Head of Engagement Team and Deputy Director (P5)

Your privacy is important to usThe role defines, elevates, and amplifies the Accelerator’s narrative and supports the Director’s public positioning, articulating results and impact while expressing the initiative’s ethos and systemic way of working through innovative forms of storytelling. The postholder acts as Officer-in-Charge in the absence of the Director, maintaining continuity in decision-making, performance and accountability.* Support the development and execution of the Accelerator’s strategy and annual plans in close partnership with the Director.* Translate strategic direction into clear priorities, objectives, and resourcing plans, while retaining flexibility to adapt in response to learning, feedback, and changing contexts.* Support the Director in overseeing the execution of strategic decisions by establishing performance and quality‐assurance mechanisms that enable timely course‐correction while preserving learning, experimentation, and adaptive practice, and ensuring coherence with WFP policies, governance requirements, and HQ processes.* Serve as Officer‐in‐Charge in the absence of the Director, ensuring continuity of leadership, decision‐making, risk management, and external engagement.* Model and champion SMA’s systemic leadership mindsets, demonstrating sound judgement, political and cultural acuity, and the ability to steward complex relationships and decisions across a multi‐country institutional ecosystem.* Cultivate and sustain a high‐trust, high‐performance culture by promoting shared leadership standards, embedding disciplined communication and predictable working rhythms, and strengthening coordination across country, operational, technical, and narrative teams.* At least eleven years of progressively senior leadership experience advising or supporting high‐level officials in complex international, political, or multi‐stakeholder environments, shaping strategy, informing decision‐making, and stewarding high‐stakes institutional relationships.* Demonstrated international experience forging and sustaining collaboration with diverse partners—including governments, International Financial Institutions, UN agencies, civil society, private sector, and academia—across regions and organisational hierarchies.* Proven experience leading high‐level political and institutional engagement, including navigating sensitive contexts, managing tensions, and representing senior leadership with diplomacy, judgement, and contextual intelligence.* Track record of shaping and strengthening governance bodies (e.g., steering committees, advisory groups), including designing agendas, synthesizing strategic inputs, framing decisions, and ensuring robust follow‐through for senior actors.* Substantial experience driving strategic communications and narrative development, including crafting executive messages, speeches, and strategic materials that influence institutional partners, donors, and opinion leaders and enhance organisational positioning.* Exceptional communication and narrative crafting capability, able to architect high impact messages, strategic stories, and speeches tailored to senior audiences, political moments, and system level dynamics.* Strong strategic judgement and political acuity, with the ability to interpret and anticipate complex institutional and political dynamics and advise senior leadership with clarity, foresight, and nuance.* Advanced analytical and synthesis skills, able to distil technical, political, and country level insights into crisp, decision ready briefs that drive alignment, illuminate tradeoffs, and strengthen sound governance.* Expertise in strategic communications, storytelling, and reputational risk management, ensuring that messaging is coherent, credible, and aligned with SMA’s systemic ethos and institutional identity.* High level facilitation and coordination skills, enabling effective leadership routines, structured decision processes, and disciplined follow through across diverse teams, governance mechanisms, and multi country constellations.* Strong interpersonal, diplomatic, and relational intelligence, able to build trust, steward sensitive relationships, and exercise mature judgement when engaging senior officials and navigating politically complex scenarios, in line with SMA’s systemic leadership approach.* **We see systems change as starting with us**: We notice and work with how our roles, assumptions and responses shape what becomes possible in the system.* **We experiment our way forward**: We use disciplined experimentation and learning to make progress in conditions of uncertainty.* **We put countries’ needs first**: We orient our work around the priorities, contexts and capacities of countries, rather than organisational convenience or external agendas.* **We value different perspectives – even when they clash**: We work productively with difference, tension and disagreement to support learning and systemic change.* **We teach and learn from one another**: We treat learning as a shared, ongoing responsibility and use everyday work as a source of individual and collective development.* **We are intentional about how and when we act – not simply defaulting to urgency**: We treat pace and timing as deliberate leadership choices, choosing actions that support learning and lasting change rather than activity for its own sake.**Core leadership practices.** These are foundational practices expected of everyone working in the Accelerator, regardless of role or grade. They support effective participation in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.* **Habitual engagement.** People tend to respond to situations through familiar roles, routines and immediate reactions. What is felt or thought in the moment tends to drive action, with limited separation between observation, interpretation and response, especially under pressure.* **Reflective engagement.** People are increasingly able to step back from experience and notice their assumptions and reactions, often after the event. Reflection supports learning and adjustment over time, though it is not yet consistently available in the moment.* **Intentional engagement.** People actively work with their assumptions, emotions and roles as part of ongoing practice. They are better able to pause, make deliberate choices about how to respond, and adapt their actions in real time under conditions of uncertainty.* **Systemic engagement.** People understand their actions as part of wider system dynamics shaped by relationships, power, history and context. They act with awareness of timing, ripple effects and shared responsibility, and are able to support learning and capacity beyond their own role.* All applications must be submitted exclusively through our online recruiting system. We do not consider CVs or applications sent by email, LinkedIn, or any other channel.* We strongly recommend that your Workday profile is accurate and complete, and that all sections are filled in, including your employment history, academic qualifications, language skills, and UN grade (if applicable). Once your profile is completed, please apply, and submit your application.* If you experience technical issues while submitting your application, you may contact us at . Please note that this email is **only** for technical issues with an application - **unsolicited applications or documents sent to this inbox will not receive a reply**.* At the application stage, the only required documents are your CV and Cover Letter. Additional documents (passport, certificates, recommendation letters, etc.) may be requested later in the process.* Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the recruitment process.
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