VICE PRESIDENT, NUTRITION

Vice President, Nutrition
United States

Established in 1915 with Helen Keller as a founding trustee, Helen Keller International (HKI) works to save the sight and lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.  We combat the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition by establishing programs based on evidence and research in vision, health and nutrition.

Scope of the Position

HKI has established itself as a leader in many areas of tackling undernutrition at the national, regional and global levels and has strong nutrition expertise throughout the organization. The Essential Nutrition Actions framework is the overarching approach for HKI’s nutrition program portfolio, and the organization is renowned for expertise in micronutrients (particularly vitamin A supplementation, industrial-scale food fortification, point-of-use fortification), infant and young child feeding and agricultural-based solutions to undernutrition. 

Reporting to the Senior Vice President (SVP) Programs, the Vice President (VP), Nutrition will harness the existing collective expertise within the organization to further enhance the strategic direction of HKI’s nutrition portfolio, ensuring that high-quality programs continue to be developed and effectively delivered in-line with mission and international and scientific thinking.  S/he will be a recognized global expert in nutrition with a broad mastery of the multiple aspects of nutrition, in-depth knowledge of one or more specialty areas and a demonstrated ability to rapidly learn new specialty areas. The VP Nutrition will coordinate HKI’s existing internal nutrition expertise as well as draw on an extensive network of external experts to guide the development of new cutting-edge nutrition initiatives to ensure HKI maintains a strong leadership position in the global nutrition community especially as new nutrition trends emerge.  The VP Nutrition will have a strong commitment to serving country office teams to supporting their capacity to design and implement high quality nutrition programs.  S/he will also work closely with regional offices and headquarters to develop HKI nutrition programming standards and will guide the development of an ongoing internal capacity-building strategy to ensure that HKI team members involved in nutrition programing maintain cutting-edge approaches in nutrition knowledge and best practices.

In addition, a major focus of the VP Nutrition will be proactively identifying and leading new business development in nutrition and managing these processes at the headquarters level.  S/he will also support HKI’s field teams in nutrition proposal efforts.  This will be in line with the organization’s overall business plan, including diversification of our donor base.   The VP Nutrition will be a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) and will actively participate in organizational strategic planning initiatives.  The position requires 30-40% international travel.

Responsibilities

Working in close conjunction with the SVP, Programs as well as other nutrition colleagues at the country, regional and headquarters levels, the responsibilities of the VP Nutrition are as follows:

Program Management and Quality Assurance

• Provide technical leadership and support to field teams to implement cutting edge programs across the entire nutrition portfolio, ensuring that the quality, impact, scale and cost-effectiveness of all nutrition programs meet HKI management and program standards.   Work with other HKI nutrition experts to further develop and refine these standards.
• Collaborate with other experts within HKI working on neglected tropical disease control and eye health programs to identify ways in which to integrate field programs to enhance impact, reach and cost-effectiveness.
• Lead HKI’s nutrition team to produce 2-3 internal Position Papers each year on priority technical nutrition topics, including emerging areas, that also link to program standards aimed at enhancing the quality of HKI’s field programs.
• Lead nutrition program monitoring and evaluation to strengthen existing systems to ensure they are state-of-the-art.
• Assure the accurate and timely reporting of nutrition program quality results via HKI’s Strategic Metrics and Shared Indicator systems.
• Assure that the highest ethical and scientific standards are met and promote the publication of HKI’s nutrition work results in peer review or industry journals (including strong mentoring of HKI field and regional office staff in production of manuscripts), and ensure that HKI is appropriately represented and presents at key international nutrition meetings.  
• Support and mentor HKI field colleagues in the production of peer reviewed articles and papers.

Business Development 

• Proactively lead development and implementation of strategies to meet long term restricted and unrestricted funding needs for nutrition in HKI including:
  • the identification and pursuit of new nutrition program initiatives, partnership possibilities and funding opportunities that are consistent with HKI’s mission and strategic plan;
  • identification and development of restricted grant proposals; and
  • meeting with key donors during travel internationally and in the US.
• Direct the nutrition proposal process related to headquarters initiatives to ensure that technical and management applications are of highest quality, and cost components are in accordance with HKI and donor policies and good financial standards. Provide assistance, as needed and requested by field teams, on nutrition relevant proposal processes at country and regional levels.
• Assist, as needed, other proposal processes across the organization.

