Join to apply for the GRANTS MANAGEMENT & OPTIMISATION EXPERT role at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
Join to apply for the GRANTS MANAGEMENT & OPTIMISATION EXPERT role at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
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Gavi Alliance’s (“Gavi”) mission is to save children’s lives and protect people’s health by increasing access to immunisation in poor countries.
Gavi is a unique organisation that aligns public and private resources in a global effort to create greater access to the benefits of immunisation. It does this with precision and in creative, innovative ways to ensure that donor contributions efficiently save lives and help build self-sufficiency in the world’s poorest communities and regions.
For more information, please visit the Gavi website: http://www.gavi.org/about/mission
2. Background of the team and purpose of the role
The Grants Management Department (GMD) is a newly established function within Gavi, consolidating the organisation’s grant management operations. The GMD is accountable for transforming Gavi’s grant management framework and funding cycle, ensuring that grant-making processes, systems, and operations are efficient, effective, and aligned with Gavi’s mission.
The Grant Management & Optimisation Expert will play a key role in supporting and advising the Chief Grants Management Officer (CGMO) in designing and implementing the newly established GMD. The role involves leading nine key grant management reform mandates, ensuring alignment across processes, and working closely with the KMTS team to translate these reforms into the design and development of Gavi’s new Grants Management System. A core responsibility will be driving the end-to-end differentiation of grant management processes, ensuring they are tailored to Gavi’s country segmentation model and aligned with its differentiated risk appetite. The Expert will also lead the transition to fixed country grant cycles aligned with the Gavi five-year strategy cycle ("grant cycle alignment") during the two-year window at the start of Gavi 6.0. Additionally, they will oversee the design and delivery of training programmes and change management initiatives for internal and external stakeholders, ensuring smooth adoption and operational effectiveness across the organisation.
This position reports directly to the CGMO and is part of the GMD’s senior management team.
3. Description of Services:
• Support the CGMO in leading and executing ten grant management reform workstreams, collaborating with designated leads to identify interdependencies, ensure alignment, and resolve bottlenecks. This includes flagging critical cross-cutting issues to the Strategic Coordination Team, escalating decisions to governance bodies as needed, ensuring high-quality deliverables, and overseeing change management activities across all assigned areas.
• Lead the design and articulation of business process requirements for the new Grants Management System, working closely with the KMTS team to ensure the system build is aligned with business needs. Drive the integration of nine key business processes into the system's design, ensuring timely and robust inputs, and proactively addressing challenges to ensure the system meets functional requirements throughout its development and roll-out.
• Collaborate with country teams and key departments to drive the rollout of the Gavi 6.0 grant cycle alignment, ensuring country-specific needs are incorporated and implementation is smooth and effective.
• Working across the GMD, drive the end-to-end differentiation of grant management processes in line with Gavi’s country segmentation model, ensuring that operational approaches are grounded in Gavi’s differentiated risk appetite and tailored to diverse country contexts.
• Lead the organisation-wide response to audit findings related to grants management, due by year-end. This includes coordinating across GMD teams and the broader Secretariat, ensuring timely actions, and providing regular updates to the CGMO and the Audit and Investigation Team to demonstrate accountability and progress.
• Develop and/or identify a certified grants management training programme for both internal Gavi stakeholders and external partners, ensuring comprehensive coverage of the new processes, systems, and roles.
Specific duties include:
• Lead Workstream Execution: Collaborate closely with the CGMO to lead and execute nine key grant management reform workstreams, managing interdependencies and ensuring alignment across functions. Identify and address bottlenecks, flag critical issues to the Strategic Coordination Team, and escalate key decisions as needed. Ensure high-quality deliverables and manage change processes across assigned areas.
• Drive Differentiated Grant Management Processes: Working across the GMD leadership, advise and where necessary lead an end-to-end differentiation of grant management processes in alignment with Gavi’s country segmentation model. Ensure that processes are tailored to reflect Gavi’s differentiated risk appetite and operating contexts, promoting flexibility, efficiency, and accountability across country types.
• Drive System Requirements: Lead the articulation and definition of aforementioned business process requirements for the new Grants Management System, working in partnership with the KMTS team. Ensure the system design integrates critical business processes and provide feedback throughout the system’s development to address challenges and align the system with business needs.
• Implement Country Grant Cycle Alignment: Work collaboratively with country teams and departments to drive Gavi 6.0 two-year grant cycle alignment project.
• Identify and Implement Training & Certification Programmes: Design and implement a comprehensive grants management training program for GMD staff initially and expanding to country facing Secretariat staff. Ensure Gavi adopts one comment language for grants management and that participants are equipped to adopt and implement new processes, systems, and tools effectively.
4. Location: Geneva-based or remote, but with travel to Geneva and implementing countries
5. Qualifications and work experience required:
Academic and Certifications
• Advanced degree in relevant field, including public health, international development, public policy, business administration, etc.
• Training and/or certifications in management, leadership or Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B) highly desirable
Work Experience and Skillset
• Minimum 15 years of progressively senior experience in international development, global health financing, program design, or donor grant architecture
o At least 10 of those years in direct grant, program and/or project implementation and in or with low- and middle-income countries.
• Demonstrated experience in effective implementation of formal process improvements and instilling a corporate culture of continuous improvement.
• Experience leading cross-organizational and cross-functional processes to develop policies, tools, or operational guidance that establish processes as a means of manifesting corporate strategic priorities; strong skillset in producing results through others (results through influence).
• Experience developing and rolling out new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or other corporate-level digital Systems.
• Demonstrated experience leading corporate-level, formal Change Management for inclusive and sustained stakeholder organizational transformation.
• Proven ability to translate high-level strategic and policy frameworks into clear, actionable, and easy-to-understand operational guidelines, tools, and procedures; must be able to drill complicated subject matter down into simplified, streamlined, objective results.
• Strong understanding and experience with differentiated procurement mechanisms, including but not limited to goods and services agreements and grant agreements.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating and collaborating with external and internal audit functions, to arrive at practical yet timely resolutions to audit observations and ensure that any remediation or non-audit-related process improvements align with organisational risk framework.
• Ability to link organizational vision and goals to practical solutions and partnerships that drive long-term impact and sustainability.
• Track record of representing organizations at a senior level with donors, technical partners, and/or boards.
• Strong political and cultural sensitivity, with the ability to navigate institutional dynamics and mediate differing stakeholder priorities toward common objectives, in a culturally diverse workplace.
• Experience leveraging corporate risk management frameworks to empower effective and efficient decision-making strongly desirable.
• Exceptional leadership skills, including experience creating, nurturing and managing large, diverse teams with senior-level responsibilities.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to simplify complex technical concepts for a range of audiences.
Note: short-listed candidates may be asked to complete a timed test to demonstrate their data management, analysis and communication skills.
Languages:
Written and spoken fluency in English
Proficiency in French, or other UN language, is strongly preferred.
6. Duration of Assignment: 6 months; from contracting date and no later than December 31, 2025.
If you wish to apply, please visit our Careers webpage and apply by sending your application to procurement@gavi.org with the title 078-2024-GAVI-RFQ "Grants Management & Optimisation Expert" before the closing date of 15 June 2025.
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