Director – Women’s Empowerment

Job Description

Counterpart International is seeking a dynamic, entrepreneurial professional to lead our Women’s Empowerment practice, including serving as the Director of Counterpart’s WomenLead Institute (WLI), a center for learning and capacity building that equips women with management, leadership, and technical skills to advance women’s economic opportunities. We are seeking an individual who is passionate about promoting women’s empowerment internationally and possesses the creativity and vision to design programing to define Counterpart’s unique offerings in this technical area. The individual will capitalize on Counterpart’s proven success running WLI and implementing the long-running Global Women in Management (GWIM) program.

The Director has overall responsibility for the successful design and implementation of stand-alone women’s empowerment programing, while supporting the further integration of women’s empowerment approaches in Counterpart’s current portfolio of governance and resilient food systems (RFS) programs, including new business proposals. The Director will work to leverage WLI and GWIM assets to innovate and expand its virtual, hybrid, and in-person programming.

Duties include articulating and executing a strategic vision for women’s empowerment programing which supports Counterpart’s overall development strategy and recognizes women’s empowerment as a strategic pillar. The Director supervises a team of technical specialists and external consultants and strategic partners.

This position is responsible for technical and thought leadership in women’s empowerment, which centers on women’s civic and economic leadership. S/he will support the RFS team in developing appropriate tools and lessons learned to assess, monitor and improve women’s economic and social empowerment indices such as the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index among others.

S/he will drive Counterpart’s fundraising and business development efforts as it relates to women’s empowerment, including building relationships with leading donors – governmental, foundations, and private sector. The Women’ Empowerment team will work closely with New Business Development (NBD), Governance, and Resilient Food Systems to expand Counterpart’s Women’s Empowerment programming.

• Lead the strategic direction, management, external communication, and fundraising/business development for Counterpart’s WomenLead Institute (WLI) and women’s empowerment technical area.
• Lead the growth of Counterpart’s women’s empowerment technical area by (1) expanding the scale, impact, and visibility of WLI and its stand-alone offerings; (2) incorporating women’s empowerment approaches and technical offerings into existing programs and new business proposals across the governance and RFS portfolios and developing and leading execution of an alumnae engagement and network development initiative for alumnae of WLI.
• Drive the practice area’s development by identifying opportunities for increased opportunities with existing USG donors, including DOS, USAID and USDA, while identifying opportunities to diversify work with the private sector and foundations.
• Assure technical and operational excellence for women’s empowerment-led programs.
• Exercise overall responsibility for the performance and utilization of all staff and consultants engaged in women’s empowerment activities including training, technical support to programs, and new business initiatives.
• Oversee proposal and budget development and project evaluation for women’s empowerment programs.
• Design and implement institutional capacity building interventions with local partners; provide technical assistance to local partners to transfer training and capacity building skills and tools.
• Work with internal and external experts to develop and design high-quality training curricula and capacity strengthening approaches.
• Oversee the development of innovative training materials (manuals, workbooks, facilitator guides).
• Serve on proposal development teams to write concept notes and serve as technical lead on new proposals and integrate women’s empowerment technical offerings into project design.
• Represent the organization in capacity development events within the professional community.
• Assume a leadership role in talent management processes to identify, develop, and retain high potential employees and consultant pool.
• Encourage a work culture of excellence, integrity, and accountability consistent with Counterpart’s core values.

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree, in international affairs, international development, gender studies, adult learning, or a related field. Master’s Degree preferred.
• Minimum of 12 years of professional experience with demonstrated evidence of increased leadership and management responsibilities.
• Demonstrated success as an entrepreneurial and creative thinker who has the drive and vision to develop, define and expand Counterpart’s WLI and women’s empowerment technical area.
• Outstanding program management skills including a commitment to technical excellence, a demonstrated track record in achieving programmatic results and a deep understanding of financial and management compliance.
• Demonstrated commitment to and substantial experience in, participatory, learner-centered methodologies for both training and capacity building.
• Strong interpersonal skills, including working with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures; 3+ years overseas experience strongly preferred.
• Ability to travel up to 30% of the time.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Fluency in a foreign language (French, Spanish, Arabic, or Portuguese) a plus.

About the Organization

Counterpart International helps people build better lives and more durable futures, community by community. We equip individuals, organizations and communities-our counterparts- to create solutions in their own families, communities, regions and countries. We work with them in some of the world’s most challenging places to tackle social, economic, environmental, health and governance issues that threaten their lives and undermine their futures.