POSITION SUMMARY

As the Chief Executive Officer of ygap, you will lead the team to effectively execute the organisation’s mission in order to progress towards ygap’s vision of an equitable and sustainable world. You will inspire, guide and support the passionate and experienced staff across a diverse portfolio to achieve ygap’s goals related to impact, fundraising, people and operations. Working with the Board, you will continue to develop and drive the future strategy of ygap to position ygap for ongoing success. A significant part of the role is to nurture existing, and acquire new partners, by representing ygap and our work to grow ygap’s portfolio and ultimately impact, thereby continuing to evolve ygap’s business model to become more financially sustainable. You will oversee key fundraising activities including partnerships and philanthropy, alongside campaigns and appeals, in order to position them within ygap’s overall fundraising strategy and in market. You can speak authentically to how supporting local entrepreneurship creates a better world through your past experience to garner support. Your agile management skills will provide consistency and stability within our team and you understand the reality of managing a global and diverse team. Drawing on your creative leadership skills will see you proposing thoughtfully innovative new ways to continue to grow and achieve our vision more efficiently and effectively. You have experience thriving in a diverse, fast paced, non-traditional work environment, with much of your team working remotely across diverse regions. You will be adaptable and excited by solving constantly shifting challenges, and your passion and optimism for social justice and entrepreneurship will be just as contagious and inspiring as your proven commercial acumen and outstanding ability to engage senior partners.

KEY SELECTION CRITERIA (QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS

• Significant leadership experience across a diverse portfolio including some or all of the following: programs, partnerships, marketing, fundraising, campaigns and/or general operations management.
• You will have experience engaging with and stewarding key stakeholders, including major donors and partners, ideally with experience overseeing fundraising activities including campaigns and appeals.
• You will have strong cross-cultural experience, and be a leader with a proven ability to create consensus and unity, ideally with experience leading and managing a diverse, global, largely remote team requiring
• You will have strong interpersonal skills and be confident and capable of leading and developing staff, and be an effective communicator with the ability to write professionally and represent the organisation at events and with the media.
• You will have a love for creating systems and strategies to drive efficiency and effectiveness, as well as be able to identify, propose and communicate organisational change, backed by a business case that highlights what’s best for ygap to achieve its mission.
• You will have some understanding or experience of the realities of working in emerging markets and have flexibility to travel as required for events, donor trips, key donor meetings etc.
• Non-profit experience is not essential, however a strong passion for advancing equity in the world is crucial as is the belief in the power of locally-led entrepreneurship.

KEY COMPETENCIES (SKILLS & ATTRIBUTES)

• Strategic Thinking- Able to work through complex problems and find and test solutions within a fast moving environment.
• Flexible and creative – Adjusts to the context, able to troubleshoot, problem solve and adapt in a high-paced and at time fluid environment;
• Proactive and responsible – Takes initiative and ownership from beginning to end and meets or exceeds expectations.
• Collaborative and empathetic – Works well alongside team members and understands the competing priorities and needs of various stakeholders.
• Curious and thoughtful – Seeks clarification and insights and thoughtfully considers all angles, context and relevant information in determining a course of action.
• Governance-aware- Understands organisational governance and working with Boards effectively and sub-committee

RESPONSIBILITIES & DUTIES

Operations:

• Be a key driver of our optimistic, creative and innovative culture in line with our values to make ygap an employer of choice and recruit/retain/develop our staff to achieve mission success.
• Lead and support our senior managers to drive their organisational units in-line with the ygap mission and as a collective using the performance management process.
• Measure and report progress towards organisational goals to staff, partners and the Board, and oversee and manage ygap’s operating budget in partnership with the virtual CFO.

Governance:

• Represent the organisation to the ygap Board with timely and accurate information; working closely with the Board of Directors and sub-committees to inform audit and risk; people, culture and nominations.
• Identify, manage and mitigate operational and business risk to inform strategic decisions.

Fundraising:

• Working alongside the Philanthropy and Partnerships Manager to design, refine and execute a fundraising strategy and operational plan to grow ygap’s portfolio and develop a sustainable funding model.
• Represent ygap in a fundraising capacity and at public events and maintain an awareness of the impact eco-system to inform and position the organisation effectively across diverse market segments.

Impact:

• Working closely with the Global Impact Manager to align their programs with the Impact Strategy including key cross-cutting themes (gender, sustainability and digitalisation) and ensure organisational learning and adoption of best practice.
• Continue to develop a portfolio model across key regions to expand our impact at the ecosystem level and diversify our revenue streams.
• Ensure ygap’s impact model remains innovative, relevant and effective to ensure high impact and progress towards our vision whilst also engaging new and existing partners.

Strategy:

• Continue to operationalise, oversee and refine the organisational strategy including impact goals; moving ygap toward a more sustainable and diversified funding model.

If you’re ready to take on this exciting challenge and lead ygap into the next era of impact, we’d love to hear from you. Please head to ygap.org/careers for the full job description and application pack.