About Us
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 ensuring access to 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 are passionate about delivering high quality, client-centered care in their own communities. 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.
MSI is an equal opportunity employer and offers a competitive salary and employee benefits. We support a work-life balance and an individual’s desire to learn beyond the experience gained at work through both personal and professional development and growth opportunities.
About the Role
MSI Reproductive Choices seeks an exceptional Project Director to lead an anticipated five-year, USAID-funded global family planning activity, Accelerating ChoiCe, Equity, and Sustainability for Services (ACCESS).
ACCESS will focus on advancing equitable, affordable, and sustainable access to family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) information, products, and services in ways that ensure client dignity, agency, choice, and good health, particularly for youth. Through local capacity strengthening and substantial engagement of local partners and stakeholders in the innovation and scale-up of evidence-informed and rights-based FP/RH service delivery, ACCESS will achieve significant FP/SRH outcomes at the system, facility, provider, community, and client levels.
The Project Director will be responsible for the overall strategic, technical, and financial management and operations of the project and will be the key liaison with USAID and other global stakeholders. They will assume overall management and responsibility for project finances, results, staff, and partnerships.
In addition, as the leader of the ACCESS project, the Project Director will play a key role in supporting MSI’s wider USAID engagement strategy, fundraising goals, and programme management expertise.
We anticipate this role requiring travel for up to 25% of the time.
Key responsibilities
- Representing MSI and the ACCESS project to USAID’s Office for Population and Reproductive Health in Washington D.C. and USAID country missions.
- Driving overall vision, strategic direction, and leadership of the project, and ensuring high-quality, results-oriented technical programming, to achieve expected project goals and results within budget and timeframe and ensuring full alignment with USAID and MSI policies and procedures.
- Leading strategic planning processes, overseeing the development of work plans and budgets and ensuring that goals and objectives are executed.
- Working closely with MSI country programmes to secure country-level buy-ins to the ACCESS mechanism; providing technical and administrative guidance to initiate country-level projects, and hands-on guidance to country-level project leadership.
- Directly supervising the Activity’s senior technical and administrative management team.
- Assuming overall responsibility for management of and support to subawardees and other consortium partners.
- Ensuring compliance with MSI policies and procedures, donors, USG, and local laws, regulations, policies, and procedures. Provide leadership in identifying and mitigating risks associated with USAID funded programming.
- Assuming overall oversight of the project budget to meet expected results, ensuring cost-effective use of donor and MSI resources.
- Managing the Activity’s relationships with USAID, partners, and stakeholders; lead the Project’s collaboration with organizations and coalitions such as FP2030, WHO, and others.
- Supporting MSI’s overall strategic engagement with USAID at country and global level, influencing key policies and funding opportunities, as well as demonstrating MSI’s alignment with USAID priorities, and vice-versa.
- Actively participate in MSI’s strategic planning, business planning, budgeting and other key processes to ensure USAID priorities and commitments are effectively represented.
- Representing MSI and the project externally at meetings (remote and in-person), committees, forums, key regional or global meetings, conferences, and other technical and strategic fora as necessary to influence USAID priorities, and maximise understanding and perceptions of MSI’s work.
- Actively participating in MSI’s strategic planning, business planning, budgeting and other key processes to ensure USAID priorities and commitments are effectively represented.
- Keeping MSI stakeholders informed on USAID policies and priorities, support teams with effective communication with USAID, and facilitate learning on USAID programmes across the organisation.
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. You must be a strong supporter of the cause of family planning and a woman’s right to safe abortion (pro-choice).
To succeed in this role, you must have:
Skills and experience
- At least fifteen (15) years’ experience in international health programming, including at least ten (10) years’ experience in senior-level management positions and experience leading large ($50M+) and complex projects.
- Master’s degree or other advanced degree (PhD, MD) in a relevant field, such as medicine, public health, social sciences, or management.
- Demonstrated international credibility as a leader in family planning and reproductive health, including demonstrated understanding of, and experience in, managing sexual and reproductive health service delivery programmes . Experience in youth-focused sexual and reproductive health programmes highly desired.
- Demonstrated experience in effectively engaging partners and managing multi-partner consortia.
- Demonstrated skills and experience in building collaborative relationships and networks with donors, host-country governments, and local and international health and development implementers.
- Demonstrated knowledge and experience of USAID planning and reporting systems, operations, programming, structure, and family planning compliance regulations. Experience of working with other major donors is also desirable.
- Strong project and personnel management skills
- Fluent English oral and written communication skills; French oral and written communication skills highly desired.
This position is contingent upon funding being awarded to MSI Reproductive Choices and on approval of the candidate by USAID. Candidates must have the legal right to work in either the United States, United Kingdom, or a country where MSI Reproductive Choices currently works.
Location: Washington DC, USA; London, UK; or any city/country where MSI Reproductive Choices has a country office.
Full/Part time: Full time
Salary band: BG 11
Salary: A competitive salary and benefits package will be provided in line with the national context, dependent on location of the successful candidate.
Closing date: 25th February 2024 (midnight GMT). Interviews may take place before this date for exceptional candidates