Associate Director of Humanitarian Services & Operations

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Associate Director of Humanitarian Services and Operations is a senior leadership role responsible for shaping and delivering Red R’s humanitarian services portfolio and ensuring that the organisation has the operational and financial foundations needed to achieve its mission.

The postholder will translate Red R’s strategy and Humanitarian Services thematic priorities into impactful capacity building programmes that respond to significant challenges facing the humanitarian sector.

The role combines programme leadership, trusted client and partner engagement, organisational stewardship and strategic contribution.

We are a small team, and this will be a hands‑on role.

You will be leading and delivering.

The successful candidate will combine wider vision with detailed delivery.

Working across Red R and with external partners, the postholder will ensure that programmes are relevant, contextualised, high quality and capable of demonstrating meaningful results.

As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, they will contribute to organisation‑wide strategy, decision‑making, financial sustainability, culture and change.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Humanitarian services portfolio, quality and impact
• Set the direction for Red R’s Humanitarian Services portfolio, ensuring that its learning, convening, knowledge‑sharing and technical assistance initiatives address key humanitarian challenges, including mass displacement and movement restrictions, protracted conflict and declining civilian protection, acute hunger and malnutrition, climate‑related disasters and environmental pressures, and protection risks and inequality.
• Lead the development of coherent, evidence‑informed programmes that are grounded in context, participant and partner needs, and Red R’s strategic priorities, with clear intended outcomes and routes to impact.
• Champion high‑quality learning and capacity strengthening practice across face‑to‑face, online, blended and self‑directed approaches, working closely with technical leads, Associate Trainers and subject‑matter experts.
• Ensure robust approaches to programme quality, safeguarding, risk, monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning and adaptation, so that evidence is used to improve delivery and communicate results.
• Balances impact and ambition with delivery capacity, financial sustainability, compliance and risk.
• Identifies viable opportunities, builds compelling propositions and applies sound commercial judgement to develop sustainable programmes and partnerships.
• Clients, partners and external influence
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with clients, donors, humanitarian agencies, local and national actors, technical institutions and delivery partners.
• Engage clients and partners throughout the programme cycle to understand the underlying challenge, co‑design appropriate responses, manage expectations and maintain shared ownership of quality and results.
• Position Red R as a thoughtful and credible partner in your written proposals and client pitches, able to bring together practitioners, technical experts, organisations and networks to share learning, build consensus and influence humanitarian practice.
• Represent Red R externally and contribute to thought leadership, ensuring that insights from programmes and partnerships inform wider sector dialogue and future programme development.
• Work collaboratively across the Red R family and with strategic partners to identify complementary capabilities, avoid duplication and extend reach and impact.
• Operations and organisational stewardship
• Provide strategic oversight of Red R’s operational function, ensuring that proportionate, user‑friendly systems and controls enable effective programme delivery and responsible organisational management.
• Ensure coherent organisational approaches to governance administration, compliance, legal matters, procurement, suppliers, insurance, facilities, technology and information systems, cyber security, organisational security and international travel.
• Act as organisational sponsor for Salesforce and other core systems, ensuring clear ownership, appropriate governance, reliable data and continuous improvement.
• Lead the rapid assessment and adoption of new technologies where they can improve effectiveness, and strengthen data flows between teams and systems so that information is accurate, accessible and supports timely decision‑making.
• Maintain assurance that policies, procedures and the Operations Manual remain current, accessible and consistently applied, with clear accountability for review and implementation.
• Support operational resilience and business continuity, ensuring that material risks are identified, escalated and managed in line with Red R’s risk appetite and responsibilities.
• Strategic leadership and organisational contribution
• Contribute actively to the Senior Leadership Team, helping to set organisational direction, make evidence‑informed decisions and maintain coherence between strategy, programmes, operations, people and finances.
• Translate strategy into realistic plans, priorities, budgets and performance expectations, and provide clear insight on progress, opportunities, constraints and risk.
• Lead cross‑organisational change and improvement initiatives, creating the conditions for collaboration, accountability, innovation and continuous learning.
• Contribute to Red R’s financial sustainability by shaping a balanced portfolio, informing income‑generation priorities and ensuring that programmes and operations are appropriately resourced and financially responsible.
• Model Red R’s values of Collaboration, Excellence, Lifelong Learning, Integrity and Accountability, and help build a positive, inclusive and resilient organisational culture.
• People and financial leadership
• Lead and develop multidisciplinary teams, establishing clear outcomes, decision rights and accountability while enabling staff to exercise professional judgement and grow in their roles.
• Promote collaboration across programme, finance and operations functions so that expertise is shared, duplication is reduced and decisions are taken with a whole‑organisation perspective.
• Provide effective oversight of programme and operational budgets, organisational financial planning and financial controls in collaboration with the Chief Executive and Senior Leadership Team.
• Ensure that programme commitments are deliverable within agreed resources and that financial, contractual and donor requirements are understood and met.
• KEY COMPETENCIES
• Strategic and systems thinking
• Connects humanitarian sector challenges, organisational strategy and programme choices, and can turn broad priorities into a coherent portfolio and practical direction.
• Understands how programmes, operations, finance, people, technology and risk interact, and makes decisions with organisation‑wide consequences in mind.
• Programme design, learning and impact
• Brings strong judgement in the design and delivery of learning, capacity strengthening, convening, knowledge‑sharing or technical assistance initiatives.
• Uses evidence, feedback and learning to improve quality, adapt delivery and communicate credible results.
• Partnership and client leadership
• Builds trust, listens carefully and works through ambiguity with clients and partners to define the real problem and agree a proportionate response.
• Navigates differing interests constructively and maintains relationships while protecting quality, feasibility, Red R’s values and contractual responsibilities.
• Operational and commercial judgement
• Balances impact and ambition with delivery capacity, financial sustainability, compliance and risk.
• Creates proportionate systems and clear accountability, avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy while maintaining appropriate assurance.
• Leadership and influence
• Provides clarity and direction, delegates effectively and creates an environment in which people can perform, collaborate and learn.
• Communicates complex issues clearly and influences decisions with credibility, evidence and sound judgement.
• Adaptability and delivery
• Works confidently across strategic and operational levels, prioritising effectively across a varied portfolio and maintaining momentum through change and uncertainty.

