INCLUDED is a nonprofit organization that envisions inclusive cities for migrants. We broker access to the city for migrants and their slums, doing essential work in difficult places, particularly the slums where migrants are crowded into the margins of megacities. Because no issue is bigger today, no global situation is more urgent than the growing numbers of people living in city slums. Starting in Beijing, we are now also active in Shanghai, Kathmandu and Dhaka. We’re architecting a network of 10 cities and 100 community centers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the coming decade to link together efforts on improving the situation of migrants in their cities. Our leadership has recently received the Schwab Entrepreneur of the year award and INCLUDED’s innovative approach to addressing the issue of slums is being increasingly recognized around the world. www.included.org

INTRODUCTION

As INCLUDED expands, we have been laying the groundwork to engage a COO to work in close partnership with the Executive Director and Founder to scale the organization. This is an exciting opportunity to oversee the daily work of the organization as it expands internationally out from China and Asia. Ultimately, this role ensures solid, effective organizational operations and execution while scaling the organization. We are seeking a mission-focused, seasoned, strategic, and relational leader with experience scaling an organization, helping to lead an executive management team, and developing a performance culture among a group of diverse, talented individuals.

The COO must be a leader who helps others at INCLUDED deliver on the vision in real and tangible ways. Some of our goals around inclusive cities are lofty and involve many intangibles. You’ll work to make them tangible, breaking the ambitious goals into attainable chunks for the team, celebrating their successes, and working with them to consistently improve our approach. Ultimately, you will lead through other people, focusing on leveraging their strengths much more than improving their weaknesses. You will have developed a level of extroversion with your team members to help them enjoy their work. 

You are motivated to help position INCLUDED as one of the top three global leaders on the migrant slum issue. A level of chemistry and trust needs to exist between the COO and Executive Director for the relationship to work.  Effectiveness over efficiency. Results over perfection. Simplicity over complexity. The world is changing at a rapidly increasing pace and we need to remain nimble and quick to react to the opportunities and challenges this brings. You will work to protect our creative, pioneering character in the process.

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Do your colleagues think you’re relational? Do you enjoy the idea of architecting things that last? Does serving your team by solving obstacles on a Monday morning get you excited? Do you take pride in doing things well? Do your colleagues describe you as fast-paced, persuasive, self-confident, and cooperative with an eye on the big picture?. Do you gain satisfaction from seeing the joy of struggle and then success on your team’s faces? If so, this role may be for you.

MANDATE FOR THIS ROLE

• Drive the organization forward in its aim of inclusive cities for migrants
• Position INCLUDED as the top organization working on migrant slum issues globally
• Partner with the ED to scale the organization to a linked network 10 cities and 100 community centers and 1 Center for Migrant Slums and 1 Design Center across Asia, Africa, and Latin America by 2020 or before
• Oversee the expansion of the staff team to 100 persons by 2018
• Increase and maintain the quality and integrity of the organization while scaling
• Simplify. The organization has grown too complex at times; keep it simple and flat
• Encourage a special culture among the staff and environment
• Work with the ED to set standards...standards aren’t for bending
• Develop a customer service mentality throughout the organization (Our Service Commitments)

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Reporting to the Executive Director and Founder of INCLUDED, the COO will lead most internal operations and will have the following responsibilities and privileges:

 

TEAM AND TALENT MANAGEMENT

• Works with the Executive Director on hiring, motivating, challenging and retaining key team members
• Serves as the internal leader of the organization, providing for all staff a strong day-to-day leadership presence, ensuring functioning teamwork across the organization 
• Bridges international, national, and regional operations 
• Encourages the principle of failing forward; we are a pioneering organization so a culture of trying and failing and learning and improving is essential
• Instills a culture of coaching and human development throughout the organization

