Regional Director Asia

Job Summary

The Regional Director Asia is responsible for overseeing Ethical Tea Partnership’s (ETP) operations in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and any future operation in the Asia region. The Regional Director Asia will support ETP’s mission to catalyse long-term, systemic change, to benefit everybody who works in tea – especially people in tea-producing regions. They will play a crucial role in ensuring the delivery and success of ETP’s work in the tea-producing countries under their remit.

The role’s responsibilities involve resource planning to deliver the country plans, coordinating with ETP’s members, navigating and establishing new partnerships and providing guidance and strategic advice both to the teams in-country and to the UK-based secretariat.

Reporting line – Executive Director (ED)

Responsibilities

01. Regional Strategy
• Directly responsible for the overall regional and country strategic planning, successful program delivery and performance management and reporting of country programs within his/her region, as well as oversight of the program support operations (safeguarding, finance, HR, operations).
• Reporting to the ED and working with the SMT, engage the country teams to review and refresh the country plans in line with socio-economic and gender analysis and donor strategies and plans.

02. Regional Operations
Line management of regional teams:
○ Lead on the organisational development for the teams in Asia headed each by the appointed Country Manager. This includes line managing Country Managers in the Asia region, providing guidance, setting objectives, conducting annual structured performance reviews (appraisals) and providing development and capacity building opportunities.
○ Drive a performance-based culture of excellence and accountability and collaboration between programme and functional teams. Identify capacity gaps and recommend training or support.
○ Provide guidance, supervision and support to country and programme managers.
• Identify, and take steps to mitigate, organisational risk in the countries under the role’s remit, including feeding into global risk matrix.
• Oversee security and safety strategy for region.
• Comply and promote ETP’s internal processes and policies that apply to the job role and to other contractors in the region.

03. Programme Quality
• Collaborate closely with all departments and support the country teams by making resources from the regional support team available, in order to ensure that programmes meet stated objectives, are in line with ETP’s mission, approach and. strategy, meet the needs of ETP members and donors, and are implemented to the highest standards, on time, and within budget.
• Lead and support project start-up and inception.
• Contribute to donor reports, M&E, and implementation of the ETP’s Communication and Policy strategy, to enable shared learning amongst the ETP teams and wider stakeholder network.

04. Business Development
• Contribute to ETP’s global business development and growth strategy.

• Proactively scope and develop project ideas based on country strategy, partner priorities and
needs in the tea sector.
• Lead and support the development of regional and country- level project proposals ensuring
alignment with ETP’s strategy, technical robustness, and detailed budgeting.

05. Stakeholder Engagement
• Responsible for strengthening regional-level external relations and coordination.
• Represent ETP at a senior level with business leaders, government officials, donors and other
private sector and civil society stakeholders.
• Identify fundraising opportunities and develop donor relations, for example with FCDO
• Host senior (VIP) partner visits to the region where needed.

Person specifications & required skills

Experience & Qualifications

• Degree level qualification relating to the job role, e.g. business, agriculture, environment, or social science. Postgraduate qualification is an advantage.
• Eight to ten years’ experience in relevant management positions in development or platform organisations with a focus on Asia.
• Proven leadership skills and experience of managing multidisciplinary teams.
• Practical experience of applying development issues at a project or community level coupled with impact assessment and evaluation of poverty reduction and social change.
• Substantial experience in the financial management of budgets, including preparing financial projections, general financial management and reporting.
• Proven expertise of leading in fundraising, seeking and securing new donors.
• Demonstrated success at proposal writing as well as management of large and complex grants.
• Evidence of understanding the challenges of donor and grant/contract management and the implications for program management.
• Demonstrated team leadership experience, particularly multi-cultural and remote teams.
• Experience of working effectively as a team member with colleagues based outside the country.
• Good understanding of programme monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and donor reporting.
• Knowledge of a number of social, environmental and economic sustainability issues, e.g. wages, gender equality, income diversification, food security, health, entrepreneurship, strengthening of farmer groups, climate change adaptation, natural resource management.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to successfully forge partnerships between tea producers, government agencies, NGOs, and other stakeholders for the delivery of project activities.
• People management skills including ability to motivate and support team members and develop their skills.
• Well-developed presentation skills.
• Excellent IT skills.
• Proficient English language writing and verbal skills. At least one of the named countries’ language/dialect skills preferred.

Personal Attributes

• Self-motivated, with the ability to deal with conflicting demands and balance short and long term priorities.
• Ability to deal with senior people from a variety of organisations.
• Comfortable working as part of a virtual, small team.
• Ability to prioritise own workload and meet deadlines.
• Ability to liaise effectively with tea producers and partner organisations and maintain their respect.
• Analytical, organised and focused.
• High degree of personal integrity.
• Flexibility to adopt different tasks/roles as required.
• Flexibility to travel regularly to the operational countries under the role’s remit and to the UK secretariat when required.