Executive Director - BRAC Bangladesh

THE ORGANISATION:

BRAC’s scale in Bangladesh is vast:

• 97,000 community health promoters are providing essential healthcare, with maternal, neonatal and child health services covering 24.5 million; 
• 1.14 million children are currently enrolled in BRAC’s 38,000 primary and pre-primary schools, and 9.51 million have graduated. BRAC's youth empowerment clubs provide life skills training to more than 260,000 teens from disadvantaged backgrounds; 
• 5.54 million micro-borrowers with a cumulative loan disbursement of USD 9.73 billion; 
• 25 million people have access to clean toilets thanks to BRAC’s sanitation entrepreneurs; more than 600,000 rural poor women have been organised;
• BRAC's 376 popular theatre teams have reached nearly 4.3 million people; 
• 101,222 human rights and legal education graduates and 19,252 local community leaders’ workshop participants.

With an annual operating budget of US$650 million and a full-time staff of 50,000, BRAC Bangladesh is a complex organisation with a leadership team comprised of the Directors of 20+ programmes, enterprises, and central, strategic functional areas.

As Bangladesh slowly industrialises and urbanises, new areas of under-development are emerging and require BRAC’s attention. Current strategic priorities include: urban poverty, youth, secondary education, migration, nutrition, road safety, social cohesion, good governance, legal aid, and climate change vulnerabilities. 

Organisationally, BRAC  plans to  integrate  services  from  different  programmes, as well  as  look at the  ability  of development programmes to recover costs in addition to the consideration of livelihood options for the beneficiaries. 

Management-wise, the organisation will be increasing internal coordination (across programmes and enterprises) and will require focus on: leadership development, organisational culture, retention and performance management; knowledge management; communication; and an integrated technology platform.

THE POSITION:

Reports to:   

The BRAC Board of Directors and, in close partnership with BRAC’s Founder/Chairperson, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed.

Specific responsibilities include:

Strategic Leadership and Governance

• Guide BRAC’s over-arching strategic planning to ensure the approach is ambitious, coherent, supports current initiatives and anticipates future needs;
• Ensure that individual programme and enterprise strategies align, are innovative, and are measurable toward achieving Bangladesh’s goal of middle income status by 2021;
• Partner effectively with the Founder/Chairman, and other members of the leadership team;
• Engage the Board of Directors, ensuring they have the information and context required to perform their critical strategic and fiduciary responsibilities;
• Advise the Board on making the right strategic and programmatic choices in order to maximise available resources while, in parallel, maximising the impact on poverty alleviation.

Partnerships and External Relations

• Actively promote and represent BRAC Bangladesh to the outside world; strengthen and deepen the relationship with BRAC’s core donors (UK’s DFID and Australia’s AUSAID), other funding and development partners globally (UNDP, UNICEF, etc.), in collaboration with BRAC International colleagues;
• Represent BRAC Bangladesh’s work within the BRAC community of organisations globally; share best practices and learning; actively reinforce and support how BRAC colleagues adapt and adjust the model to local needs;
• Further institutionalise government partnerships in Bangladesh, entering into joint strategic programmes and influencing policy. 

Organisational Management

• Support, motivate and lead a high performing team of programme and enterprise leaders; problem - solve at the organisational level, as well as internal synergies and learning are maximised; 
• Ensure that investments in people, capacity, infrastructure and systems are aligned to meet BRAC’s current and future needs;
• Identify and anticipate programmatic and policy issues; work closely with the leadership team to develop high impact, and sustainable approaches; 
• Take responsibility for making strategic choices among competing programmes and resources.

CANDIDATE PROFILE:

Professional Qualifications:

• Advanced degree; 
• Proven success in leading a complex, high-performing, multicultural organisation;
• Can point to examples of:

• Achieving programmatic excellence and improving outcomes while simultaneously growing a reputable organisation
• Managing a significant budget
• Leading change while simultaneously reinforcing a cohesive culture
• Successfully collaborating with strong, autonomous leaders resulting in the achievement of key organisational objectives
• Fundraising internationally
• Working effectively with a diverse set of internal and external partners, funders and colleagues;

• Content knowledge and experience in at least one of BRAC’s core programme areas;
• A combination of corporate, management consultancy and nonprofit experience is ideal;
• Shows evidence of developing others, particularly emerging leaders, and has experience building a strong leadership pipeline.

Personal Attributes:

• Passionate about, and with a track record of, commitment to poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor;
• Extensive knowledge of, and close cultural ties with, Bangladesh (for example, could be a second or third generation Bangladeshi living outside of the region). Fluent Bangla a plus; the selected candidate will be expected to learn Bangla if s/he is not a native speaker;
• A strategic thinker with the collaborative skills necessary to engage and influence external partners, Board leaders, and colleagues at all levels;
• Flexible, humble and an adaptive learner; able to recognise trends in an evolving, ambiguous environment; can make forward-thinking decisions that lead to adaptive change;
• An energetic, entrepreneurial team leader with a track record of motivating teams;
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to speak effectively and persuasively to multiple audiences;
• The successful candidate will be expected to uphold, and be a role model for, the BRAC Values: Integrity (Is honest in all dealings, is reliable and trustworthy, assumes complete accountability for their actions); Innovation (thinks creatively for solutions while learning from setbacks and mistakes, is courageous to try new things, adapts well to changes in the work environment); Inclusiveness (treats everyone fairly without discrimination, is open and responsive to diverse perspectives, thinks ‘One BRAC’); Effectiveness (creates impact though achievement of agreed objectives, solves problems constructively, is driven by achieving results).