Category: Full-time
Reports to: Regional Director, Latin America
Location: Brazil, Peru, Mexico
About Water.org
1 in 10 people around the world lack access to safe water and 1 in 4 people don’t have access to a toilet. We are working every day to change this. We are Water.org. We’re here to bring water and sanitation to the world. We want to make it safe, accessible and cost-effective because we believe that water is the way to empower a bright future that we can all share, worldwide. We are an international nonprofit organization based in Kansas City, Missouri that has positively transformed millions of lives around the world through access to safe water and sanitation. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, we pioneer market-driven financial solutions to the global water crisis. For more than 25 years, we’ve been providing women hope, children health and families a future.
Summary
The Regional Operations Lead, Latin America in the Global Impact (GI) Department works in partnership with the Regional Director, regional business and functional leaders to translate priorities into cohesive plans and targets to deliver measurable, cost-effective results that make the strategic vision a reality. This individual will establish and optimize the Regional Hub operating environment to manage a dynamic and complex operations landscape in an efficient, rigorous, and coordinated way. This position partners with Global Operations leadership to build and maintain our operational infrastructure and drive efficient change around new and improved business practices and capabilities.
The Regional Operations Lead is the operational excellence champion for the Hub, with oversight of project/initiative management related to operational improvements, coordination of back-end business support, including developing and executing cross-functional processes, charters and other governance practices, and, ensuring all funds deployed for execution are utilized in accordance with global standards, performance metrics and timelines for deployment.
Key Responsibilities
Regional Operations Leadership (40%)
Oversees development and implementation of regional strategies and initiatives that drive operational excellence and standardization by contributing to the creation and definition of processes, procedures, tools, policies, communications, and metrics, and managing compliance with the organization’s operating policies and procedures, including but not limited to:
- Ensure cross-functional support and contribute to solution-building to address internal and external requirements related to maintaining entities and facilities.
- In partnership with Global Operations define operational requirements with Global Finance, HR, PMO for mechanisms such as Service Level Agreements to ensure adequate delivery of internal services and support from matrixed back-end functions.
- Actively seek and utilize feedback from internal business partners to identify and drive continuous improvement opportunities.
- Coordinate and integrate efforts among regional functions to produce smoother workflow, risk mitigation, and more cost-effective business processes.
- Act as the key point of contact with various functional leaders and team members, vendors, consultants, and others as needed to lead operations work streams, due diligence, and follow up as required to ensure assigned tasks are completed.
- Address compliance concerns or potential violations with internal partners and lead resolution processes in partnership with department and/or organization leadership, as applicable.
- Ensure compliance of award cycle performance standards for resource planning and utilization, such as grant spending projection, impact plans, including ensuring integration into region-specific processes and metrics for resource utilization and execution plans for all funding streams. Ensures the region meets or exceeds deliverables and metrics for forecasting accuracy + performance.
- Communicates with and supports the department and regional leaders to resolve service and performance level issues, provide input for process improvement, and support strategic initiatives that enhance the overall effectiveness of the region’s operations.
- Act as a strategic advisor and key resource to the regional business and functional leaders, contributing to the development of strategies, business goals and metrics.
Operational Planning, Analysis & Reporting (35%)
Oversees implementation of operational planning, monitoring, and reporting processes to ensure region is positioned to meet organizational standards for cost, schedule, and resource utilization. This includes (but is not limited to):
- Ensure departmental leadership has insight on the number of projects and initiatives for the team, prioritizing new requests, supporting initial scoping, and allocating resources based on a deep understanding of the scope of execution and related portfolios.
- Support exploration and identification of risks and new opportunities as part of engaging with functional leaders and team members.
- In collaboration with Global Operations, implement work breakdown and forecasting models to ensure a monthly view of progress on projected results and spending.
- In collaboration with Global Operations, oversee development and execution of annual operations plans and budgets. Act as primary interface with Water.org global functions for annual planning and budgeting.
- In collaboration with the Insights and Global Operations functions, ensure processes and methods are in place to ensure accuracy of data provided to leadership and to manage data flows related to program/impact performance and oversee packaging these data for multiple internal and external reporting audiences.
- Manage monthly cadence of program/partner performance reviews, regional and country operating reviews.
