Senior Advisor, Water and Sustainable Cities Practice

Job Description

Chemonics’ Water and Sustainable Cities Practice is conducting a recruit for a Senior Advisor! The Water and Sustainable Cities (WSC) practice seeks a Water Security, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WSSH) Advisor to support this rapidly growing global practice, which includes a portfolio of $270 million in programming and a robust forward market under the Water and Development II IDIQ. The Sr. Advisor works with the Practice Director to define the strategy and work plan for their practice while also contributing to the company’s strategic position in the sector. The Sr. Advisor leads execution of activities that increase the competitiveness of our proposals, improve the performance of our projects, and enhance our technical reputation with our clients and within our industry. The Sr. Advisor facilitates technical knowledge sharing and learning among our global workforce, so that our projects and proposals benefit from our own and others’ innovative or evidence-based approaches. Aligned with client learning agendas, policies, frameworks, and strategies, the Sr. Advisor identifies and helps guide the execution of applied research to generate evidence of approaches, ultimately influencing industry discourse and shaping programming to address development challenges more effectively and efficiently. The Sr. Advisor leads global engagement in this technical area by facilitating productive working relationships among Chemonics staff, including routine collaboration and coordination with assigned UKD practice staff, industry experts, partners, and our client. The Sr. Advisor will be a professional who brings program implementation and management expertise in the growing water security challenges facing developing countries around the world, particularly in urban environments. We are looking for individuals who have a passion for making a difference in the lives of people around the world.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities (Essential Functions)
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Business Development

• Undertakes leadership roles in proposal development, setting forth a vision and strategy for program design.
• Participates in strategy sessions early in capture to advise teams on the competitive landscape, client preferences, potential partners and personnel, and innovative or evidence-based approaches.
• Reviews solicitations and draft proposals, providing teams with technical input and guidance customized to the opportunity.
• Cultivates and maintains relationships with clients, consultants, and counterparts to advance successful new business opportunities.
• Tracks, analyzes, and shares development trends and client priorities within the technical sector.
• Conceptualizes and leads development of demand-driven resources to address knowledge gaps identified in partnership with new business teams, based on previous proposal decisions and the forward market.

Technical Approaches

• Fosters supportive relationships with project technical leadership and provides demand-driven technical support to projects in the technical portfolio, such as serving as a thought partner to help solve specific technical implementation challenges, facilitating access to other technical and cross-cutting expertise to support implementation of innovative or integrated approaches, or building skills of our global workforce in emerging technical approaches.
• Conceptualizes and leads development and delivery of demand-driven training courses, learning resources, knowledge sharing events, and ad-hoc technical discussions to engage the global workforce, leveraging technical working groups and community of practice members as leaders and contributors, as appropriate.
• Facilitates connections among Chemonics’ projects implementing similar approaches to learn from one another.
• Researches cutting-edge tools, frameworks, or approaches available within the industry for potential project piloting and adoption.
• Helps identify and cultivate a cadre of staff and consultants globally with subspecialty expertise.
• Collaborates with project leadership, other technical and cross-cutting practices, and evidence and learning team to design and oversee integrated applied research initiatives aligned with the client’s learning agenda.
• Captures project innovation and learning to repurpose for proposal, other project, and external use.

Industry Outreach and Client Engagement

• Fosters collaborative working relationships with client technical staff, strategic partners, and stakeholders, and continually promotes outstanding client service and technical leadership.
• Oversees indefinite-quantity contracts aligned with their technical practice, including consortium and client relations.
• Identifies strategic venues (such as conferences and learning events or websites) and topics aligned with client interests for sharing Chemonics technical knowledge products, evidence, and learning within the industry.
• Identifies opportunities and supports efforts to highlight the work of our global practitioners in international fora.
• Represents Chemonics at external events and industry meetings.
• Partners with new business and outreach teams to position Chemonics externally for forward market opportunities.
• Applies specialized subspecialty expertise to provide feedback or input on client’s draft policies, strategies, frameworks or technical documents, on request.

Inclusive Management

• Fosters an inclusive workplace and lives the values of creating opportunity, serving others, building trust, innovating, and exceeding expectations.
• Manages implementation of work plans and teams (i.e. technical working groups; communities of practice), as appropriate, employing adaptive management techniques to continually improve performance.
• Contributes to development of and manages activities within the Practice’s annual budget in accordance with corporate guidance.
• Collaborates with Enterprise-level business functions including innovation, knowledge management, and strategic communications to further the impact of Practice work effort.
• Promotes staff development through coaching, mentoring, and facilitating professional growth opportunities.
• Supervises and evaluates performance of assigned staff, most directly the practice specialist or sr. specialist. Communicates clear performance goals and standards and ensures staff receives regular constructive performance feedback, prompt resolution of problems, and time and opportunity to grow and develop in key competence areas.
• Performs other duties and responsibilities as required.

Qualifications

• Minimum 10-12 years of technically relevant work, including at least 5 in the field of international development required.
• Bachelor’s degree required. Advanced degree preferred, or equivalent combination of education and work experience in relevant technical competency area.
• Industry recognized expert in technical discipline.
• Demonstrated experience supporting business development efforts for USAID or other donors.
• Demonstrated knowledge of trends in relevant areas, donor initiatives and programs, most notably USAID initiatives and programs, and a breadth of industry organizations (large and small businesses).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate clearly and concisely both orally and in writing. This includes public presentations and contribution to publications.
• Demonstrated ability to build and manage working relationships with clients, partners, and technical experts.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across sectors internally and externally with industry leaders and partners.
• Willingness to travel and work abroad a minimum of 4-8 weeks per year; experience working on technical programs in developing countries preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and supervise department staff, multiple project teams, remote staff and other initiatives.
• Ability to solve complex technical, managerial, or operational problems and evaluation options based on relevant information, resources, well-rounded experience, and knowledge.
• Strong knowledge of MS Office applications.
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Foreign language proficiency preferred.

The application deadline is 11:59PM (EST) on June 23, 2023. No telephone inquiries, please. Finalists will be contacted.

Chemonics is an Equal Opportunity Employer,
Chemonics is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, age, or other legally protected characteristics. Military veterans, AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, and other national service alumni are encouraged to apply.

Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision
Chemonics will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by Chemonics, or (c) consistent with Chemonics legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)

COVID-19 Recruitment Information
Chemonics International is continuously monitoring COVID-19 activity around the world. The health and wellbeing of our staff and potential candidates is of the utmost importance to us and we continue to offer virtual interviews for all on-going recruits. On-boarding for new staff is offered in hybrid format through our Washington, D.C. and London, UK offices to accommodate remote workers.

COVID-19 Vaccination Information
Chemonics requires all US employees to be fully vaccinated.

The Salary Range for this position is expected to be: $128,560 - $160,700.

An employee’s pay position will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, performance, shift, travel requirements, and business or organizational needs.

We offer comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, medical/dental/vision insurance, ESOP, 401(k), and other benefits to eligible to US based employees. Please visit https://chemonics.com/life-at-chemonics/our-benefits/ to find out more about the benefits this position is eligible for.

About the Organization

Founded in 1975, Chemonics is an international development consulting firm. In more than 70 countries around the globe, our network of 5,000 specialists share a simple belief: that the challenges we face today are best solved through the right partnerships — sharing knowledge, expertise, and experience to deliver results. As part of our culture and values, Chemonics is proud to be named a “Best Place to Work” in the Human Rights campaign Foundation’s 2021 Corporate Equality Index. Where Chemonics works, development works. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or visit us at www.chemonics.com.