Chief of Party (COP)

Position Description

EnCompass LLC seeks Chief of Party (COP) candidates for an anticipated five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Accelerating the U.S.-India Partnership Platform (APP) Activity to be based in New Delhi, India.

The APP Activity will support USAID/India staff and stakeholders to be more efficient, effective, transparent and skilled in achieving planned development outcomes by providing design, monitoring, evaluation, assessment, and learning, and organizational development services as well as integrating collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) throughout the design and implementation of USAID/India’s activities.

In addition to providing overall leadership, management, and technical direction, the COP will have experience working in international development, performance management, organizational development, strategic decision-making, quality control, and project learning, preferably in the USAID context and CLA practices.

The COP will bring experience facilitating learning and building relationships with a variety of project stakeholders, including USAID, Government of India, academic institutions, private sector organizations, and civil society organizations. The COP will have high political acumen and strong leadership and management skills, with experience leading multi-cultural teams and a variety of work streams simultaneously. They must be an inclusive leader, who can navigate change with flexibility and emotional resilience. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated experience achieving results, with strong strategic vision and an understanding of systems approaches to programming. They will understand how to foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning and will maintain high self-awareness and personal improvement skills.

The position will be full-time and based in New Delhi, with travel throughout the country.

Position Duties and Responsibilities

The COP will lead the activity, providing technical guidance to and supervising both project staff and consultants. The COP will be the primary point of contact with USAID staff, including the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer’s Representation (CO/COR).

Administration/Management:

• Serve as the main point of contact for the activity, providing vision, direction, leadership, and management for the contract
• Establish and maintain highly collaborative working relationships as chief liaison with USAID Mission staff, USAID implementing partners, and key local stakeholders including research organizations, government entities, and private sector actors
• Ensure timely and cost-effective delivery of high quality, demand-driven MEL technical assistance and activities are undertaken in full compliance with EnCompass’ standard operating procedures, USAID policies and regulations, and national policies and laws
• Facilitate the development of quarterly and annual activity work plans and budgets, development of program strategies and MEL plans, and ensure the timely submission and quality of all activity reports, materials, and publications, compliant with the contract agreement
• Manage, train, and mentor project staff to ensure seamless coordination among activity components, and an internal culture of technical excellence and learning
• Manage, and ensure quality control of deliverables produced by subcontractors and external consultants
• Ensure documentation and dissemination of findings, impact, innovations, and lessons learned
• Ensure optimal use of human, financial, and physical resources to successfully meet project milestones, objectives, deliverables and targets

Technical:

• Lead the delivery of adaptive management and CLA services for clients and stakeholders and model adaptive management within the project.
• Provide technical, operational, and managerial oversight to all aspects of the APP activity to ensure all tasks, and deliverables are executed with quality and timeliness
• Oversee design, development, and implementation of MEL and CLA activities, including development of evaluation tools, data collection and management, report generation, knowledge sharing, and training and capacity building activities
• Promote sustainability of project activities with effective networking, linkages to other programs, capacity building of project staff, and institutional strengthening

Position Requirements

Qualifications

• A Master’s Degree and 10 years’ experience in a social science, economics, business administration, development studies, international relations, public administration or a related field
• Minimum of ten (10) years of progressively increasing responsibility managing large comprehensive monitoring, evaluation and learning contracts of similar nature, size and complexity, preferably for USAID or other donors.
• Experience in India or the region, highly preferred.  

Experience and Skills

• Significant experience with USAID monitoring and evaluation policy and guidance required, including CLA practices.
• Experience managing complex relationships with a variety of stakeholders and ability to work with host-country governments at different levels required
• Excellent communication, both verbal and written English skills required
• Demonstrated experience in performance monitoring, strategic planning, project design and implementation, evaluation, tracking data quality, data management, and/or training in performance management topics.

• Prior experience as a chief of party, or project director leading complex USAID-funded projects, as well as managing sizeable USG-funded contracts and budgets strongly preferred.
• Significant experience building MEL capacities of USAID staff, implementing partners, and government counterparts highly preferred
• Familiarity with USAID/India Mission highly preferred