Deputy director, supply chain business development and program delivery

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

Job Overview

The Deputy Director, Supply Chain Business Development and Program Delivery is a senior global role responsible for making IRC's supply chains fit for scale across its most ambitious health and humanitarian programming commitments. The role is designed to translate strategic program targets into operational supply chain solutions that work at country level and ensuring country realities shape global supply chain strategy in return.

The role has three integrated areas of responsibility.

• It serves as a primary GSC lead and contributor to business development: identifying, designing, and positioning supply chain funding opportunities with institutional and non-traditional donors, and leading supply chain sections of competitive proposals.
• It provides support across IRC's Impact at Scale (I@S) thematic supply chains, driving end-to-end performance from demand planning and forecasting through sourcing, pre-positioning, and last-mile delivery.
• It builds country and regional capacity to sustain health supply chain improvements over time, providing direct technical support, deploying to high-priority contexts, and harmonizing tools and SOPs across country programs in collaboration with Regional Supply Chain Directors (RSCDs) and other relevant Global Supply Chain (GSC) units and IRC stakeholder departments.

Reporting to the Director of Emergency and Health Supply Chain, the Deputy Director works in close collaboration with the Health Technical Unit, Global Procurement, Regional Supply Chain Directors, Country Programs, IT, Finance, and external partners including UNICEF, WHO, ECHO, and peer INGOs.

Key Responsibilities

1. Leadership for Program Delivery

The Deputy Director plays an active role in GSC’s business development (BD) function. Supply chain is an increasingly fundable programming area, with institutional donors such as ECHO, SIDA, Gates and non-traditional donors explicitly framing requirements around operational efficiency, commodity management, and supply chain innovation. Additionally, private and corporate donors have expressed specific interest in funding the optimization of health and emergency supply chains.

• Act as the primary GSC focal point within I@S agile working groups and cross-functional scaling teams, ensuring supply chain planning is embedded in program design from the outset and not treated as a downstream implementation task.
• Implement the strategic direction for cross-cutting supply chain enablers including pooled procurement, global pre-positioning frameworks, harmonized delivery models, and digital systems and oversee their development and rollout across priority country programs.
• Provide supply chain leadership and oversight for the addition of any new I@S Ready to Scale thematic areas, ensuring new commodities and delivery models are integrated into IRC's global supply chain architecture without creating fragmentation or duplication.
• Serve as GSC's coordinating focal point with the Research and Innovation Department, contributing to supply chain innovations including AI-enabled solutions.

2. Business Development & Resource Mobilization

Is responsible for operationalizing the BD strategy, assembling inputs to create compelling bids, gap filling in the BD process as needed/relevant, and driving ultimate bid success through correct donor intel and positioning, strong bid submission, and effective cross-functional collaboration.

• Flag, track and route relevant funding opportunities to GSC Leadership and work closely with internal stakeholders to plan for staff needs and business development capacity requirements to successfully write and budget for winning bids based on the pipeline.
• Lead or co-lead the technical design of supply chain sections for proposals where GSC has a primary role, including narrative writing, logical framework development, and supply chain costing.
• Collaborating with program and business development leads to embedding supply chain considerations into program design, with specific attention paid to Impact at Scale initiatives.
• Contribute to bid assessment, probability-of-winning analysis, and positioning strategy for supply chain funding opportunities with specific focus on I@S thematic areas.
• Develop and maintain GSC supply chain capability statements and value propositions relevant to I@S programming areas, for use in capture and proposal development.
• Participate in the BD review cycle for proposals with significant supply chain components, ensuring technical quality and alignment with IRC’s global supply chain strategy.
• Mobilize opportunities with non-traditional partners such as Airlink to improve program delivery and increase cost savings.
• Take the lead with External relations and other fundraising teams to enable increased use of GIK goods and services, enabling program delivery whilst making IRC more cost effective.
• Build and maintain donor intelligence on supply chain funding streams.
• Support pre-award activities including donor engagement, capture visits, and key personnel recruitment where relevant to I@S supply chain opportunities.
• Coordinate with Regional Supply Chain Directors and country programs to ensure country-level supply chain needs and evidence are reflected in proposals.
• Contribute to after-action reviews following award decisions to capture lessons and improve future supply chain BD submissions.
• Identify and evaluate opportunities for business development & partnerships with academic or research centers, with Research & Innovation colleagues as appropriate.

3. Implementation of Strategic Initiatives Supporting Impact @ Scale

Strengthening global forecasting and demand planning systems for key health commodities.

• Collaborate with Global Procurement to define sourcing strategies, monitor supplier performance, and ensure security of supply.
• Lead global visibility efforts by consolidating country-level data on demand, pipeline status, consumption, and stock risks. Collaborate with GSC Systems and Data to digitalize as many aspects of this as possible in a timely manner.
• Work with country teams to improve quantification, storage, distribution planning, and last-mile delivery.
• Translate I@S targets into actionable supply chain plans with milestones, KPIs, and risk controls.
• Design and support the rollout of cross-country improvements (e.g., pooled procurement feasibility, centralized pre-positioning, LMIS integration, preferred vendor strategies, emergency surge mechanisms, harmonized delivery models).
• Support the implementation of the supply chain I@S bodies of work.
• Escalate and advise GSC Leadership on global priorities, risks, and mitigation strategies impacting success of I@S activity plans.