Quickly understands and adopts relevant technologies and uses data and insight to improve organisational processes and decisions.

• Demonstrates ownership and accountability while knowing when to involve, challenge or elevate to others.

PERSON SPECIFICATION / EXPERIENCE

Essential

• A proven executive, with at least 10 years experience addressing humanitarian and development challenges.
• An excellent grasp of the humanitarian ecosystem landscape and how to deliver results in a complex environment.
• A strong entrepreneurial mindset across bilateral and multilateral donors and philanthropic foundations in developing and delivering multi‑million‑pound partnerships.
• Evidence of leading a complex portfolio across programmes, operations and organisational priorities, making clear trade‑offs and delivering results across several areas of work simultaneously.

This could have been gained in a senior country‑office leadership position, such as Country Director, Area Manager, Head of Office or equivalent.

• Experience of leading organisation‑wide technology adoption and process improvement, including introducing new tools quickly, improving data quality and strengthening data flows between teams and systems.
• A strong sense of ownership, accountability, integrity, and the drive to move work forward and get things done in a lean, high‑trust environment.
• Ability and willingness to work across all levels, from hands‑on operational detail to strategic leadership and decision‑making.

Professional proficiency in at least one language in addition to English.

French Spanish, or Arabic is preferred or another relevant language would also be welcomed.

• Desired
• Familiarity with humanitarian learning standards, quality frameworks and recognised approaches to monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning.

WHAT WE OFFER

This is an opportunity to shape how Red R responds to important humanitarian sector challenges, while strengthening the organisational systems that make high‑quality work possible.

Benefits

Our benefits package is designed to foster a balanced and fulfilling career, supporting both your professional growth and personal well‑being. Benefits include:

• 23 days annual leave, increasing by one day each year up to 28 days (excluding public holidays). Plus, one day birthday leave. Plus, three days office closure over Christmas
• Up to 12% matching employer pension contribution
• 3 paid days annually to volunteer for causes you care about
• 5 days of paid study leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Enhanced Maternity/Paternity/Shared Parental Pay at 100% for 12 weeks for employees with over two years of service.
• Life assurance coverage equalling four times your salary.
• Up to 10 days compassionate leave for family emergencies, 5 days dependent leave.
• Contribution towards eye tests, yearly flu vaccine, and home working set‑up.
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