.
          • Risk: Ensure that all countries comply with internal and external standards in security, disaster preparedness, sponsorship and grants management, finance and administration, demonstrated in progressively positive audit performance in all auditable functions and compliance with external reporting requirements.
          • Resource Mobilisation: Ensure a healthy funding base for Plan International’s programmes in the region through effective acquisition, allocation, and utilization of resources.
          • Compliance: Ensure our operations are in compliance with Plan International’s global management and programme standards and with external regulatory and donor requirements.
          • Networking: Represent Plan International and strengthen collaboration and partnerships at the right levels and ensure the organisation is present in relevant networks and forums.
          • Ensures that Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion are fully embedded in accordance with the principles and requirements of the policy including relevant Implementation Standards and Guidelines as applicable to their area of responsibility. This includes but is not limited to, ensuring staff and associates are aware of and understand their responsibilities under these policies and Plan International’s Code of Conduct (CoC), their relevance to their area of work, and that concerns are reported and managed in accordance with the appropriate procedures.

            Key Relationships

            Internal:

            External:

            • Global Director, Programs and Operations
            • Chief Executive Officer
            • Chief Strategy & Engagement Officer
            • Deputy CEO
            • Other Leadership Team members
            • Directors of Sub-Regions and Regional office management team members
            • Country Directors
            • Global Functional departments in line with principles of matrix management
            • National Organisation leadership
            • Regional and global l networks
            • International Board and associated Committees
            • National Boards of Colombia and Brazil
              • National and local authorities (national government, municipalities, etc.)
              • Regional, national, and international inter-governmental and civil society organizations, networks and alliances
              • Individuals who are supporting Plan International in an advisory or decision-making capacity