Entity Management (15%)
- Act as the organization’s legal representative for the country of location, ensuring governmental reporting requirements and obligations are met to maintain the good standing of the entity.
- Maintain oversight and accountability for duty of care for in-office, remote workers and visitors in country, including management of the local office(s), as applicable.
- Ensure compliance with all applicable policies, standards, and guidelines for doing business in the country of location.
Talent Management (10%)
- Build an effective and high-performing team that is integrated with the work of the regional offices, lines of business, enterprise PMO, and other functions across the organization.
- Partner with globally distributed, cross-functional and matrixed teams to scope and drive project outcomes through a highly collaborative approach.
- Understand and coach team on execution of complex projects. This includes providing leadership on how to build pipelines, roadmaps, and work plans, and execution of complex initiatives with multiple projects and work streams.
- Lead performance management with direct reports by providing clear performance goals, offering regular, specific feedback on job performance, organizing team meetings and retreats, and working with individual direct reports to set and achieve professional development goals.
- Consistently forecasts, tracks and addresses staffing needs, in partnership with the Regional HR Business Partner, Regional Director, and related stakeholders.
- Oversee administration, facilitation and documentation related to regional leadership/team meetings, events, and internal training.
Management Responsibility
- Supervises work of others. Responsible for hiring, discipline, and pay administration of their subordinates.
- Positions supervised include: Senior Regional Grant Specialist(s) (or applicable Award Management function), Administration Service Specialist, and matrixed management and support of the Regional Insights Lead.
This description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of scope, stakeholders and linkages for every project, duty or responsibility but is intended to highlight internal or external processes, functions and jobs/roles that are expected to regularly interact with this position to deliver work. Scope may change or be assigned at any time with or without notice.
Skills and Competencies
- Develops Talent – Developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
- Plans and Aligns – Planning and prioritizing work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals.
- Strategic Mindset – Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies.
- Builds Effective Teams – Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals.
- Manages Complexity – Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems.
- Business Insight – Applying knowledge of business and the marketplace to advance the organization’s goals.
- Financial Acumen – Interpreting and applying understanding of key financial indicators to make better business decisions.
- Being Resilient – Rebounding from setbacks and adversity when facing difficult situations.
- Courage – Stepping up to address difficult issues, saying what needs to be said.
Qualifications
Required:
- Bachelor’s degree and/or equivalent related working experience.
- At least 10 years of progressive operations management experience in applicable industries, such as professional services and/or management consulting, including:
- Demonstrated track record of operations leadership across multiple functions in a matrixed organization as well as leading strategic/operations planning and budget management.
- Deep foundational knowledge of project management principles and methodologies.
- At least 3 years of experience overseeing and developing teams, individual contributors and/or project resources.
- Proficiency with MS Office 365 software and related applications, such as PowerBI. Advanced proficiency with Excel.
- A reputation for being a process-driver and thought leader, leveraging data to drive decisions.
- Impeccable integrity, with an ability to drive a culture of accountability.
- Proficient relationship management skills, lending to high level collaborative skills with internal as well as external stakeholders.
- Language(s): Proficiency (reading, writing and speaking) in English and either Spanish or Portuguese.
Preferred:
- Proficiency with process management and continuous improvement principles and practices.
- Substantial industry knowledge of and/or background within banking/finance, professional services/management consulting and PMO environments is strongly preferred.
- Experience working in complex global organizations and/or international experience.
- Language(s): Proficiency (reading, writing and speaking) in both Spanish and Portuguese is preferred.
- Certifications: PMP, Agile SAFe, Six Sigma/Lean or similar.
Travel Requirement
Up to 25% of regional and global travel.
Being authorized to work in the country posted is a precondition of employment.
Salary and Benefits
This position offers country-specific benefits and market-based, competitive salary; as well as periodic review for merit and incentive pay based on organizational and personal achievement.
Water.org is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, military and veteran status, genetic information, and any other status protected by law. We provide qualified applicants and employees reasonable accommodation, when necessary, to enable individuals to complete the application process and/or perform the essential functions of the job. We believe social change happens when people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and identities come together with a common purpose. We strive to build and maintain a diverse team that will advance our mission and work and encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.
Join our team
To apply for the Regional Operations Lead, Latin America position, please fill out our questionnaire and submit your resume.Apply
