United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Innovation Programme Manager - DEPP

Fixed term contract to December 2018 with possibility of extension

We are looking for an entrepreneurial, creative, and innovative leader who has extensive experience in catalysing, managing and implementing change to join us as Innovation Programme Manager – DEPP. You will be passionate about the potential of innovation for change, ready to work alongside some of the leading humanitarian sector innovators, social entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in the world.

The Start Network is a consortium of 39 leading NGOs working together to connect people in crises to the best possible solutions. In order to meet the needs of crisis-affected people in a future of great uncertainty and complexity, we believe that the humanitarian sector must change. The Start Network members collaborate because the change that is demanded cannot be achieved by any single organisation acting alone.

In this pivotal role, you will lead the Start Network’s Disaster and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) Innovation window, a two and a half year programme to set up and manage an ecosystem of innovation labs that will identify, scale-up and scale-out innovative improvements in disaster preparedness. The DEPP innovation programme will be delivered through a series of country-level innovation labs ensuring contextualised solutions in emergency settings to local problems. Taking overall responsibility for the successful delivery of the DEPP Innovation Programme by March 2018, you will:

• · Generate labs infrastructure design by thinking creatively about labs models, financial impacts, risks, experiments in order to successfully go to market


• Successfully deliver the lab consortia tendering process, applying equality of opportunity, humanitarian principles, and required donor tendering/procurement conditions.


• Oversee the delivery of a radical and ambitious monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) framework


• Collaborate effectively with country lab teams, consortia and governance structures


• Lead and line manage the DEPP Innovation team


• Engage with national and local crisis affected populations to ensure what is proposed constitutes genuine community-defined and led innovations


• Be an internal and external champion of innovation in the humanitarian sector.

To be successful you will have extensive experience in design, innovation and/or research and development in national and international contexts. You will have substantial experience in setting up and managing operational projects, especially in hard-to-reach areas or rapidly changing environments, such as disaster-prone countries. Passionate about the potential of innovation for change, you will also have:

• Substantive experience of leading and developing a team of senior and/or technical professionals


• Successful experience creating and implementing strategy, as well as engaging a variety of stakeholders to deliver against this strategy


• A track record of successful products/services design, testing and launch, feedback loops, preferably with or within the private sector


• An extensive understanding of innovative business models and innovation management


• Experience in partnership development and/or networks, with a track record of brokering and/or cultivating successful relationships


• Strong analytical and creative problem solving skills to tackle complex problems


• Strong presentation and writing skills, including project documentation and public communication.

Fluency in French, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi or Mandarin is desirable. Experience of working in: Kenya, Ethiopia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Jordan and Myanmar would be an advantage.

If you share our mission, are passionate about making it happen and strongly believe you can contribute then join us and we’ll give you every opportunity to succeed. We look forward to hearing from you.

Closing date: 21^st August 2016