Southern Area Manager

CHILD SAFEGUARDING: Level 3 - the responsibilities of the post may require the post holder to have regular contact with or access to children or young people.
ROLE PURPOSE: Southern Area Manager is a member of SMT. S/he shares leadership, management and the overall responsibility for the direction, management and coordination of Southern Area Office within the country program, and contributes to direction and coordination of the Country Office. The post holder will be primarily accountable for the direction and management of the Southern Area Office operations (identification of new opportunities, program operations, office administration and support services functions) to ensure effective and efficient systems and procedures for harmonization, integration and alignment of quality program delivery across all concerned projects. When requested, Southern Area Manager will liaise and maintain relationships with respective donor representatives. These tasks will be done in close collaboration with senior management team, technical and functional leads, as well as respective managers of multi-location projects.
The Southern Area Manager is responsible for partnership development with local governments and other organisations and institutions, ensuring a strong partnership in order to support a smooth operation of the program and functioning of Ho Chi Minh City Office.
The South Area Manager is responsible for building a strong teamwork, collaboration, coordination and holding high accountability to deliver effective and efficient program implementation in compliance with SCI policies, donor requirements and laws and regulations in Vietnam.
In the event of a major humanitarian emergency, the role holder will be expected to work outside the normal role profile and be able to vary working hours accordingly.

SCOPE OF ROLE:
Reports to: Director of Program Implementation (DPI)
Dimensions: Coordinates all concerned staff within the Southern Area Office, leads of thematic areas, program development, quality and advocacy team, awards team, finance and support services, and other relevant staff, and partners.
Staff directly reporting to this post: 6-8 staff based in Southern Area Office, including project manager, senior project officer, project officer, finance officer, project support officer, project assistant and other positions as required.
Budget Responsibilities: Overall budget holder for Southern Area Office

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:
As a member of the Senior Management Team (SMT), contribute to:
- Contribute to the overall leadership of the Viet Nam Country Office
- Support the development of an organisational culture that reflects our full spectrum values, promotes accountability, compliance and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, and frees up our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for our members and donors
- Support the design and implementation of a coherent organizational structure that is consistent with agency practices, country office operating model and appropriate to programme needs
- Maintain a strong and effective working relationship across all departments to enable Save the Children in Vietnam to meet its objectives and priorities
- Support SMT in decision making and strategic direction in relation to funding and portfolio development, pipeline management, go/no go decisions.
- Engage in developing country strategy, program strategy, operational strategy and annual plan and report, including ensuring accurate budget phasing for program costs
- Ensure Southern Area Office complies with all relevant Save the Children Country Office Standards and program operations policies and procedures