4. Capacity Building, Country Support & Operational Strengthening

Provide specialized technical support to country supply chain and health teams.

• Strengthening country practices in forecasting, contingency planning, supplier management, and stock-out prevention.
• Support countries facing pipeline risks or operational bottlenecks; deploy to high-priority locations as needed.
• Promote best practices and harmonize tools, guidance, and SOPs across all countries, regions and departments.
• Train country and departmental staff as required. Develop e-training as funding permits.

5. Monitoring, KPIs, Reporting & Knowledge Management

Develop supply chain KPIs aligned to IRC’s LMIS, BD and I@S objectives.

• Produce timely reports on global health supply chain performance, risks, and mitigation actions.
• Document lessons learned and drive continuous improvement.
• Maintain updated knowledge of global markets, procurement trends, supplier landscapes, regulatory shifts, and donor funding priorities relevant to supply chain programming.

Qualifications

Education

Master's degree in public health, pharmacy, supply chain management, strategy development, international development, international relations, or relevant field or equivalent combination of education and work experience background is required or related field.

Work Experience

Experience in supply chain management in humanitarian settings, preferably with demonstrable experience in health supply chains, especially immunization, nutrition and sexual and reproductive health (SRH).

Proven experience in departmental or organizational strategy development in operations / supply chain in humanitarian organizations.

Expertise in forecasting, strategic sourcing, procurement, quality assurance, and distribution of health commodities including in the context of vaccine storage and distribution.

Experience in conducting assessments and evaluations of supply chain systems.

Experience engaging in business development processes, including writing and project design, proposal development, donor positioning, or capture for supply chain or health programming is strongly preferred.

Experience in developing and managing project concepts and funding proposals for humanitarian / development work with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action.

Strong capacity to understand the humanitarian system and operating context and coordinate the relevant technical inputs from within and outside GSC.

Familiarity with donor landscapes for supply chain programming (e.g., ECHO, SIDA, USAID, Gates) and ability to contribute to donor engagement and positioning.

Familiarity with managing large-scale, complex portfolio and experience using strategic insights and data from varied sources to support portfolio management, pivoting and alignment to organizational and sectoral goals.

Experience in building partnerships for development and humanitarian funding as well as negotiation of programmatic and financial contractual arrangements with donors and partners.

Experience and comfort interrogating partnership practices and familiarity with emerging developments including growing attention to power-shifting, localization and technical assistance models for INGOs.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Proficiency in data analysis, visualization tools (Power BI), and performance monitoring.

Excellent attention to detail and problem-solving skills and ability to analyses trends based on a diverse set of data and insights.

Digital supply chain literacy: familiarity with LMIS platforms, supply chain technology ecosystems, and data interoperability standards in humanitarian or low-resource settings. Experience with using AI-enabled solutions preferred.

Ability to identify fundable supply chain programming opportunities and experience in business development writing and proposal design.

Ability to translate operational supply chain experience into compelling proposal narratives and capability statements.

Demonstrated ability to work with stakeholders at multiple levels and influence decision making.

Knowledge of public and private fundraising - appetite and curiosity about building collaborative pathways with philanthropy and private sector.

Competencies

Strong project management and coordination skills.

Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, particularly in supply chain optimization.

Good organizational skills and ability to prioritize competing priorities effectively.

Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities; skills; ability to work cross-functionally and across cultures.

A sense of curiosity about how things can be done, and a willingness to get creative on solutioning.

Attention to detail and ability to identify and address potential risks proactively.

Commitment to ethical standards and accountability.

Key Relationships

Reports to: Director, Emergency & Health Supply Chain

Directly Supervises: N/A

Internal: Global Supply Chain, Health Technical Unit, IT, Regional Supply Chain Directors, Health Coordinators/teams and Supply Chain Coordinators/Teams; Pharmacists; GOAT BD Coordinator; GSC BD pipeline monitoring

External: Peer INGOs, UN agencies (UNICEF, WHO), institutional donors (ECHO, SIDA, Unitaid, USAID), implementing partners, HLGSC members

Additional Information

Frequent travel to program countries will be required up to 20%.

This position may involve collaboration with government agencies, international NGOs, private-sector partners, and institutional donors.

The role actively participates in IRC’s BD process, including pipeline monitoring, capture, and proposal development for supply chain funding opportunities.

Working Environment

Remote work / standard office (location dependent)

This is a remote position open to internal candidates based in countries where IRC operates who have the right to work in their location. Successful candidates will be hired on a local employment contract and according to local salary scale.

This role is open to candidates located and with the right to work in United Kingdom, Kenya, and Lebanon.

Compensation

(UK Pay Rate: £58,476-£69,440/yr). Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

Professional Standards

All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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