Global Awards and Project Support (GAPS) Director II

NOTE: The Pay Range referenced in this job announcement only applies to applicants who perform the job within the US and to applicants classified by CRS as International Assignees. Staff hired on local payroll would follow the respective Country pay range. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your anticipated work location during the candidate selection process.

Pay Range
$135,857 - $166,084 Annually

Job Summary

The Global Awards and Project Support (GAPS) team advances CRS’s strategy by providing integrated leadership and support in global and multi-country award management, operations, surge staffing, project management, contracting, compliance, and organizational learning. The GAPS Director provides strategic leadership, direction, and oversight for the department; stewards CRS’s global award portfolio; strengthens agency-wide project and award management standards; and ensures consistent, high-quality delivery across the award lifecycle. The Director leads governance of complex global opportunities, oversees Project Support and Delivery, the Field Management Response Team, the Project Management Unit, Contracts, and the World Bank Support Unit, and promotes responsible growth through strong portfolio performance, risk management, learning, and engagement with donors and multilateral development banks.

Roles and Key Responsibilities

Management

• Play an active leadership role within the Global Programs Leadership Team, alongside divisional executives and regional directors.
• Set and implement the GAPS strategy through 2030, translating agency priorities into annual plans, performance measures, resource allocations, and clear accountabilities.
• Lead the GAPS Senior Management Team and build an integrated department across Global Awards, Project Support and Delivery, the Project Management Unit, the Field Management Response Team, Contracts, and the World Bank Support Unit.
• Establish clear roles, decision rights, governance, and ways of working across GAPS and with PIQA, GREM, regions, country programs, Finance, Operations, Human Resources, and other service departments.
• Supervise Global Award Project Directors and leaders of GAPS units, ensuring strong performance management, coaching, succession planning, staff wellbeing, workload management, and talent development for direct and lower-tier staff.
• Work with the geographic homes of GAPS staff to ensure effective matrix management and equitable access to departmental support.
• Provide executive oversight of departmental performance, operational challenges, staffing capacity, and progress toward established goals and objectives.
• Communicate the GAPS value proposition and represent the department’s needs and contributions across the agency.

Global Portfolio Stewardship, Award Compliance, Finance, and Risk

• Ensure all awards are implemented in compliance with donor requirements and CRS policies, procedures, program management standards, and internal controls.
• Maintain executive-level visibility of portfolio performance, expenditure, reach, deliverables, risks, and corrective actions through regular award performance and budget reviews.
• Establish escalation and decision-making mechanisms for awards at risk and ensure timely, documented corrective action.
• Oversee award negotiation, start-up, implementation, modification, transition, and close-out, ensuring commitments are translated into executable staffing, governance, partner, budget, milestone, and risk-management plans.
• Ensure the Project Support and Delivery Unit provides consistent, high-quality, full-lifecycle support for US Government and non-US Government awards, including donor reporting, compliance, negotiation, modifications, close-out, donor relationship management, and audit-response support.
• Build sustainable service and cost-recovery models for Project Support and Delivery and strengthen CRS capacity to pursue, negotiate, manage, and close grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts.
• Ensure early involvement of Project Support and Delivery and Contracts in opportunity and award design, with appropriate contracting readiness and compliance support throughout delivery.
• Review new or updated CRS policies and procedures, identify implications for global programs, and work with policy owners to address operational and contracting challenges proactively.
• Coordinate with global, regional, and country program operations to ensure sound budgeting, resource stewardship, contingency planning, and appropriate support to Project Directors and Chiefs of Party.
• Balance portfolio growth with CRS’s institutional and delivery capacity, escalating investment, staffing, and risk decisions when needed.

Program Quality, Project Management, Partnership, and Learning

• Provide agency-wide leadership for project management standards, guidance, tools, templates, onboarding, training, coaching, and communities of practice.
• Integrate project management with ProPack, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning, safeguarding, partnership, internal controls, and program-quality standards.
• Ensure appropriate technical assistance is incorporated within global awards and coordinate the effective deployment of short-term technical and operational support through the Field Management Response Team and other mechanisms.
• Identify portfolio-wide gaps in resources, staffing, systems, or oversight and develop and implement corrective actions.
• Set expectations for meaningful country, regional, government, and partner participation, ensuring local leadership and subsidiarity inform award design, governance, staffing, implementation, and transition.
• Oversee strategic partner selection, negotiation, due diligence, relationship management, and capacity strengthening so global awards reinforce rather than bypass country and partner systems.
• Develop a pipeline of project management leaders and strengthen the capacity of CRS staff and partners to deliver complex awards successfully.
• Capture and share lessons, successes, failures, and emerging practices across awards; use portfolio evidence to improve policies, systems, tools, staffing models, and business development decisions.
• Maintain effective GAPS information platforms and dashboards and promote learning on new donor mechanisms, contracts, milestone-based awards, global mechanisms, and locally led delivery.

