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Global Health Corps

Chief Operating Officer

About Global Health Corps

Global Health Corps is a leadership accelerator mobilising a powerful network of health equity changemakers, one thousand strong and growing. 

Global Health Corps believes that investing in leadership will bring real and sustainable progress in advancing health equity. To achieve its mission, Global Health Corps  holds itself accountable to a set of core values:

  • Shared integrity: We cultivate and nurture trust in ourselves and each other.
  • Inclusive collaboration: We embrace the power of our differences.
  • Sustainable resilience: We are intentional with our time and energy.
  • Continuous learning: We seek and foster experiences that allow us to grow.

Global Health Corps is committed to fostering a diverse, highly skilled, and tightly-networked community of leaders to work together to strengthen health systems. The organisation works hard to break down the traditional barriers that limit collaboration.

About the Role

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a strategic, nimble, systems thinker and executor. This newly created position oversees the people and operations functions of the organisation, is a key member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and serves as a trusted thought partner to the CEO.  

The COO has the necessary skills and mindset to thrive as a senior leader in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment. Driven by inquiry and learning, they are a strong people leader, team manager, and effective communicator. They strategise and execute individually and through levels to reach organisational goals and outcomes and ensure that GHC’s resources are effectively managed and strategically deployed.

Purpose of the Role

The COO effectively leads operations by working with staff from diverse teams and cultures spread across several countries and time zones. The COO is an adept convener of people and has the experience, emotional intelligence, and personal confidence to tap into the power that colleagues bring to the organisation. A deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion are vital to this role. 

While the COO must bring efficient and effective systems to increase organisational efficacy, is it also critical that the team retain the creative spark, collaboration and flexibility that drives the GHC concept.

The COO directly supervises the Director of People and Culture, Senior Director of Finance and Operations and Director of Legal and Compliance. They will also collaborate with the VP of Programs, Director of Community Impact and Country Leads (Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, USA) to ensure organisational alignment between program and operation functions. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership and Strategic Planning

  • Working in partnership with the CEO and Senior Leadership Team, develop the strategic three-year plan and ensure the people and operational priorities and plans to achieve it.
  • Oversee annual organisational goal setting, budgeting and headcount planning from development through successful execution and management in coordination with CEO, senior leadership and departmental leads. 
  • Provide strong day-to-day leadership presence and steward staff engagement and commitment to supporting GHC’s cultural priority of building a trusting, respectful, and inclusive environment across staff location, background, and identity.

People and Operations

Team Management
  • Process-oriented, collaborative and able to build, improve, and integrate processes across people and operations.
  • Build and develop relationships with all employees for increased efficiency and effective responsiveness into existing operations, and help to define new operational strategies, working with CEO and SLT on special projects.

People
  • Oversee strategies and priorities to realise GHC’s People Vision. 
  • Partner with People Team to support the headcount and succession planning aligned with financial resources and strategic planning.
  • Serve as a strategic communicator who champions continued investment and commitment of People priorities and ensures staff are informed, educated and engaged. 

Operations – Legal, Technology, Finance, HSS
  • Partner with the Director of Finance to develop a financial strategy for ongoing sustainability and monitor financial resources. 
  • Serve as Compliance Officer and partner with the Director of Legal & Compliance to oversee the continued identification, monitoring, and mitigation of organisational risk.  
  • Build, execute and manage organisational health safety and security protocols that are adaptable to the specific needs of each country of operation. 
  • Provide strategic guidance and support for fellow health safety and security.
  • Analyse the current technology infrastructure and scope out the next level of information technology and financial systems that support the growth of specific programs and the organisation overall.

Board
  • Engage with the board of directors to support organisational governance efforts and participate at quarterly board meetings. 
  • The COO is considered an Officer of the organisation. 

Skills and Experience

As a prerequisite, the successful candidate must believe in GHC’s core values and be driven by our mission. The candidate should demonstrate a passion for breaking new ground to lead social change. Beyond that, we are seeking a candidate that has proven experience in leading and building the capabilities of a driven, bright, and diverse team.

Additional qualifications are:

  • At least ten years of relevant work experience, including managing operations in a  multinational environment.
  • Experience scaling systems and solutions for a growth-stage organisation. 
  • Drawn to both strategise and execute; moreover, able to do so quickly and in a fast-paced, start-up environment.
  • Ability to effectively build organisation and staff capacity, developing a top-notch workforce and the processes that ensure the organisation runs smoothly.
  • Enjoys solving challenges and is able to act and react as necessary, even if limited information is available; calm and focused during times of challenge, crisis and complexity.
  • Thorough understanding of People and Operations; broad experience with the full range of business functions and systems, including HR strategy, organisation development and planning, budgeting, business analysis, finance, information systems, and legal.
  • Skilled at coaching, developing, and managing early-career and more seasoned professionals.
  • Successful in building & leveraging relationships across lines of differences and a range of cultures. 
  • Passionate about global health equity and committed to social justice.
  • Committed to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment.
  • Ability to travel internationally.
  • Invested in consistently operating as a steward of Global Health Corps’ mission and values.

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Experience living or working in sub-Saharan Africa is strongly preferred.
  • MBA or comparable master’s degree.
  • Management experience with a non-profit organisation.
  • Experience with budget management.
  • Strong project reporting skills, with a focus on interdepartmental communication.

Work Environment:

Hybrid. May be asked occasionally to work in an office.