CAREERS

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) provides strategic support to advocates working to enact and implement laws that save lives, and is a leading policy advocacy voice on a range of issues including food policy, road safety, cardiovascular health, drowning prevention, civil registration & vital statistics, preventing epidemics, and maternal and reproductive health, among others. Our history is rooted in one of the most successful public health campaigns — tobacco control. Building on the successes and lessons learned in the global fight against tobacco deaths, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids launched the Global Health Advocacy Incubator in 2014 to strengthen advocacy capacity to improve public health around the globe using a locally-led approach that is adaptable to culture, political context and issue area.  

Position Overview 

GHAI seeks a Director for the Cardiovascular Health (CVH) Program to lead advocacy campaigns to advance policies and regulations that improve cardiovascular health and nutrition in a set of key countries. For the CVH Program, GHAI partners closely with Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) along with the World Health Organization (WHO), The John Hopkins University among other global partners, to prevent millions of deaths from cardiovascular disease through regulations to ban industrially produced trans-fatty acids (TFA), sodium reduction policies (including front of package labeling, unhealthy food marketing bans, school food environments regulations, policies for healthy food procurements in public institutions, maximum sodium benchmarks, among others) and hypertension control policies.  

As the leader for the CVH program, the Director will be responsible for leading team efforts to ensure the development and implementation of an effective advocacy campaigns and provide strategic direction to coordinated policy change efforts including political, legal and stakeholders mapping and relationship building with government and civil society local partners in the key content areas and geographic regions of focus to the partnership.  Reporting to the Vice-President of Food and Nutrition Policy of GHAI, the Director serves as a lead for the CVH GHAI staff and CVH GHAI country leads and will work in close collaboration with other global partners and donors of the Initiative. She/he/they will have a deep understanding of and strong track-record of advocacy for policy change and leadership experience. Ideal candidate is a self-starter with strong project management skills; team building and supervision; passion, curiosity and comfort working in cross-cultural settings; and a demonstrated commitment to capacity strengthening in a global context.  

This position is based in Washington, DC and is open to U.S. citizens and other applicants who already possess permanent U.S. work authorization.  GHAI operates under a hybrid (partial remote and partial in-person/in-office) work environment. Full vaccination (including booster shots) against Covid-19 is required.

Key areas of focus for the position include:

• The Director will be in charge of the CVH Program management, he/she will manage a core team of up to four staff members in DC, will be responsible of the strategic planning design and implementation, budget preparation, supervision of its execution, search and selection of new staff and consultants, supervision of contract development and reporting process to donors among other programmatic management issues. 
• Supervise the team work to develop, implement, and support advocacy campaigns in partnership with NGOs and NGO networks in selected low-and middle-income countries of focus;
• The Director will work closely with the communications team to both build capacity through journalist trainings, as well as develop the communications and media strategy to advance the program’s policy goals. 
• Oversee the development of materials and contributions to the GHAI Website, blog and social media channels and supervise the development of case studies and other publications.
• S/he will work to integrate research and ground-level advocacy efforts in an evidence-based approach as well as set the framework for evaluation and the integration of learnings from this work across the Incubator.  
• Refine and implement an overall strategy and work plan for country strategies, and identify key partners and opportunities for locally-led policy advocacy campaigns and actions. S/he will do this by identifying local grantee partners to lead these efforts and by focusing on training, capacity building, and evaluation to ensure both the local partners’ and the program’s success. S/he will assess the policy landscape and political feasibility to advance policy change by identifying policy gaps and guiding the development of draft legislation or regulations, where needed. 
• Oversee relationships between local partners and facilitate the coalition building and joint advocacy strategies 
• Enhance capacity of civil society organizations in focus countries to conduct effective advocacy campaigns, including decision-makers advocacy, media advocacy, coalition building and countering opposition, in part by providing training, technical assistance and strategic guidance. 
• Provide technical assistance, in collaboration with the GHAI technical team for legal, communication and policy-oriented research strategies to promote evidence-based policy change. 
• Evaluate the country-specific advocacy campaigns.   

Qualifications

• Broad client-services experience advocacy work for policy change, team leadership, relationship-building and strategic partnerships, in particular experience serving NGO clients in the public health arena. 
• Bachelor’s degree and minimum of ten years demonstrated experience working on policy issues in public health globally, preferably in the areas of nutrition policy and cardiovascular health; Strong ability to coordinate across multiple stakeholders, deep understanding of the political and policy dynamics, and knowledge of working with both civil society and government partners 
• Master’s Degree in public policy, communications, public health, or other relevant field; Higher Level Degree preferred.
• Impeccable project management skills and the ability to work collaboratively with interdisciplinary team in pursuit of a shared set of goals and objectives
• Proven track record of successfully conceptualizing and implementing strategic advocacy campaigns for policy change in public health and of building the necessary strategic relationships at all levels
• Deep understanding of the elements of advocacy models (policy-oriented research, media advocacy, lobbying, coalition building, grass tops/grassroots activation, countering opposition etc.) and internationally recognized best practices in advocacy and capacity building
• Experience working on nutrition and food policies issues and cardiovascular policies, a plus 
• Familiarity and experience working with key global health actors and multilateral initiatives and related NGO partners.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and implement trainings; 
• Comfort working on multi-country programs and/or in cross cultural settings; 
• Experience working or living overseas a plus
• Flexibility, strong organizational skills, and ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment;
• Strong background managing multi-faceted and complex projects related to policy change in global health, including ability to anticipate issues, develop pro-active solutions, follow-up and meet deadlines and deliverables
• Experience working at the international level and in cross-cultural settings with dispersed teams; Flexibility and gravitas to navigate competing demands with multiple partners; 
• Demonstrated experience training and mentoring others to successfully develop and implement advocacy campaigns
• Strong written and oral communications skills and the clarity to convey key strategic objectives paired with the sensitivity to navigate culturally different communication styles; 
• Fluency in a language other than English is preferred
• Ability and desire to travel overseas. 

TO APPLY

To apply for this position, please email a cover letter, resume and salary requirement to: jobs@advocacyincubator.org  Please reference the position code: CVH DIRECTOR/GHAI in the subject line of your email.  Applications will be accepted until May 2, 2022. No phone calls please. 

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is an Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes applications from individuals who will contribute to its diversity.