Executive Director for Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations

Are you an experienced and authentic leader who can lead DRC’s collaboration with partners, our advocacy work and our external relations? We are looking for an Executive Director to lead the Department for Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations. Join DRC’s Executive Management Team and lead one of the world’s largest international NGO’s in accordance with our mandate, strategic vision and our values.

Who are we?

DRC has grown to become an international humanitarian organisation with more than 8,000 employees and 6,000 volunteers across 4 regions and more than 40 countries. Our turnover is more than DKK 3.5 bn. Our work covers all aspects of refugee issues based on humanitarian

principles and human rights – we call it the full circle - “We are there”.

We work in conflict-affected areas, along displacement routes, and in countries where refugees settle. Our work is tailored to global needs and includes providing emergency relief, long-term durable solutions and strengthening the opportunity for a brighter future for refugees and displaced people.

The Department for Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations sets the overall strategic direction for DRC’s engagement and partnerships to make the optimal impact and footprint for DRC and to ensure the necessary funding to fulfill our mission and to reach the goals of our strategy 2025 and support more people of concern.

The Department consists of approximately 90 employees including 6 managers, split between three divisions/sub-departments:

• Partnerships, Engagement & Fundraising
• Advocacy, Press & External Communication
• Humanitarian Strategic Surge Capacity (Standby Roster)

DRC’s Representations in Geneva and Brussels are also part of the Department and we are currently working on establishing a new representation in Berlin as well.

Colleagues in the Department are working across the globe, with the majority working from HQ while other employees are based in our regional and country offices. We have a diverse workforce, and empowering work culture. Our main working language is English, alongside other DRC languages such as Arabic, Spanish, French, and Danish.

About the job

The Executive Director for Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations is part of DRC’s global Executive Management Team (EMT) together with the Secretary General, the four Executive Directors for the Regions (EDRs), the Executive Director (ED) for Strategy, Programme & Learning, the ED for Operations, the ED for People & Organisation, and the ED for Finance, Risk & Supply Chain. The EMT sets the overall strategic direction of the organisation and is responsible for leading the entire organisation in accordance with the mandate, strategic vision, and values of DRC.

While the EMT sets the strategic direction of DRC under the guidance of the Executive Committee, in this role, you will have an important task to lead the efforts to facilitate business development and help consolidate and expand lasting high-level relationships that offer access to more sustainable and flexible funding from both institutional donors, global foundations, private contributors and private sector partners.

You will furthermore lead the harnessing of DRC’s advocacy, communication and press efforts across DRC countries, regions, representations and HQ and thus setting the direction for external engagement and position the organisation as a globally relevant influencing and dialogue partner for donors, political partners peers and the humanitarian system.

You will represent DRC, both internally and externally and communicate and lift DRC priorities internally across the organisation as well as externally to donors, policy counterparts and others.

The Department of Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations has until recently been part of a larger Department for Programme, Policy & External Relations, which has now been divided into two departments. Therefore, an important part of your role will also be to establish Partnerships, Advocacy & External Relations as a new department, to bring the different divisions and representations together to capitalise on the unique added values of each, while at the same time ensuring high-level strategic alignment and coordination across the organisation.

Key responsibilities:

• Represent, engage and facilitate momentum, internally and externally in close collaboration with your management team, EMT and the Secretary General.
• Strategically drive and support the development of partnerships, engagement and fundraising activities in cooperation with the Director for Partnerships, Engagement & Fundraising. The ambition is to consolidate and expand relationships with institutional donors to gain access to more sustainable and flexible funding.
• Support the development and implementation of a high-impact and global expansion strategy to enhance income from private contributors, global foundations, and private sector partnerships within the strategic impact areas. Position DRC as a relevant partner creating value for all stakeholders and supporting quality expectations entering new marketplaces.
• Lead the department’s accountability areas of nurturing, strengthening, and expanding DRC’s global Advocacy, Press and ExternalCommunication by ensuring that DRC is globalising the advocacy, ress and external communication work in close cooperation with the Director for these areas.
• Ensuring the continued development of and getting the most strategic value out of the Humanitarian Strategic Surge Capacity (Standby roster).
• Oversee and develop DRC’s representations in Geneva, Brussels and Berlin e.g. oversee their strategies and workplans in close cooperation with the Representations with the view to enhance our high level advocacy efforts and strengthen our partnership engagement.
• People management of direct reports including senior level managers and being responsible for overall people planning and well-being of employees in the department. You will also be expected to contribute to setting up appropriate meeting structures to ensure cross-collaboration across departments in HQ.
• Being accountable for elaborating the department’s budget and monitoring its implementation.
• Being part of the EMT and co-leading the entire organisation and inspiring leadership in DRC based on our leadership principle ‘freedom of action within responsibility’. You will also be leading, representing, developing and consolidating DRC in our regions and globally, while contributing to ‘One DRC’ by strengthening the cooperation and synergies across regions, countries and HQ departments.

About you

To be successful in this role, we expect you to have significant senior level experience in working with global institutional and private partnerships from the humanitarian or development sector e.g. from an international NGO, UN or from a global foundation. All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the Lead, Collaborating, Striving for Excellence, and Demonstrating Integrity.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

• Significant experience with and understanding of the institutional donor landscape for humanitarian and displacement funding
• Entrepreneurial mind-set with the ability to build, develop and strengthen global private partnerships
• Significant experience with high level advocacy and external engagement agendas
• Political flair, excellent relation building skills and ability to engage in high level policy dialogue
• Experienced in leading leaders and change management as well as solid experience with executive strategic leadership
• High degree of emotional intelligence
• Competencies demonstrating an inclusive, inspiring and facilitating leadership style, always striving to empower, motivate, and develop your team, while also seeking inspiration from others and consulting with colleagues
• Knowledge of the major policy agendas relevant within the field of forced displacement, and familiarity with international law and refugee law
• A master’s degree within a relevant field of study
• Fluency in English
• Other DRC languages such as Danish, French, Arabic and/or Spanish are an advantage

We offer

Contract length: Permanent

Workplace: DRC’s headquarters in Copenhagen

Start date: 14 August 2023 or as soon as possible hereafter

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and Lederaftalen between Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening og Lederne (agreement for managers), which can be found here: www.lederne.dk.

This is contractually a national position for which local terms and conditions apply. Our work conditions include, amongst others, a fair salary, fully employer paid pension contribution, six weeks of paid leave per year and flexible working hours.

Application process

All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV without a profile picture in English. Apply online on our page Current Vacancies at www.drc.ngo.

Closing date for applications: Sunday 18 June 2023. We expect to conduct interviews during the second half of June in our office in Borgergade.

Given the global nature of our work, DRC has a very diverse and international workforce. We have the strong ambition to better reflect this diversity also in DRC’s Leadership. While we consider all applicants and do not give preferential treatment to any group in the recruitment process, we welcome applications from candidates who belong to groups which are currently underrepresented in the Executive Management Team, including women and nationals from the countries and regions that we operate in. For more details on our commitment to equal employment opportunities, see also "DRC as an employer” at the bottom of the ad.

Further information

For questions regarding the vacancy please contact Charlotte Slente by email [email protected]

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo