The CARE Innovation Department was founded in 2016 to focus on creating an enabling environment and pathways that bring innovations to life. This position plays a critical role in CARE’s ability to identify and develop new operating models that can disrupt CARE’s traditional way of working and the sector more broadly for the purpose of bringing more power and resources to those closest to the challenges to make change. This role leads the strategy and design for developing new operating models managed under the New Model Incubator, the core program of the Innovation Department.
The New Model Incubator focuses on researching, designing, testing, and launching new operating models that transform both CARE and the sector at large so those closest to the challenges have the power and resources to create change. The Director, Design Strategy leads the innovation team in managing team staff, partners, professional services, and pro bono resources to research, design, and test new operating models to disrupt CARE and the sector more broadly.
The role builds partnerships, designs strategies, creates project plans, and manages project teams to execute the team’s three main activities:
The role leads and manages the team’s capacity to research, respond to, and execute on new opportunities. This entails creating a learning agenda to guide research and ideation activities carried out directly by the Director of Design Strategy, Project Leads, or temporary staff resources (contractors, interns, etc.). This may include conducting primary and secondary research, designing and facilitating early stage strategy and ideation workshops with senior leadership at other organizations. It also includes fielding inbound requests for partnership and collaboration with external organizations to similarly explore opportunities (through research, workshops, etc.) that satisfy the team’s qualification criteria for engagement. The Director of Design Strategy is responsible for evaluating, selecting, and recommending to the Chief Innovation Officer and Advisory Committee which opportunities the team should move forward with over 6-month, iterative stages of experimentation, consisting of recommendations regarding staffing, project plans, budgetary allocation across the portfolio.
For approved and funded ideas under experimentation, The Director of Design Strategy oversees (approx. 5) Project Teams’ design and execution of experiments to validate new models. As such, the role coaches and supervises Project Leads and the teams they manage, facilitating reflection and discussion and supporting the professional development of Project Leads. The role facilitates Project Teams’ analysis of results of experiments to iterate on the design of the models under experimentation and relevant key project documents, as well as recommendations on recurring 6 month periods whether the Innovation Team should continue testing and refining the model, invest additional resources to launch an MVP, or discontinue altogether.
Responsibilities:
Qualifications:
CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of disease, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.
We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. If you’d like more information about your EEO rights as an applicant under the law, please click here.
The closing date for this posting, if listed, is approximate. Job postings may be removed from CARE's career website at any time.
