Director
Transparency and Accountability Initiative
Open Society Foundation–London
Application Deadline: January 2, 2012
The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, the Open Society Foundations implement a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, we build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. The Foundations place a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.
Investor and philanthropist George Soros established the Open Society Foundations, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. Our activities have grown to encompass the United States and more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Each foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.
The Transparency and Accountability field is one of the fastest growing public movements of recent years. The International Budget Partnership, Transparency International, Revenue Watch Institute, Global Witness, the nascent aid transparency movement and many other leading civil society organisations have laid the groundwork. There is now a huge potential to make ambitious, concrete gains in the next decade by bringing together the different strands of what has emerged as a thriving movement of transparency and accountability initiatives worldwide.
The Transparency and Accountability Initiative is a donor collaborative of the largest private and public funders of civil society efforts to promote transparent and accountable government globally. The collaborative is action orientated and operational. It aims to seize the current momentum for open government and expand the impact and scale of efforts worldwide by identifying and building on opportunities for collective action by T/AI members.
T/AI brings together like-minded donors around policy priorities identified as turning points in the transparency and accountability movement, enables foundations to support policy innovations within other donors and encourages funders and practitioners to learn from their successes and failures to generate greater impact at scale.
T/AI’s focus is on scale and results-driven impact in three areas or workstreams: (1) shaping policy and programming in key transparency and accountability fields (with a focus on the open government partnership, natural resource governance, budget transparency and climate change T/A); (2) harnessing the potential of web and mobile technologies throughout the transparency and accountability movement; (3) drive learning on where, when and how initiatives succeed or fail to inform more effective interventions. Please see the T/AI website for more details.
T/AI’s audience are civil society organisations that are driving innovations in the T/A field and the donors committed to supporting these efforts. The Initiative was created by a group of global, private and government funders committed to strengthening democracy and development through empowering people to hold their governing institutions to
account: Ford Foundation, Hivos, International Budget Partnership, Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations, Revenue Watch Institute, United Kingdom Department for International Development and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It is co-chaired by OSF and DFID.
The T/AI steering committee is composed of directors of all member funders and is responsible for overseeing the growth and strategic direction of the initiative. Steering committee members take an active role in T/AI and are directly engaged in a number of working groups, each overseeing T/AI workstreams. T/AI benefits from in-kind support from its members. The program director leads all three T/AI workstreams in consultation and collaboration with the T/AI steering committee.
We are seeking to recruit an exceptional candidate with a proven ability to lead teams, interact with high-level stakeholders, and deliver results. You will possess exceptional interpersonal skills, especially communications and relationship management. An ability to work independently and perform as a self-starter who can take initiative with minimal supervision is essential, as is an ability to work under pressure and on a range of tasks and meeting deadlines
Responsibilities
- Maintain an overall strategic narrative and results-oriented focus of the Initiative
- Identify strategic opportunities to advance T/AI’s work and vision among partners, external players and/or events;
- Implement the T/AI’s work plan (to July 2013) and further develop and refine T/AI’s targets and goals as these opportunities arise
- Liaise with members to determine direction of potential follow-on workplan (post July 2013)
- Manage T/AI staff (currently 1 program officer and 1 program associate) and recruit an additional program officer and staff as required
- Manage consultants as needed (in support of research, worstream activities, events etc.)
- Lead the development of the T/AI Working Groups, providing support, specific management and/or leadership to help them deliver their programmes and to ensure that they are meeting their stated targets and goals
- Manage the communications of the T/AI to increase visibility of the field and to educate partners about new issues, trends and activity
- Manage transition to new institutional hosting arrangements
- Develop additional funder/partner interest, specifically to engage with the initiative when new funding opportunities are surfaced as a result of research and further idea development
Qualifications
- Masters degree or equivalent in Economics, Development Studies, International Relations, Human Rights, or any other related field
- Extensive experience leading results-focused teams and projects in the public or private sector
- Exceptional interpersonal skills, especially communications and relationship management, and ability to interact with high-level stakeholders
- Ability to work independently and perform as a self-starter who can take initiative with minimal supervision
- Ability to work under pressure, on a range of tasks and meeting deadlines, and to balance competing priorities
- Relevant experience in the transparency and accountability field, and, preferably, government and foundation funding communities
Start Date & Duration
March 2012. The successful candidate will be offered a fixed term contract until July 2013 with the expectation of extension.
Location
London, New York or Washington
Compensation
£62,000 - £70,000 per annum. Excellent benefits package.
To Apply
Please email resume, cover letter and writing sample before Monday January 2, 2012, to: recruitment-EE@osf-eu.org. Include job code in subject line: TAID
No phone calls, please. The Open Society Foundations/Transparency and Accountability Initiative are an Equal Opportunity Employer.
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