Country Director 62 views

• Provide dynamic, inspirational leadership and management, and lead senior management team to ensure BBC Media Action meets our commitments to funders, partners and audiences in Ethiopia.
• Manage and develop a diverse team, ensuring that staff are appropriately inducted, trained and developed, and performance is appropriately managed.
• Through effective line-management of the Senior Project Manager and other team leads, take final responsibility for ensuring all activities are delivered within agreed standards, timescales and budgets, and all outputs adhere to BBC editorial standards.
• Ensure effective office management so that finance and administrative functions are carried out in line with donor rules, local regulatory requirements and BBC Media Action guidelines.
• Lead the expansion of our portfolio in Ethiopia, including identifying future business development opportunities and overseeing the writing of new project proposals.
• Update and implement the Country Strategy, ensuring our work in Ethiopia is relevant and appropriate.
• Represent BBC Media Action to key stakeholders and ensure effective relationships and partnerships with a wide range of partners, including the Ethiopian government, international development agencies and other funding agencies, broadcasters, NGOs and others.
• Report regularly to BBC Media Action’s office in the UK on operational, legal, financial and editorial issues.
• Ensure the BBC Media Action office in Ethiopia complies with all local laws and regulations.
• Safeguarding responsibility for staff, volunteers, partners, and contributors. The role has responsibility for ensuring that all project activities comply with BBC Media Action and donor standards around safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. The role requires detailed knowledge and expertise of safeguarding policy and best practice.
• Ensure the delivery of relevant safeguarding training to all staff, freelancers and (sub)contractors contracted directly by the office.
• Ensure that relevant safeguarding due diligence is conducted with any local partner organisations that may be working with vulnerable adults or children as part of the projects.  Where any risks are identified, ensure that projects are designed to mitigate these risks.
• Lead on security planning, working with senior management team, BBC Media Action security team, and local contacts to understand and minimize risks to staff, and ensure that staff are trained and briefed to manage risks.
• Identify training priorities linked to the needs of staff, including greater development of in-house capacity, and to ensure that training meets BBC Media Action’s high standards.

Job Family Business Management & Administration

Division BBC Media Action

Reports to (title) Regional Director, Africa and Middle East

Location base Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Length of contract 12 months with strong possibility of extension

Essential Skills and Experience

•  Substantial experience in the management of diverse teams of staff, including recruitment, management, discipline and professional development.
• Experience managing large-scale, donor-funded projects in a developing-country context, preferably in Africa. Proven ability to deliver complex projects to deadlines and within budget.
• Experience developing and securing international development or media projects, including the ability to develop new project ideas and present these persuasively to potential partners and funders, and write successful proposals.
• Significant budget management experience, demonstrating effective use of resources and responsibility for large budgets.
• A record of forming effective relationships with a range of local and international partners, including at the highest levels of government and media, and managing effective teamwork between partners and stakeholders, including those with differing agendas.
• Experience managing security planning, including overseeing processes to understand and minimize risks to staff, and ensuring security and safety training for staff.
• Considerable experience of working in the media or development sector (preferably both) and demonstrable knowledge of the development and/or media context in Africa.
• Confident public speaker with experience of presentations to colleagues, donors and other stakeholders.
• Good judgment and decision-making skills, including the ability to adapt, react and respond to crises, and to evaluate risk.
• Experience working on own initiative and organising time effectively within a range of often conflicting deadlines and demands.
• Strong understanding of and commitment to international development, including the use of media for developmental goals.

Desirable Skills and Experience

 Experience working in one or more of BBC Media Action’s key thematic areas in Ethiopia: governance (particularly social/political inclusion and accountability), health (e.g. maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health, epidemic/pandemic response), childhood education, youth unemployment, unsafe and irregular migration, media ecosystems/media freedom, security and justice, and/or disability inclusion.

Demonstrable editorial judgement skills and understanding of BBC editorial values, or demonstrable potential to acquire strong editorial skills in order to help make sensitive editorial judgements at a senior level.

Experience working in Ethiopia specifically or Africa more generally.