Senior Advisor, Market Systems Development (P4)

Save the Children

For over 100 years, Save the Children has been fighting for the rights of children. The right to a healthy start in life. To have access to education. To be in a safe environment, protected from harm. We work in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach places – over 100 countries, including the U.S. No matter what your role is, when you join Save the Children, you’re creating positive, irreversible change for children, and the future we all share.

The Role

Save the Children’s global leadership in food security, climate adaptation and integrated youth development contributes to households and communities vulnerable to hunger and shocks building resilient, inclusive and transformative livelihoods and wellbeing. The Department of Hunger and Livelihoods at Save the Children US leads these efforts working with US based donors to implement programs and drive thought leadership to improve program quality and effectiveness. We prioritize sustainable development outcomes and ensure that our food security and resilience programs are designed to take a systems approach integrating market systems development principals even in the most risk prone environments working with highly vulnerable populations.

As the Senior Advisor, Market Systems Development (MSD), you’ll be integral to our work in helping vulnerable children achieve a brighter future. Working within the Department of Hunger and Livelihoods (DHL), the Senior Advisor, MSD will play an important role in leading and contributing to the growth and technical quality of Save the Children US’s (SCUS) livelihoods and food security global portfolio, particularly as it relates to integrating MSD principals and engaging with private sector actors effectively and with impact.  As a senior member of SCUS FSL team, you will play a role in developing, implementing, and representing DHL’s strategy, identifying opportunities and developing proposals to increase resilience and build economic security of vulnerable households in some of the most food insecure and complex environments. You will engage actively in new business development efforts and improve the quality and impact of livelihoods programs by providing technical assistance and building capacity within Country Offices (COs), creating or updating tools and providing training as required. The position will also play an important role in documenting SCUS’s food security and livelihoods technical capacities and achievements, contributing to thought leadership and representing SCUS in internal and external fora.

Location

On site - Washington DC, Fairfield, CT or Lexington, KY office locations

What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

*not inclusive of all role responsibilities. May be subject to change

Technical Support (30%)

• Stay abreast of technical developments in relevant communities of practice, disseminating information to team members as needed.
• Provide technical support to ongoing programs as assigned.
• Design and deliver trainings to program team members.
• Produce technical guidelines and tools as required to facilitate technically sound implementation.
• Provide direction and support to the design, testing, and evaluation of innovations to advance programming.

Resource Mobilization (40%)

• Serve as the technical lead or MSD specialist as appropriate on Resilience, food security and economic growth proposals, including but not limited to capture planning, positioning, information gathering, partnership brokering, program design facilitation and decision-making and technical writing.
• For interdisciplinary programs, coordinate with other thematic departments – as well as external partners – to fashion a coherent, high-impact integrated approach.
• Support CO team members in analyzing information and formulating effective technical strategies, integrating best practices and, where appropriate, innovations.
• Conduct training and orientation for program design team members to ensure that all relevant information is on hand to inform a sound design process.
• Travel to the field to participate in design workshops, assessments, team writing assignments, and other proposal processes.
• Participate in proposal after action reviews, ensuring that lessons learned are incorporated into subsequent efforts.
• Develop and sustain technical relationships with donors (with a particular emphasis on USAID/BHA, USAID/BRFS, USDA, Corporate partners and academic institutions.

Knowledge Management and Learning (20%)

• Lead or participate in the design of learning studies and the documentation and presentation of the same.
• Contribute to an evidence base for effective food security and livelihoods implementation modalities.
• Lead or participate in maintaining updated capacity statements, program descriptions, or other documentation useful in articulating food security and livelihoods approaches and achievements.
• Ensure that technical tools and materials are filed in a shareable manner according to DHL knowledge management protocols.

Advocacy and External Representation (10%)

• Participate in the development of resilience and economic development related policy and advocacy positions and support their dissemination.
• Represent DHL on technical and coordination working groups in an area of expertise.

Required qualifications for the role

• Minimum of a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, plus at least 7 years of relevant experience 
• Demonstrated technical depth and understanding of resilience and food security concepts and analysis
• In depth technical expertise in Inclusive market systems development and private sector engagement particularly in relation to working within food systems in developing economies
• Proven familiarity and success with USAID/Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, USDA Food For Progress and/or USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (Resilience Integrated Food Security Activities) programs
• Proposal development experience, including experience leading the technical aspects of complex, large proposal efforts
• Willingness and ability to travel internationally up to 30% time
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite 
• Professional proficiency in spoken and written English

Preferred qualifications for the role

• Experience with USAID contracts
• Bi-lingual with French or Spanish language skills
• Understanding of Monitoring Learning and Evaluation practices particularly relevant to market systems

Compensation

Save the Children is offering the following salary ranges for this position, dependent on candidate location:

• Geo 1 - NY Metro, DC, and other locations with labor costs significantly above national average: Target Salary for this position is $108,800 – $121,600 base salary  
• Geo 2 - Locations around the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $98,600 – $110,200 base salary  
• Geo 3 - Locations significantly below the US National Labor Cost Average: Target Salary for this position is $88,400 – $98,800 base salary  

The salary ranges listed above are for US based candidates. For candidates located outside of the US, salary ranges will be based on the salary scales of the local employer of record. Actual base salary may vary based on, but not limited to, relevant experience, base salary of internal peers, business sector, and geographic location (more information on job structure is available here).

About Us

We are looking to build a diverse, equitable and inclusive team at Save the Children. We offer a range of outstanding benefits to support this goal:

• Flexible schedules and time off: Flexible schedules, generous PTO, 11 paid holidays plus 2 floating holidays and hybrid working opportunities
• Health: Competitive health care, dental and vision coverage for you and your family
• Family: A variety of paid leaves: caregiver, parental/adoption, critical child illness and fertility benefits
• Employee Rewards Program: Annual merit increases and/or additional incentives for eligible employees
• Retirement: A retirement savings plan with employer contributions (after one year)
• Wellness: 15 safety and wellness days annually (if hired on or after July 1, safety and wellness days prorated to 8 days), mental health benefits and support through Calm and company-hosted events
• Employee Assistance Program: free and confidential assessments, short-term counseling, referrals, and follow-up services
• Learning & Growth: Access to internal and external learning & development opportunities and mentorships

Click here to learn more about how Save the Children US will invest in you.

Save the Children is committed to conducting its programs and operations in a manner that is safe for the children it serves and helping protect the children with whom we are in contact. All Save the Children representatives are explicitly prohibited from engaging in any activity that may result in any kind of child abuse.

Save the Children is committed to minimizing safety and security risks for our valued employees, ensuring all are given training, support and information to reduce their risk exposure while maximizing the impact of our programs for children and families. Our shared duty, both agency and individual, is to seek and maintain safe working conditions for all.

If you require disability assistance with the application or recruitment process, please submit a request to applicantsupport@savechildren.org.

Salary : $88,400 - $98,800