Head of Gender, Inclusion, and Protection

Bodhi Global Analysis is a woman-led international development research consultancy established in London in 2017, with subsidiaries in Nairobi (2018), Singapore (2023), Dar es Salaam (2025), and The Hague (2026). We specialise in formative and evaluative research through participatory approaches, serving UN agencies, bilateral donors, INGOs, and regional organisations across fragile and conflict-affected contexts. As an ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001 certified organisation, Bodhi maintains rigorous quality control across all operations.

Our clients include UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women, IOM, IFAD, UNEP and UNOPS, alongside the Commonwealth Secretariat, the British Council, CARE, Concern Worldwide, the Danish Refugee Council, GIZ, Humanity and Inclusion, Interpeace, International Alert, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Plan International, Save the Children and Search for Common Ground. Bodhi is a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles and is committed to gender parity at every level of the organisation.

We are recruiting a senior researcher and team leader to head our Gender, Inclusion and Protection team. This expands the remit of our existing Gender and Inclusion team to reflect growing client demand for work on gender-based violence, protection risk analysis and survivor-centred programming. We are looking for a specialist with genuine technical depth in these areas, not a generalist gender adviser.

This is a hands-on senior role. You will set the technical and commercial direction of the team, but you will also design methodologies, travel to the field, conduct interviews, and write and quality-assure the reports that go to our clients. Roughly one to two months of the year are spent on fieldwork in our operating countries, and report authorship sits squarely within the role rather than being delegated downwards.

The team works across the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding nexus, and its focus spans:

• Sexual and gender-based violence: prevalence and risk analysis, service mapping and referral pathway assessment, evaluation of GBV prevention and response programming, and research on harmful practices including FGM/C and child, early and forced marriage.
• Protection: protection risk analysis, PSEAH assessment and system strengthening, safeguarding review, and research with displaced and conflict-affected populations.
• Gender analysis and transformative programming: gender mainstreaming, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) analysis, gender strategy and action plan development, and feminist evaluation.
• Inclusion of marginalised groups: refugees, internally displaced people, people with disabilities, and people of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics.

The role also provides technical support to our Conflict and Peacebuilding team and our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team through matrixed working, and contributes to organisational leadership as part of the senior management group.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Act as Bodhi’s senior technical authority on SGBV, protection and gender, setting the methodological standards the team works to and signing off the technical approach on all team assignments.
• Fieldwork and Data Collection: Travel to project countries and lead primary data collection in person, typically for one to two months across the year in total, for trips lasting typically one to two weeks, including in fragile, insecure and logistically difficult environments.
• Analysis and Report Writing: Lead qualitative analysis, including coding, framework analysis, triangulation across data sources, and synthesis of findings into defensible conclusions.
• Project and Portfolio Leadership: Lead, plan and manage all stages of research and evaluation assignments, from methodological design and tool development through data collection to analysis, reporting and validation, delivering to budget and deadline.
• Business Development: Identify tender opportunities and lead technical proposal development, including client and programme research, methodological design and win-theme development.
• Team and Organisational Leadership: Set the vision, strategy and KPIs for the Gender, Inclusion and Protection team, aligned to Bodhi’s organisational goals, and track and report progress against them.

Qualifications and Experience

• A PhD in gender studies, development studies, international relations, public health, social anthropology, law or a closely related discipline.
• A minimum of ten years’ professional experience delivering research, analysis and evaluation in international development or humanitarian contexts.
• Demonstrable technical specialism in sexual and gender-based violence.
• Fluency in English to native or near-native standard, written and spoken.
• Professional working proficiency in at least one of French, Spanish, Portuguese or Arabic.
• Extensive fieldwork experience in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
• A strong record of authorship of evaluation reports, analytical studies or policy briefs for institutional clients.
• Mixed-methods competence, including the design and analysis of quantitative surveys as well as qualitative work.
• Business development experience, including a demonstrable record of contributing to or leading winning proposals for institutional donors.

Core Competencies

• Leadership: empathetic, person-centred management.
• Research skills: advanced analytical ability, excellent report writing.
• Judgement under pressure: sound decision-making in ethically complex field situations.
• Attention to detail: commitment to rigorous research standards.
• Initiative and flexibility: the ability to work independently.
• Teamwork: strong interpersonal skills.
• Integrity: uncompromising adherence to research ethics.

We are flexible on location. Bodhi holds legal entities in the United Kingdom, Kenya, Tanzania, Singapore and the Netherlands, and candidates with the right to work in any of these countries can be employed directly. We will also consider outstanding candidates based elsewhere in Europe, West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa or South East Asia, engaged through a long-term consultancy agreement.

Bodhi is a women-owned enterprise committed to gender parity at all levels of the organisation. We particularly welcome applications from women researchers and candidates who bring lived experience from the regions where we work.