Senior Program Manager - ROHA (Rapid Response Outreach & Humanitarian Action)

ABOUT VILLAGEREACH

VillageReach transforms health care delivery to reach everyone. We are driven by a vision of a world where each person has the health care needed to thrive. VillageReach’s goal is to reduce inequities in access to quality primary health care for 350 million people by 2030. We work with governments, the private sector, partners and communities to build responsive primary health care systems that deliver health products, information and services to the most under-reached. As a locally driven and globally connected organization, VillageReach has offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and the United States.

Summary

VillageReach is seeking an experienced Senior Program Manager to lead the implementation of the ROHA (Rapid Response Outreach & Humanitarian Action) program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The program covers the humanitarian provinces of the east — Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema, and Tanganyika — together with the Next Generation of Supply Chain (NGCA) provinces of Haut Lomami and Lualaba. The Senior Program Manager will plan, coordinate, and supervise VillageReach’s rapid-response and humanitarian action teams, ensure the technical quality of the response, strengthen the capacity of the provincial and community actors, and ensure integration with VillageReach’s other programs in the DRC. The role requires demonstrated experience managing multi-provincial humanitarian programs in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Description

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned at any time based on program needs and the evolving humanitarian context.

Program Management and Delivery (40%)

• Lead the strategic planning, execution and oversight of the ROHA program across the selected provinces, translating award objectives into costed provincial workplans and delivering agreed results on time and to standard.

• Manage grant milestones, ensuring timely and quality execution of all deliverables

• Supervise and coach the ROHA teams based in the provinces (Technical assistants and provincial coordinators).

• Strengthen the capacity of the provincial and community actors in rapid response, epidemiological surveillance and the delivery of health services in emergency settings.

• Oversee the ROHA supply chain: pre-positioning, transport, distribution and tracking of vaccination inputs, nutrition products and equipment.

Technical Quality, MEAL & Capacity Strengthening (15%)

• With support of the M&E Team, ensure the quality of MEAL (process, output and outcome indicators), gender- and age-disaggregated data collection, and documentation of humanitarian lessons learned and good practices.

• Monitor the evolution of the security/humanitarian context, population movements and outbreaks in the area of intervention; identify constraints, risks and opportunities, and propose mitigation and program-adjustment strategies.

• Use data and analysis for adaptive management, including evidence-based adjustments to provincial workplans each quarter.

Coordination, Representation & Partnerships (15%)

• Actively participate in humanitarian coordination meetings (Health Cluster, Sub-Cluster, OCHA meetings, donor fora) and in dialogue structures with the Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Prevention (MSPHPS).

• Represent VillageReach in technical and advocacy bodies linked to the humanitarian response in the DRC and contribute to the visibility of the organization.

Award Management: Governance and compliance ownership (30%):

Own governance and compliance across the program, ensuring delivery of results, budget compliance, and adherence to VillageReach policies, processes, and donor award requirements—including that activities, expenditure, and procurement in all selected provinces align to approved budgets and award conditions, and that evidence for reporting and audit is generated at source.

· Reporting: Produce monthly, quarterly, and annual reports (internal and donor-facing), ensuring that every donor-facing report is validated by global Grants & Contracts, the Director of Programs and the Director of Finance and Operations before submission and contribute to accountability to affected populations (AAP) exercises, including feedback mechanisms.

· Relationship Management: Develop and maintain strategic partnerships with the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI, PEV), the Health, Nutrition and Protection Clusters, UN agencies (WHO, UNICEF, OCHA, UNHCR), international NGOs, and provincial and national authorities and programs.

· Designation and accountability: The responsibilities in this section apply in full to the postholder, whether they are held as the designated Award Manager for the awards funding the ROHA program or as Award Delegate, as assigned by the Director of Programs. Retain accountability for the proper execution of each award, including where responsibility for specific cost centers or workstreams is formally delegated to Activity Budget Delegates, and escalate to the Senior Management Team for approval any significant change to staffing, budgets, or workplans that requires negotiation with donors, government, or partners.

· Financial oversight and sub-recipient management: Oversee award budgets across the selected provinces, including expense approvals within delegated thresholds, reforecasting as required and final review of expenses, in accordance with the RACI per Award. Manage consultant contracts and subawards, ensuring that partner due diligence, monitoring and supporting documentation meet VillageReach and donor requirements. Monthly review of budgets and reforecasting.

· Award close-out: Hold accountability for the timely and complete close-out of each ROHA award, developing and tracking a close-out plan with timelines, roles and defined outputs covering final programmatic and MEAL activities, asset transfer, closure of service-provider and deployment contracts, final financial and donor reporting, lessons learned, and communication with communities, government and partners. Escalate any challenges to the Senior Management Team.

· Award records and documentation: Maintain all award records, deliverables and program documentation on SharePoint in accordance with the DRC filing key, and document all donor discussions through agreed minutes or a written summary shared with the donor for non-objection, notifying the Senior Management Team, the program team and Grants & Contracts.

· Business Development: Lead, as designated by the Director of Programs, the development of fundraising proposals for humanitarian funding in close collaboration with the resource-mobilization team.

Other:

Perform any other task assigned by the line management in connection with VillageReach’s humanitarian mission.

Competencies:

VillageReach has ten (10) Organizational Competencies that describe how we work together and get things done that are grouped into three strategic areas of Achieving Great Results, Setting Direction and, Bringing Others With you. For a full description, please download our Organizational Competency document.

Achieving Great Results:

1. Risk Taking and Innovation

· Key Behaviors: Comfort with ambiguity, curiosity, adaptability, unconstrained and undeterred creativity, resourcefulness.