Programme Planning, Implementation and Operations:
- Oversee assigned program budget and operations, with line management of program leads and field operations staff in Southern Area Office.
- Accountable for the delivery of quality programs and projects across the Southern Area portfolio, in accordance with work plan, budget and quality benchmarks
- Provide oversight to project managers and program staff in Southern Area office in project-level planning and budgeting, ensuring the quality and feasibility of detailed implementation plans and monitor implementation of the plans.
- Overall accountability for compliance with donor and organizational requirements throughout the award cycle
- Accountable for all aspects of program implementation in Southern Area, including administrative and financial requirements. Serve as primary budget holder for some of the projects as per Scheme of Delegation.
- Responsible for quality and cost effectiveness of operations and management in Southern Area office: structure, adequate staffing and resourcing, ways of working.
- Ensure that SC Key Performance Indicator targets are met and continuously improved in Southern area office
- Accountable for program delivery in ways responsive to local government, local NGO partners, communities, and children in line with Save the Children principles, values and strategic plan and following Save the Children compliance procedures.
- Work with DPI, Awards, Finance, PDQA, Program Managers and the Southern Area Office team for on-going investment in capacity building, or knowledge partnerships to advocate for scale up of innovative solutions for children.
- Ensuring that program teams prepare timely and high quality progress reports, program reports, and donor reports.
- In close collaboration with Director of Program Implementation and Director of Finance and Support Services, ensure effective and efficient logistics and supply chain platform for delivery of programs. Ensure timeliness and accuracy of procurement plans, as well as functioning supply chain management for the Southern Area Office needs
- Ensure office administration and management in an effective and cost-efficient way (including the Southern Area Office facilities and warehouse), and ensuring that all the administrative costs are budgeted for and covered.
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Program Development, Quality and Advocacy
- Lead the Southern Area team in ensuring that quality assurance systems are implemented (including accountability, knowledge management, quality benchmarks etc), and program delivery adheres to protocols and standards.
- Support Department of Program Development, Quality and Advocacy and Award Management in conceptualizing and designing cost effective, innovative and high quality programs, ensuring adequate engagement of the southern area team.
- In close collaboration with DPI, guide key decisions during program design, especially regarding geographic targeting, partner selection, implementation mechanisms (including SC and partner staffing structures), program integration and risk management;
- Work with the Award Management team, Finance team and Supply Chain team to ensure adequate budget for activities, operational costs, and technical quality, supporting budget revisions as needed throughout the award management cycle.
- Ensure Southern Area team fully implements the Monitoring Evaluation Accountability and Learning system, including use of Quality Benchmarks, accountability mechanisms and documentation and use of program learning.
- Support the program team to apply the child safe programming approach
- In close coordination with Director of Program Development, Quality and Advocacy, ensure that the field level advocacy and campaigning activities in southern area are implemented in a timely and quality manner, and in alignment with the national advocacy and campaigning objectives.
- Monitor all related projects to make sure that deliverables/ reports are submitted on time to all relevant stakeholders.
- Contribute actively to the Country Annual Planning, Country Strategic Planning, and Emergency Preparedness Planning, as representative of the Area Office, providing clear assessment and priorities for delivery of Theory of Change in geographies covered by the central office.
- Contribute actively to the preparation of Country Annual Report
- Explore appropriate opportunities to use technology and where possible implement pilot projects that will increase effectiveness of the program to impact at scale for children.
- With approval from the Country Director and working with Communication Team respond to the local Media.

Financial Management:
- Oversee the agreed funding for projects under the Southern Area Office to ensure accurate planning, expenditure and availability of funds for spending commitments according to SCI policies and donor requirements.
- Hold individual budget holders accountable to accurately and efficiently manage their individual projects and grants.
- Review the budget phasing and forecast for both SC managed budget and sub-grants prepared by individual budget holders/ program staff /implementing partners before submitting to Director of Program Implementation.
- Ensure that the overall management of sub-grant - including preparing the sub-grant to partners based on the agreed activities, releasing the sub-grant, monitoring the sub-grant and reviewing sub-grant finance report – takes place as expected.
- Participate in the monthly budget variance meeting to monitor monthly financial balance for each project under the Southern Area Office and ensure follow up actions.
- Lead to identify and mitigate the concerning risks including financial, related to delivering the field program. Develop mitigation plans before the start of the implementation stage.
- Work with FSS and other teams to develop and improve effective financial management systems at the Southern Area Office to regularly review for effective internal control and adequate risk mitigation, management and control.
Risk Management
- Identify, prevent and mitigate risks stemming from project design, implementation and field operations with a particular attention to child-safeguarding, safety and security, fraud and diversion of resources, harassment and bullying.
- In close collaboration with Senior management team, improve and strengthen the internal control environment of southern area office, projects and partners
- Ensure the Country Office Risk Management System is consistently applied in southern area office and projects.