Global Opportunities and Responsible Growth

• Provide senior leadership and decision-making for complex global and multi-country opportunities, in coordination with PIQA, GREM, regions, country programs, Finance, Operations, and other contributors.
• Oversee opportunity intake, country consultation and selection, strategic fit and capacity assessment, go/no-go decisions, capture, proposal governance, review, submission, negotiation, and transition to award start-up.
• Approve or escalate proposed management structures, staffing arrangements, partner strategies, risk assumptions, resource requirements, and investment decisions.
• Maintain and prioritize a global business development pipeline, positioning and capture strategies, and an up-to-date business development strategy.
• Ensure documented handover from business development to award start-up and implementation, with clear ownership of commitments, risks, deliverables, and decisions.
• Maintain oversight of Global Opportunities and Multi-Opportunity Mechanisms in Gateway and ensure accurate, timely information for decision-makers.
• Oversee the World Bank Support Unit’s full-cycle positioning, capture, proposal, negotiation, delivery, compliance, risk-management, and learning support for World Bank Group-funded work.
• Guide CRS engagement with the World Bank Group and regional development banks, including the Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and African Development Bank, and ensure readiness for relevant procurement, contracting, environmental and social, and third-party implementation requirements.
• Nurture strategic partnerships with peer organizations, research institutions, government entities, faith actors, and private-sector partners as potential primes, consortium members, or subrecipients.
• Drive continuous improvement of business development processes and tools and leverage strong performance and learning from existing awards to pursue responsible follow-on funding.

Representation

• Maintain strong strategic relationships with current and prospective donors, especially the World Bank Group, U.S. Government, Global Fund, Gavi, foundations, corporations, and donors supporting global awards.
• Represent CRS in high-level donor negotiations, formal award discussions, major donor functions, and relevant World Bank and faith-based working groups.
• Exercise delegated decision-making and signatory authority as assigned, making or escalating time-sensitive decisions that affect major awards, financial exposure, delivery, and agency reputation.
• Brief the Global Programs Leadership Team, Executive Leadership Team, Regional Directors, and other senior governance bodies on portfolio performance, opportunities, risks, and investment decisions.
• Maintain strong strategic relationships with primes, consortium partners, research institutions, and private-sector partners supporting global awards.
• Ensure marketing and communication plans communicate global award results, lessons, and impact and support future positioning.
• Represent GAPS with relevant internal stakeholders.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Excellent strategic, analytical, systems-thinking, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate agency strategy into practical portfolio and departmental decisions.
• Strong executive judgment and demonstrated ability to assess delivery capacity, financial exposure, operational risk, and reputational implications.
• Excellent relationship-management and negotiation skills, with the ability to represent CRS and exercise influence at senior levels internally and externally.
• Extensive knowledge of multiple donors and multilateral development banks, including their practices, preferences, procurement approaches, contracting modalities, and applicable regulations.
• Strong knowledge of U.S. Government grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts and familiarity with World Bank Group-funded operations and requirements.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including the ability to brief senior leaders and communicate complex portfolio issues clearly.
• Strong people leadership, coaching, and mentoring skills, with the ability to manage leaders and staff at different career levels in a diverse global workforce.
• Demonstrated ability to establish governance, decision rights, performance measures, and cross-functional ways of working in a complex, multicultural organization.
• Ability to use evidence, learning, and portfolio data to drive continuous improvement, responsible growth, and organizational change.
• Proficiency with Microsoft products and familiarity with enterprise project, award, finance, and information-management systems; experience with Oracle products is a plus.

Required Languages: Fluency in written and spoken English required; ability to work effectively in French a plus.

Travel: Must be willing and able to travel internationally and domestically up to 15%.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Yes

Key Working Relationships:

• Internal: GAPS Senior Management Team; Global Award Project Directors and Chiefs of Party; Project Support and Delivery; Field Management Response Team; Project Management Unit; Contracts; World Bank Support Unit; Global Programs Finance and Operations; PIQA; GREM/Institutional Funding; Government Relations; Human Resources; Safeguarding; regional and country leadership; Regional Directors; Global Programs Leadership Team; and Executive Leadership Team.
• External: Bilateral and multilateral donors; the World Bank Group and regional development banks; foundations and corporations; government counterparts; primes, consortium partners, research institutions, faith actors, and private-sector partners.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in development, a related sector, or equivalent work experience.
• Minimum eight years of relevant international work experience, including a history of project management.
• Minimum five years of management experience.
• Experience with and knowledge of multiple donors, including their practices, preferences, and applicable regulations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in international development, business administration, public administration, or a related field.
• Minimum 10 years of relevant international work experience, including substantial project, award, or portfolio management responsibility.
• Minimum eight years of progressively responsible management experience, including management of Chiefs of Party, Project Directors, or senior technical and operational leaders.
• Previous experience as a Chief of Party, Project Director, or senior portfolio leader for high-value public donor-funded programs relevant to CRS’s operating context.
• Demonstrated success in business development, capture, proposal governance, donor negotiation, and transition from award to implementation.
• Experience with U.S. Government awards and contracts and with other donors and institutions such as the Global Fund, Gavi, World Bank Group, United Nations, regional development banks, and foundations.
• Experience leading complex, geographically dispersed teams and managing a diverse portfolio of grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts.

Agency Competencies (for all CRS Staff):

• Personal Accountability – Consistently takes responsibility for one’s own actions.
• Acts with Integrity - Consistently models values aligned with CRS Guiding Principles and mission. Is considered honest.
• Builds and Maintains Trust - Shows consistency between words and actions.
• Collaborates with Others – Works effectively in intercultural and diverse teams.
• Open to Learn – Seeks out experiences that may change perspective or provide an opportunity to learn new things.

Agency Leadership Competencies:

• Lead Change – Continually looks for ways to improve the agency through a culture of agility, openness, and innovation.
• Develops and Recognizes Others – Builds the capacity of staff to reach their full potential and enhance team and agency performance.
• Strategic Mindset – Understands role in translating, communicating, and implementing agency strategy and team priorities.

What we offer

CRS offers U.S. based staff a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, life insurance, vision, and a generous retirement savings plan. Benefits packages for successful candidates employed outside the U.S. are based on the country of employment/in-country office where the candidate will perform the role. CRS´ work culture is a collaborative, mission-driven culture committed to improving the lives of the poor throughout the world.