Globaldev careers: The chief of party

Chief of party is not only one of the most senior positions on a project team but also one of the most intriguing and unusual job titles in the global development sector. It’s essentially a fancy word for a project director, said Mama Laryea, who is based in Ghana as FHI 360’s chief of party for USAID’s Partnership for Education: Learning. This role is responsible for overseeing a project, including operational, technical and financial activities, and ensuring deliverables are met. There is a lot of hiring in the sector for chief of party roles, Laryea said, since it's essential to almost any donor-funded project, but it can be very competitive. Organizations tend to look for professionals with previous experience in handling multimillion-dollar budgets and hundreds of staff. Laryea tells Devex which transferable skills helped her break into the sector and rise up the ranks, despite her not coming from a traditional global development background. “Delegation is key.” --— Mama Laryea, chief of party, USAID’s Partnership for Education: Learning This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What does your average day look like? Every day is different but [often] I'm in the field meeting stakeholders — education directors, school teachers, headteachers — and talking to them about progress of work, sharing results … and troubleshooting issues to help people continue delivering on the project. When I'm out and about I do a lot of engagements but on the days I'm in the office and behind my desk, that's a different ballgame. I'm having meetings, designing [activities] we are planning, [thinking what] are we doing next, what training sessions are we doing and who do we need to facilitate those? At [certain] times we are doing more contractual [tasks] — obligations to the funder [around] reporting and our financial reports — so it depends on the season. How did you end up in this particular role? [My path into global development] was not a traditional one. My master's was in management of education and learning, so my background is really in education [and then] I started in IT education. I worked in the U.K. for 11 years but I’m originally from Ghana and it got to a point that I wanted to come back to Ghana and contribute to development [here]. I applied for a job [as] an education officer with JICA where I was managing education programs. I really enjoyed it and that's when I started to learn about development. Then I saw this role that FHI advertised for a deputy chief of party. I applied but didn't get it … [because] I had never held that [type of] role before, however they could offer me a different role. That's how I started with FHI as a senior school community engagement advisor, and I worked my way up when they saw the skills that I brought. What are the biggest challenges as a chief of party and how do you overcome these? The biggest challenge is that you must work to find a win-win between all the key stakeholders — the funders, government partners, the staff that you're managing on the projects — and as the chief of the party I'm the nexus of all this. [It can be a] challenge balancing and trying to meet the needs of [the different stakeholders] but I overcome this [by] really engaging in a lot of discussions and facilitating conversations to get to the root of requests or issues raised. Then you can start to think of bringing the others around the table to see how we could potentially accomplish or achieve the same results by using different modalities. It's not [a case of] this way or the highway but about balance ... to keep all the key stakeholders satisfied and to find a win-win for all. What skill sets have you found have been most valuable and have helped you progress in your career? I think delegation is key. [The current education project] is a major seven-year project and I am managing about 40 or so people so I cannot do everything by myself. But I have key people that are responsible [for different functions such as] monitoring, evaluation ... reading design ... management and operations. I'm checking with [these staff] on a one-on-one basis and [asking] what can I do to help ensure progress. I work through others essentially… and I'm not particularly interested in who gets the credit. My interest is that the work gets done and I'm quite happy to acknowledge the staff ... and empower them to act. Having good interpersonal skills [is important] as well ... and sector knowledge, so knowing how the education system works, how the partners work, how the funders work. “There's no prescribed path so I would say keep applying even when you feel like you're qualified for just 70% or 80% of the role.” --— What are the best and also worst parts of the job for you? The best part is being in the field, meeting stakeholders and walking into a classroom where they have lessons. The USAID partnership is about helping pupils to improve their reading skills and we've trained teachers, distributed books, given tablets [to supervisors for monitoring purposes] ... so when I walk into a classroom and [see] that our approach [is] being implemented, teachers following the modality as trained and pupils reading … it’s a joy to behold. When you have been in the office or in your conference room brainstorming ideas and then when you walk into an actual classroom and you see it come to life, I get goosebumps and that's the best part. I also enjoy presenting and taking the meetings [for] stakeholder engagement. The worst part for me is the administrative part. Being the chief of party means everything stops at your door, from rental agreements to car servicing, making payment for vendors, reviewing contracts ... everything comes to you. [This work] has to be done though because it's part of the machinery that keeps the operations going and if your cars, for example, are broken down then you can't go to the field. Is there any particular career highlight that stands out for you? There’s many but this year with COVID, we had to switch from classroom learning to radio [because of the school closures] and for that we had to actually record the lessons and broadcast them in a very short time. But within three weeks, we mounted a national radio program … and during COVID we've also distributed about 3.3 million worksheets [for pupils to work through the radio lesson]. Before COVID, we printed and distributed about 3.1 million teaching and learning materials and trained about 51,000 teachers and headteachers. It was found that our program increased reading skills and ability in Ghanaian schools 10 times ... The impact of our work has been far-reaching … and I think that's one of the things that keeps me and the rest of the team motivated. What advice would you have for other professionals who, like you, don't come from a traditional global development background but are interested in breaking into the sector? There's no prescribed path so I would say keep applying even when you feel like you're qualified for just 70% or 80% of the role. Then when you walk into the interview, you need to make the connection between what you're doing and how you're going to use what you know already to do what is ahead of you. Make visible what you have achieved and try to imagine [yourself as] chief of staff and what would you do and how [you would] take charge of the situation. Update, Jan. 19, 2021: This article has been updated to reflect the timing of projects and the number of teachers trained.