2. Business Judgement

· Key Behaviors: Getting to root causes, understanding environment, navigating complexity and ambiguity, entrepreneurial energy.

3. Building Strong Teams

· Key Behaviors: Trust in Subject Matter Experts (SME’s); radical candor to resolve conflict, hold each other accountable as colleagues, focused on results, commitment to mission.

Setting Direction:

4. Compelling Communication

· Key Behaviors: Clear and evidence-based communication, audience adaptability, curious listener.

5. Resilient Self Leadership

· Key Behaviors: Self-aware, plan how one shows up, emotionally intelligent, use one’s own agency and takes accountability.

6. Stewardship and Personal Alignment

· Key Behaviors: Take ownership, display ethical conduct, effective at resource management, alignment of personal objectives with organizational goals and mission, focus on continuous improvement and sustainability.

Bringing Others with You:

7. Influencing Leadership

· Key Behaviors: Cultivate trust, influences to make change, navigate the matrix structure.

8. Radical Partnership

· Key Behaviors: Share information and credit, address conflict, increase impact through collaboration, political and contextual awareness.

9. Cultivates a Growth Mindset

· Key Behaviors: Seek out diverse input, demonstrate flexibility in thinking and curiosity, embrace challenges, demonstrate persistence, seek learning opportunities.

10. Cultural Intelligence and Inclusion

· Key Behaviors: Continuous learning and ally-ship across cultural lines, challenge prejudice and bias, modeled in one’s own behavior.

Requirements

REQUIREMENTS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

This position directly supervises the ROHA provincial Technical Assistants; the incumbent reports to the Director of Programs.

Education & Experience:

· Master’s degree in public health, business administration, international development, or related field,

· A minimum of 10 years of experience in the immunization field and public health, including at least 3 years in humanitarian emergency contexts in fragile environments—ideally in the DRC or the Great Lakes region.

· Experience managing complex projects (including budgets), coordinating with global and local stakeholders, and working in a matrixed organization.

· Experience working with the DRC Ministry of Health and a thorough understanding of DRC health challenges

· Superb writing skills and the ability to assemble, distill, and analyze information for decision-making and presentations.

· Confirmed extensive and solid knowledge of managing health programs in emergencies (outbreaks, displacement, conflict)

Other Qualifications:

· Excellent command of French (spoken and written) and strong working knowledge of English (spoken and written)

· Established cultural competency in partnering with racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse groups, including displaced populations and host communities in the DRC.

· Strong program-management skills and multi-donor humanitarian coordination experience, ideally with BHA, ECHO, OCHA-CBPF, CERF, Gavi or USAID funding.

· Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel) and comfortable in a fast-paced, multi-tasking technical environment.

· Excellent interpersonal communication skills, particularly in the transfer of knowledge and skills to public health workers at the provincial and community levels.

· Strong skills in planning, analysis, monitoring, and evaluation of multi-provincial humanitarian programs.

· Demonstrated experience using data and analysis for adaptive management in evolving contexts.

· Demonstrated ability to write complex reports for institutional donors (BHA, ECHO, Gavi, private foundations).

· Confirmed experience in humanitarian MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning).

· Willingness to travel frequently to the intervention provinces, including volatile-security areas, while respecting VillageReach’s security protocols.

· Knowledge and experience in the logistics of emergency health products (IEHK kits, EPI/PRO kits, nutrition inputs) and in security-related delivery constraints.

Environment and Physical Demands:

VillageReach employees typically work in a shared, open environment with task and conference rooms accessible to employees for privacy and meetings. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet. Due to the time zone differences across our USA, Kenya, Country Offices, and location of other global staff, we have established core collaboration hours between 6 am Pacific Time and 18:00 South Africa Time (GMT+1) Monday through Thursday. All staff, regardless of location are expected to be available between these hours. During Daylight Savings Time, this allows for 12 hours per week (3 hours/day) of collaboration time and during Standard Time, 8 hours (2 hours/day). We do not hold cross-office meetings on Friday.

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY & INCLUSION:

VillageReach is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer committed to workforce diversity. We believe that diverse, equitably weighted perspectives foster an organizational capacity to create novel solutions that improve health in the most under-reached and hard-to-reach areas. To align our values, innovations, and impact, VillageReach is committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse global workforce.

APPLICATION INFORMATION:

This is an immediate hire and therefore resumes will be reviewed on a rolling basis. To apply, please submit your resume and a cover letter plus any other desired materials to our online portal: . In your cover letter, please address (1) Why you are interested in this position, (2) What is one reason you think you’d be a good fit for this position and, (3) What is one strength you would bring to this position?

Hiring Process:

The hiring process will include the following steps:

1. Review submitted applications

2. Conduct 20-30 minute screening interviews for shortlisted candidates

3. Conduct skills and value-based interviews for 3-5 candidates.

4. Request that top candidates submit a practical assessment (designed to take no more than two hours to complete). Sometimes the assignment will occur before the interview.

5. Conduct final interview if necessary

6. Request references

7. Make offer

8. Conduct background check

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted, but candidates who proceed to step 2 will be notified if they are not chosen for step 3.

Safeguarding:

VillageReach is committed to promoting the welfare of children, young people, adults, and beneficiaries with whom it engages. We expect everyone working with us to share this commitment through our code of conduct.All offers of employment will be subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks, which may include criminal records. VillageReach participates in the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and, in line with this Scheme, we will request information from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By applying, the job applicant confirms his/her understanding of these recruitment procedures.

Benefits

Compensation & Benefits:

VillageReach has an established compensation structure that is based on the relevant market and internally transparent. We hire people into the established range based on one’s experience and education and considering internal equity. We do not inquire about salary history. Please refer to our compensation overview on our website for more information and for more information on employee benefits.