Partnership Development and Management
- Implement the partnership strategy and guidelines, and support partner selection in southern area.
- Ensure appropriate partnership modalities in southern area, the relevance and cost effectiveness of partnership approaches and alignment of practices with the values outlined in SC partnership framework, and with donor and Save the Children requirements
- Ensure that partnerships have well-defined expectations and roles and responsibilities; clear implementation plans, monitoring frameworks and practices; and that challenges are proactively and constructively resolved with professionalism

Team management, capacity building, coaching and mentoring:
- Establish and maintain a culture of teamwork, participation, and accountability for excellence, within and across departments.
- Maintain appropriate management systems and practices, including regular team and individual meetings, mechanisms for cross department coordination and collaboration, and norms and practices that are results driven.
- Build the capacity of, mentor and coach SC southern area team and individual staff, ensuring succession planning, leadership development, talent management and a clear career pathway for key staff.
- Manage the performance of all staff in the Southern Area through effective use of the Develop to Perform System including establishing clear, measureable objectives, ongoing feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations (taking into account dotted reporting lines to functional leads).
- Documentation of performance that is at standard and above and less than satisfactory, with appropriate performance improvements/ work plans

Humanitarian Preparedness and Response
- Ensure that the Southern Area team is familiar with, adhere to and implement the emergency procedures and processes detailed in the Emergency Preparedness Plans.
- Be a focal person for managing all emergency preparedness and response operations in all provinces under the Southern Area Office in close coordination with DRR Manager, and under leadership of Director of Program Implementation;
- Step up to coordinate rapid assessment, propose responses and coordinate the responses in close collaboration with the local government and NGO's in the area
- Involve in the development of Emergency Preparedness Plan and Response including building capacity of program staff and partners deploy on time within (48-72 hours).

Internal control and Office Management
- Build capacity of all the Southern Area Office staff to understand SCI policies and procedures, quality framework standards and donor’s requirements, and ensure full implementation.
- Ensure the Southern Area Office programming and administration in line with the Government policies and frameworks.
- Oversee the overall maintenance of the office premises, facilities assets and equipment (physical work environment) and ensure that these are secure and efficiently utilized.
- Coordinate with IT team for efficient, cost effective Information Technology Systems are in place to support the area operation in compliance with Save the Children SOP and quality framework standards.

External Representation and Networking
- In coordination with the Country Director and other SMT members, undertake external representation, networking and coordination with other international and national organisations, donors, national and local authorities and other stakeholders
- Maintain active engagement and professional relationship with the Government of Vietnam in the southern area, institutions, agencies and partners, proactively resolving issues related to programs and management.

The job duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the post holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience, including adjustment on job description.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential
- Master’s Degree in development or any relevant field. Extensive and substantive relevant practical experience may be considered in lieu of a Master’s Degree.
- Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience in leading the development and implementation of regional programmes and/or development of regional Networks.
- Experiences in managing multi-sectoral programs and various stakeholders in development and emergency contexts.
- Experiences in working within matrix management system.
- Have professional relationship with government departments and NGOs leaders in different sectors
- Proven experience in high level representation, including with donors
- Ability and willingness to travel to all parts of the country, and willingness to abide by SCI Child Safe Guarding Policy and Code of Conduct.
- Commitment to humanitarian principles/accountability frameworks, especially for work with vulnerable populations;
- Ability to work effectively with people of diverse backgrounds, to motivate and inspire team work;
- Ability to analyze information, evaluate options and to think strategically;
- Commitment to and understanding of SCI aims, values and principles including rights-based approaches.
Desirable
- Excellent IT (Microsoft Office), interpersonal and communication skills
- Fluency in written and spoken English and Vietnamese.
- Strong facilitation and presentation skills.
- Ability to manage multi-tasks and dealing with complexity of programming and coping with stress
- Flexibility and a sense of humour – ability to work, live and thrive in challenging circumstances;
- Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness;
- Be both self-confident and humble;
Equal Opportunities
The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.
Child Safeguarding:
We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.
Health and Safety
The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.

SKILLS AND BEHAVIOURS (our Values in Practice)
Accountability
- Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving results together with children and r-ole modelling SCI values.
- Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.
- Creates a managerial environment in-country to lead, enable and maintain our culture of child safeguarding.
Ambition
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for self and team, takes responsibility for own personal development and encourages team to do the same.
- Widely shares personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others.
- Future oriented, thinks strategically and on a global scale.
Collaboration
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with own team, colleagues, members, donors and partners.
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength.
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.
Creativity
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- Willing to take disciplined risks
Integrity
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency
- Always acts in the best interests of children

- Under company's policy

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