Awards, Partnerships & Project Management Lead

International Rescue Committee

Reporting to the Regional Project Director, the Awards, Partnerships & Project Management Lead is responsible for the operational backbone of the regional ECD portfolio. This encompasses the full lifecycle management of regional awards, the development and management of strategic partnerships, financial oversight, and project management. The role plays a critical part in ensuring smooth coordination and communication across IRC teams, partners, and donors at country, regional, and global levels, and contributes to business development efforts to sustain and grow the portfolio. The role directly manages an Awards & Project Manager and a Finance Coordinator, and may manage additional staff as the portfolio grows.

Major Responsibilities

Business Development

• Contribute to business development efforts to sustain and expand the portfolio, maintaining an active understanding of the public and private ECD funding landscape and flagging relevant opportunities to the Project Director in collaboration with the Regional Head of Business Development, Senior Support Manager for Private Partnerships, and Regional Technical Leads.
• Once funding opportunities are identified, lead the pre-award development process including Go/No-Go assessments, proposal design and coordination, budget development in close collaboration with the Finance Coordinator, and coordination of inputs from relevant internal and external stakeholders.
• Support regional and country teams with donor engagement.
• Ensure that lessons learned, program evidence, and portfolio data are systematically documented and readily available to strengthen future proposals and donor positioning.

Award Management & Compliance

• Oversee all award management aspects across the portfolio, providing direction and oversight to the Awards and Project Manager.
• Lead post-award activities across the portfolio through IRC's Project Cycle Management (PCM) process, including project set-up, facilitating regular PCM meetings, monitoring program and financial progress against targets through effective budget vs. actuals (BvA) review routines, maintaining award tracking systems, and coordinating internal and external reporting.
• Own the portfolio's donor compliance environment by maintaining a thorough working knowledge of applicable donor rules and regulations across all awards, developing and managing a compliance tracker that captures key requirements, deadlines, restrictions, and risk areas, and ensuring compliance requirements are consistently understood and applied by relevant team members and partners.
• Proactively raise potential compliance issues to relevant teams and keep the Project Director informed of any projected inabilities to meet contractual obligations.
• Coordinate with IRC country, regional, and global awards management, finance, and partnerships focal points to ensure timely and quality reporting, prompt resolution of compliance questions, and consistent adherence to IRC and donor requirements across the portfolio.
• Ensure the team maintains accurate and complete award management files and systems, with documentation systematically organized and accessible to relevant stakeholders.

Financial Management

• Oversee all financial management functions across the portfolio, including budgeting, financial reporting, and accounting coordination, providing direction and oversight to the Finance Coordinator.
• Ensure internal and external budgets, spending plans, and financial reports are accurate, up to date, and reviewed by relevant regional and global finance teams in a timely manner.
• Review budget vs. actuals with the Finance Coordinator and relevant team members, flag variances to the Project Director, and ensure corrective actions are tracked and followed up.
• Oversee annual budget planning processes and the review of monthly and quarterly spending reports and spending plans across the portfolio.
• Ensure sub-award financial management processes for regional partners are efficient, compliant, and clearly documented with support from the Finance Coordinator.

Partnership Management

Requirements:

• At least 7 years of experience in program administration, business development, awards, partnerships and financial management, and project management at an NGO
• Knowledge and expertise in the use of project management methodologies and tools, resource management practices and change management techniques
• Self-directed, able to independently set priorities and solve problems with minimal guidance
• Excellent interpersonal and oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to successfully work in a fast-paced environment, within and across departments/functions and develop positive relationships with locally and remote based staff
• Experience working in conflict and crisis settings and knowledge of humanitarian programming
• Ability to prioritize trade-offs between on-time, on-scope or on-budget project delivery
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex project budgeting, monitoring and mitigation planning
• Knowledge of early childhood development or education is a plus
• Knowledge of the Middle East regional context, with experience working in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria or Palestine strongly preferred
• Fluent in written and oral English and Arabic