The Senior Manager Response Innovation Lab will drive and prioritize the development of diverse income streams to ensure the sustainability of the Lab. The Lab Manager will oversee and support innovation in the Puerto Rico Country Lab through its roster of global partners and by building a supportive network of organizations based in Puerto Rico engaged in social innovation, humanitarian response and recovery. The Lab Manager will not only ensure innovation impact from projects in the lab, but also create a focus on learning, pivoting, and flexibility. The Lab Manager will find specific humanitarian challenges impacting Puerto Rico, capacity, and new ideas to form a pipeline and generate projects to improve humanitarian operations to benefit children, families, and communities within Puerto Rico and share more broadly with the global Response Innovation Lab network. For more information about the Response Innovation Lab, please visit www.responseinnovationlab.com.
Areas of Responsibility:
LAB MANAGEMENT
- Work with Puerto Rico Country Lab Executive Committee (CLEC) to define and implement innovation strategy, projects and methodologies that envision, develop and incubate innovative ideas – this includes collaborating on new product design, social business ideas and types of response programming, designing and leading research and other ideas which improve humanitarian work in Puerto Rico. The CLEC will be comprised of Save the Children, local RIL partners and a representative from the RIL Central Support Unit. Drive and prioritize a funding acquisition strategy to ensure the Lab has access to diverse income streams in order to execute the strategy, recruit needed staff, and ensure the sustainability of the Lab, support innovation projects, with the support of the CLEC and partner organizations. This could include participating in calls for proposals, identifying key partnerships and donors, and exploring international private sector funding and partnership opportunities. Provide full project management oversight to ensure excellence in execution of all Lab plans and programs. Lead in project planning and coordination to ensure timely and quality implementation of all program activities. This will include identifying and placing skilled personnel who are able to effectively advise and manage the Lab programs and aligning partner engagements with Lab objectives. Focus on acceleration or scale up of projects that succeed in the lab and documentation and sharing of those which fail. In conjunction with the finance team, develop and monitor the project budget and ensure regular reporting to the donor Work with the technical leads to provide adequate HR oversight to the project team and partners as relevant
- Serve as the main point of contact and ambassador for the Puerto Rico Lab
- Manage risks for the Lab, discussing and mitigating these with the Executive Committee and the Global RIL Team
- Facilitate entrenchment of a culture of innovation through effective cultivation of ideas, best practices, pivoting and harnessing of lessons.
- Support on the monitoring and evaluation framework & systems and processes along with the partners and the Innovation Manager.
PARTNERSHIP MANAGEMENT
- Develop partnerships with a diverse range of stakeholders involving technology, commerce, innovation, humanitarian and government in the Lab.
- Lead in ensuring effective management of resources. This will include providing leadership to effective management of sub grantee agreements or contracts with partners.
- Ensure effective partnership to bring in staff capacity and support from a range of public and private organizations to promote new types of thinking and implementation of quality programs with support from people who have the appropriate skill set.
- Lead Innovation Forum and Innovation events
- Support the development of the Country Lab Executive partners and the governance structures that support this entity
- Support the process of developing strong, strategic partnerships, coalitions and networks; provide leadership in coordinating and managing those specific partnerships to ensure that their outputs are aligned with the objectives of the Lab.
LEARNING & REPORTING
- Maintain accurate documentation of best practices, case studies, results, learning and impact of programs.
- Contribute to the development and testing of monitoring and evaluation tools for the different functions offered within the Lab
- Document strategic thinking, dashboard reports, status of innovation implementation and matters of partnership, leadership or management concern of the Lab.
- Report monthly progress to the Lab Executive Committee and the RIL Central Support Unit. This is the CLEC and the Global RIL Team including Catherine Green.
- Regularly share the lessons learned as the lab progresses, to become a resource for others in and out of the RIL network
Educational Background:
Bachelor’s degree
Skills/Experience:
Accountability:
- Holds oneself accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
- Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities - giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved
Ambition:
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves (and their team), takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages others to do the same
- Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
- Future orientated, thinks strategically
Collaboration:
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, members and external partners and supporters
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to
Creativity:
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- Willing to take disciplined risks
Integrity:
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency
Required Qualifications
- You have a minimum 5-7 years' experience in area of expertise
- Professional level of technical or managerial knowledge, skills, and experience to manage the operational activities of a unit or team, or provide the technical and management support related to various size programs, grants or projects.
- This position requires a team player with leadership qualities, excellent flexible project management skills, a partnership guru, a professional and positive attitude, organization and dependability.
- Strong leadership skills; lead a consortium, capacity to prioritize and manage a diverse range of staff members, projects and activities.
- Ability to solve complex problems and to exercise independent judgment;
- Experience working in Puerto Rico, preferably in one or more of the following sectors: civil society/non-profits, social services, social entrepreneurship, business incubation, civil protection, community outreach, local area development, public-private partnerships;
- Proficiency in written and spoken English. Fluency in Spanish is highly desired.
- Good oral/written and interpersonal skills.
- Confident communication and documentation skills; ability to represent the lab to a variety of stakeholders in a range of forums
- Able to work on a cross-cultural environment with a multi-national staff.
- A commitment to RIL principles and values
Compensation/Benefits:
- Meaningful work, with a knowledge that you are changing the lives of children all around the world
- A family friendly work environment
- Highly collaborative and innovative teams
- Generous paid vacation days, holidays, family leave days, and sick time
- Healthcare plans including medical, dental, and life insurance
- Retirement savings account with matching company contributions
- Structured and formalized management development and coaching programs for mid and senior level managers
- Extensive e-learning opportunities on a variety of topics offered through our affiliation with several prestigious universities as well as language learning opportunities.
Job Function:
Organization Info
Listing Stats
Post Date:
Jul 16 2018
Active Until:
Aug 16 2018
Hiring Organization:
Save the Children US
industry:
Nonprofit