Vice President, Program Design and Impact

POSITION SUMMARY:

HIAS seeks a Vice President, Programmatic Design and Impact to provide senior leadership for the organization’s global program quality, technical excellence, evidence, learning, and impact agenda. The Vice President is accountable for ensuring that HIAS programs are strategically aligned, evidence-based, responsive to affected populations, and consistently delivered in accordance with organizational priorities, humanitarian principles, and recognized global standards.

Reporting to the Chief Programs Officer and serving as a member of the Programs Leadership Team, the Vice President establishes the organizational frameworks, standards, and capabilities required to design high-quality programs, measure and demonstrate results, strengthen accountability, and translate evidence into strategic and programmatic decisions. The role leads a global team of technical professionals, advises executive and program leadership, and represents HIAS with donors, partners, and sector stakeholders to strengthen programmatic impact, organizational learning, and funding competitiveness.

Note, this position is based at our headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland or our office in New York, New York, and we will consider a remote option for applicants who live outside of commuting distance to either of our offices and are based in other states in which we are registered (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia).

The salary range for this position is $140,323-160,000.00.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

GLOBAL PROGRAM DESIGN, QUALITY, AND TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE

• Establishes and directs HIAS’s global program design, technical excellence, and program quality strategy, ensuring that programs achieve measurable results and advance organizational priorities.
• Sets organization-wide standards for program quality, evidence-based practice, protection mainstreaming, and safe and accountable programming, and is accountable for their consistent application across HIAS operations.
• Advises the Chief Programs Officer and senior leadership on programmatic priorities, emerging risks, sector developments, and investments needed to strengthen organizational impact and long-term program capability.
• Determines when corrective action or additional organizational investment is required to address significant program quality, technical, or performance risks.

MONITORING, EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY & LEARNING (MEAL)

• Provides strategic leadership and oversight of HIAS' monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning, research, and program data management functions, ensuring the organization can effectively measure, demonstrate, and improve program impact.
• Oversees the development and continuous improvement of organizational frameworks, systems, standards, tools, operating models, and governance approaches for MEAL and program data management.
• Leads the generation, stewardship, analysis, and use of programmatic evidence and data, ensuring findings inform strategy, program adaptation, resource allocation, accountability, and organizational learning.
• Determines organizational data management and stewardship initiatives, including systems, dashboards, databases, data standards, and governance processes that strengthen data quality, protection, comparability, and use across HIAS operations.
• Drives evaluations, assessments, research, and learning initiatives that generate evidence on program effectiveness and contribute to organizational and sector-wide learning.
• Is accountable for the development of measurement and data management approaches that balance accountability, learning, program quality, operational realities, and donor requirements across diverse humanitarian and development contexts.

NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, STRATEGIC GROWTH & PARTNERSHIPS

• Collaborates with External Relations, Business Development, Country Offices, and Programs teams to identify strategic growth opportunities and develop innovative, evidence-informed, and high-quality funding proposals.
• Ensures proposals reflect strong program design, technical implementation approaches, theories of change, and impact measurement strategies that position HIAS for growth and influence.
• Represents HIAS with donors, peer agencies, governments, research institutions, and strategic partners, strengthening the organization's reputation as a high-quality and adaptive humanitarian actor.
• Cultivates strategic relationships and partnerships that contribute to organizational learning, program quality, thought leadership, and sustainable growth.

LEADERSHIP, PEOPLE MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS

• Manages a team of five, including technical and MEAL staff. Leads and develops a high-performing team responsible for program design, technical excellence, monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning, program data management, and impact measurement, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Establishes clear priorities, workplans, governance mechanisms, and performance expectations, ensuring the timely delivery of high-quality outputs and achievement of organizational objectives.
• Drives effective inter-departmental coordination to strengthen program quality and effectiveness globally.
• Strengthens organizational capacity through coaching, mentoring, training, technical support, and change management initiatives.
• Serves as a strategic advisor to senior leadership on program quality, organizational effectiveness, program performance, technical strategy, evidence generation, and portfolio development.
• Manages departmental budgets and resources, ensuring sound financial stewardship and alignment with organizational priorities.

QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS:

• Undergraduate degree in international development, public policy, social sciences, humanitarian affairs, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressively responsible experience in humanitarian and/or international development programming, including significant senior leadership experience and preferably five or more years working in field-based or international contexts.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, managing, and scaling programs across multiple technical sectors and geographic contexts in humanitarian and development settings.
• Proven experience translating organizational strategy into practical, implementable, and scalable programmatic approaches, systems, and standards.
• Strong experience in program design, program quality, strategic planning, technical excellence, and portfolio management, including oversight of programming throughout the project lifecycle from assessment and design through implementation, adaptation, learning, and closeout.
• Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, priorities, and workstreams, ensuring strong coordination, clear accountability, and successful execution across a geographically dispersed organization.
• Experience leading global program quality, technical excellence, monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning (MEAL) functions, including establishing organizational standards, systems, and approaches that improve program effectiveness and impact.
• Demonstrated understanding of humanitarian principles and standards, including the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), Sphere Standards, Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), and Do No Harm approaches.
• Experience leading accountability and inclusion initiatives, including the development and operationalization of accountability frameworks, complaints and feedback mechanisms, and systems for using community feedback to improve programming.
• Ability to interpret programmatic data, evidence, and research findings and translate them into clear, actionable recommendations that improve programming and organizational decision-making.
• Significant experience with assessments, evaluations, research, and evidence generation in humanitarian and development contexts, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches.
• Experience supporting business development efforts, including proposal design, technical review, theory of change development, and incorporation of evidence and impact measurement approaches.
• Experience supporting organizational growth and strategic initiatives, including country strategy development, portfolio expansion, new geographic presence, and positioning with priority donors.
• Demonstrated success building the capacity of staff and partners across diverse international and U.S.-based contexts.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience preparing and reviewing donor submissions, strategic documents, reports, guidance, SOPs, and executive-level communications.
• Experience developing and maintaining strategic relationships with bilateral, multilateral, foundation, and private donors.
• Exceptional organizational, planning, facilitation, and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and drive high-quality execution in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Demonstrated leadership in program, portfolio, and organizational design.
• Proficiency in English required; Spanish and/or French preferred.
• Ability to travel internationally up to 15% of the time, including to complex and insecure operating environments.