The International Rescue Committee, one of the world’s largest humanitarian international NGOs, provides relief, rehabilitation and development support to vulnerable people and communities over 40 countries. We began work in Ethiopia in 2000 in response to severe drought in Ethiopia’s Somali region and are currently providing assistance to Ethiopians and refugees in six regions in Ethiopia, implementing emergency and development programs in health, water and sanitation, economic recovery and development (ERD), women’s protection and empowerment, education, child protection, and multi-sectoral emergency response.

Job Overview:

 Based in Addis Ababa, the Business Development Specialist will support the country program by responding to program funding gaps and needs, and by leading and advising on the business development needs of the country office. Support will include all phases of the business development process, from opportunity identification to contract signature, including pre-positioning, partnerships building, proposal development and writing, and due diligence phases. The successful candidate will have a strong track record of working on new funding opportunities in humanitarian and international development with a range of multilateral and bilateral donors.

Major Responsibilities:

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of donor funding priorities and geographical interests relevant to IRC’s area of work and coordinate with Ethiopia technical teams to position for new funding.
• Lead and assist the country team in the identification, tracking, and updating of new business opportunities across a variety of technical sectors and donors, including facilitating technical brainstorming, partner, and competitor landscape analysis, and win theme sessions with technical and country staff.
• Participate in Project Design Meetings and coordinate concept note and proposal development, including sharing initial assessment of new opportunities, preparing timelines, ensuring the proposal team adhere to deadlines, supporting recruitment, assisting in budget development, ensuring document completion, organizing meetings, compiling notes, and drafting and proofreading coherent proposal sections.
• Collaborate with technical units, and other colleagues to support the conceptualization of high-quality programs and proposal designs for new project activities and/or amendments to current projects. Provide guidance on donor policies and ensure project design is responsive and compliant with donor expectations, rules, and regulations.
• Coordinate and communicate with consortium partners. Negotiate and finalize teaming agreements with partners and ensure vetting of partners is performed by country offices as per IRC’s requirements. Compile inputs from proposal team members, including consultants and partners. Identify partners, consultants, and other proposal development support as needed.
• Provide quality assurance and quality compliance support on proposals. Ensure responsiveness to and compliance with solicitation documents and with IRC’s requirements.
• Contribute to business development systems, tools, and process improvement initiatives.
• Facilitate internal post-submission debrief sessions with country teams, technical units, regional teams, and other relevant collaborators to collect lessons learned.

Requirements

Qualifications

• BA/MBA graduate in Economics, Business, and related field of study
• 6 years of substantial experience and a successful track record leading large proposal teams on complex subjects, multi-year, multi-partner proposals with minimal direction.
  

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Proficiency in developing and supporting humanitarian and development proposals for NGOs.
  
• Familiarity with strategies and proposal processes of key government/statutory donors – US Government (USAID, BHA, BPRM, etc.), FCDO, EU institutions (ECHO, EUTF), and other donors (GAC, Sida, FCDO, GFFO, SDC, etc.).
  
• Experience in collaborating with and supporting national and community-based partners.
  
• Proposal budgeting skills a plus.
  
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively collaborate across a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment.
  
• Proven ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in remote and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals.
  
• Clear, compelling writing skills, with previous experience in proposal writing.
  
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively.