Chief of Party – USAID/Armenia Disaster Resilience Activity

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 3,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.  

Our Americas’ business team has brilliant and passionate colleagues working in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America as well as the Caribbean, fulfilling projects and assignments for clients from institutions, corporations, governments, and foundations based in the Americas. We have offices in Washington, DC, New York City, and Raleigh-Durham, NC.

This Opportunity:

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) plans to establish a five-year project to support the develop the country’s capacity to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural and human-caused disasters. The activity support capacity building across various stakeholders in Armenia's disaster response system, as well as to reduce Armenia's vulnerability to disasters through mitigation efforts, thereby improving the economic, social, health, and environmental resilience to shocks and stress. The activity may also design disaster response and recovery interventions.

The Chief of Party (COP) serves as the lead for overall management of the in-country relationship with USAID, implementing partners, and other key stakeholders. The COP provides leadership for all aspects of field management and technical oversight and will have demonstrated ability to work in complex environments and manage diverse teams to deliver impact. This is a full-time position based in Yerevan, Armenia and contingent upon contract award.

Reporting & Supervision:

The Chief of Party will serve as the primary liaison with USAID and will report to the home office Project Director. The Chief of Party will have ultimate supervisory authority over the project team.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities: 

Managing in-country relationships with USAID and other USG staff, consortium members, other implementing partners, and key national and local stakeholders in the delivery of this project.
Providing oversight of grant and program activities, ensuring appropriate procedures are established and complied with for project activity development, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation, and closing.
Building a project team and motivating impactful teamwork. Leading mentoring and development of personnel.
Providing oversight of strategic, external, and internal communications to effectively convey program successes, lessons learned, research, and analysis to contribute to greater coordination, understanding and policy decisions regarding disaster management and response.
Contributing to the design and implementation of the monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) system at activity and program levels and ensuring learnings are incorporated into subsequent activity and program design.
Supervising the DCOP, senior management staff and team leaders, and field staff more generally.

Key Competencies Required: 

A minimum of eight (8) years of relevant work experience and a master’s degree or ten (10) years of relevant work experience with a bachelor’s degree. [TB1][MS2][MA3]
Relevant experience includes but is not limited to disaster risk management, emergency response or relief, climate change adaptation, government capacity building focused on domestic resource mobilization (public policy, public financial management).
Demonstrated knowledge of concepts, practices, techniques, implementation of disaster management or climate risk adaptation projects.
A minimum of five (5) [TB4]years of supervisory experience working with a culturally and socially diverse team.
Experience managing programs in Armenia, Eurasia or the Caucasus or similar natural disaster-prone [TB5]contexts.
Demonstrated ability to successfully lead and manage challenging and complex projects involving a variety of public and private stakeholders.
Experience in technical and financial aspects of USAID or outside donor-funded project administration.
Experience working with vulnerable and at-risk groups.
Demonstrated experience in overseeing program startup and closeout.
Ability to work under pressure responding to evolving program goals and objectives.
Fluent English (reading/writing/speaking), Russian comprehension is preferred.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or indigenous status.   

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or if you are a neurodivergent individual or any other circumstance, please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com .  

Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm.” We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse.  All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.