Representation

• Coordinate HKI’s internal network of nutrition expertise and complement that with his/her own areas of expertise to ensure that HKI maintains a position of technical excellence and prominence in the global nutrition community, particularly in the areas where HKI has an established track record (vitamin A supplementation, large-scale food  fortification, infant and young child nutrition, agricultural-based solutions to undernutrition) including the Essential Nutrition Actions framework.  Expand as appropriate to areas where HKI’s expertise is emerging (point-of-use fortification, treatment and prevention of severe acute malnutrition, etc.).
• Coordinate with HKI’s nutrition leadership at national, regional and headquarters levels to ensure organization maintains and builds our leadership position in strategic nutrition technical groups, including the Global Alliance for Vitamin A (GAVA),  the Micronutrient Forum, the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group (IZnCG), the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN), and the International Union of Nutrition Sciences (IUNS), the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, and the CGIAR Agriculture for Nutrition and Health Research Program.  Work closely with regional teams in this regard for other related groups in Africa and Asia Pacific.
• Provide overall coordination of the strategic nutrition partnerships with which HKI is already engaged including the Canadian government (Department for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), HarvestPlus, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),  the International Potato Center (CIP), the Micronutrient Initiative (MI) , UNICEF, USAID,  the World Bank, the World Food Program (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition to  academic research groups and universities, and will complement these partnerships with his/her own network of partners to help advance HKI’s mission in nutrition
• Ensure that HKI is appropriately represented at key international nutrition events through his/her own participation and/or through other HKI nutrition experts to systematically increase HKI’s visibility in the nutrition community globally.  

Staff Management

• Collaborate with regional vice presidents, regional directors, regional nutrition advisors, program managers and HR to lead establishment of a global plan for staff training, orientation, and development in nutrition, within the context of available resources.
• Work closely with regional vice presidents, regional directors and regional nutrition advisors to plan/support regional nutrition relevant events to promote area and agency learning, especially cross-regionally.
• Manage Senior Manager for Nutrition and Health based in New York headquarters.
• Manage HKI staff seconded to Washington DC based centrally funded nutrition projects (SPRING).
• Assist in the recruitment process for all senior nutrition positions including, when requested, key nutrition positions in country offices.

Qualifications

• PhD in Nutrition or equivalent medical degree plus at least 15 years of relevant professional hands-on experience supporting nutrition field programs in Africa and/or Asia, with at least 5 years leadership level experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.  This must include a demonstrated commitment to serve country and regional field offices to enhance their capacity to design and implement quality nutrition programs.
• Proven track record leading successful nutrition business development and proposals efforts that have secured substantial funding from government, non-government and private foundation sources.
• Must be a recognized global technical expert in nutrition with a broad mastery of the multiple aspects of nutrition, in-depth knowledge of one or more specialty areas and a demonstrated ability to rapidly learn new specialty areas.  
• Demonstrated track record in technical expertise, including strong scientific and research skills, as evidenced by peer-reviewed publications and presentations at international conferences
• Proven competency in other areas of nutrition including: community management of acute malnutrition, infant and young child nutrition, women’s nutrition, over-nutrition, non-communicable diseases, and other emerging areas such as environmental enteropathy.
• Experience in nutrition and agriculture programming highly desirable.
• Experience with quality assurance approaches and tools essential.
• Experience with relevant social and behavior change communication approaches and tools essential.
• Experience with gender relevant programming highly desirable.
• Excellent working knowledge of regional nutrition landscapes in Africa and Asia Pacific regions, as well as the global level with Scaling Up Nutrition movement.
• Must possess the ability make effective and persuasive speeches and presentations in English on controversial or complex topics to top management, public groups, and/or boards of directors.
• French language skills highly preferable.

To Apply

Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter and resume tohkihr@hki.org noting the job title in the subject line.  Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.