CO-LEADERSHIP OF EXECUTIVE TEAM

• In general, the ED leads the long-term strategic direction and the COO leads the execution but both work closely together on building out the long-term approach of the organization
• Works with the ED to lead and manage the executive team and senior leadership of the organization. This includes the Finance Director, 3 Country Directors, and core support functions of Talent/Operations/IT/Admin/Logistics/Facilities/Quality. 
• The Development Director and Programs Director report to the ED; the Development Director has dotted line reporting to the COO on functions of (1) budgeting (2) development of systems for reporting and measurement (3) administrative aspects including proposal preparation, grant writing, donor reporting (4) achieving targets; the Programs Director has dotted line reporting to the COO on functions of (1) quality control (2) achieving targets 
• Prepares for and leads the Executive Team and Senior Leadership Team weekly meetings, pulling in the ED as needed 

PLANNING AND EXECUTION

• Works in partnership with the ED to create three-year strategic plans and implements new processes and approaches to achieve the goals
• Creates clarity throughout the organization of goals and steps to achieve those goals
• Coordinates the annual operations plan and budget
• Ensures key priorities are defined and focused on
• Leads the performance management process and evaluates progress against goals
• Develops and maintains a dashboard of high level metrics useful for the leadership to make key decisions
• Keeps on eye particularly on the financial income and performance of the organization, the lifeblood
• Promotes alignment throughout the organization

OPERATIONAL FUNCTIONS

• Builds processes and systems to reduce headaches for the team
• Ensures healthy knowledge management throughout the organization
• Places a premium on use of modern technology to boost efficiencies and communications
• Helps the team put together smooth administrative processes
• Facilities and logistics are an important part of our work; sets high standards in these areas with a belief that our environment is related to quality of life

FINANCE

• Coordinates with the Finance Director to ensure a robust financial system is in place to meet the scaling international needs of the organization
• Ensures monthly finance reports are produced, understood and acted on 
• Generally keeps a very strong hand on the financial component of the organization

PROGRAMS SUPPORT

• Once the strategic programmatic direction is set for the year, works with the Country Directors to ensure programmatic goals and quality are being met
• Ensures the number of community centers, affiliates, beneficiaries and program measurements are clear
• Works with the Programs Director to ensure program quality
• Works with the Programs Director and Development Director to ensure sufficient programmatic resources

SCALING

• Develop operating models that can be replicated and scaled to build to the goal of 100 community centers in 10 cities
• Design and implement processes that can support an international organization operating in multiple developing countries
• Work with the ED to design and build out INCLUDED.think (a Center for Migrant Slums) and INCLUDED.design (a center focusing design on migrant slums)

SIMPLICITY AND DESIGN

• Believes in simplicity and always promotes it
• Believes in good design and always promotes it

CENTRAL OFFICE

• Ensures adequate support and leadership from Central Office provided to all branches
• Cultivates the values and culture of INCLUDED throughout the organization
• Ensures internal communications and key messages are flowing through all levels and develops effective feedback loops
• Ensures policies are sufficient, and sufficiently simple
• Works with the ED and Board to determine future location of international central office as we are in the process of considering whether moving a small team out of Beijing is appropriate at this stage
• Oversees the transition of the central office within 1-2 years

ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

As a prerequisite, the successful candidate must believe in the core values of INCLUDED and be driven by its mission. The candidate will demonstrate a passion for breaking new ground to lead social change. Beyond that, we are seeking a candidate that has proven experience in scaling a multi-site organization and a demonstrated ability to both lead and build the capabilities of a driven, bright, diverse team. The successful candidate will most likely have had management experience with both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. INCLUDED is driven by the values of its people, so experience in managing a “values- driven” organization is highly prized. Additional requirements are:

 

• Attitude.  Flexible, innovative, independent thinker, ability to operate in a fast-paced and changing, and sometimes ambiguous environment, problem-solver who is willing to pioneer
• Commitment.  A commitment to service and particularly an interest in serving the needs of migrant communities in the developing world
• Results.  Proven track record of exceeding goals and a bottom-line orientation; evidence of the ability to consistently make good decisions through a combination of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment; high level of business acumen, including successful P&L management and the ability to balance the delivery of programs against the realities of a budget; problem solving, project management, and creative resourcefulness 
• Strategic Vision and Agility.  Ability to think strategically, anticipate future consequences and trends, and incorporate them into the organizational plan 
• Capacity Building.  Ability to effectively build organization and staff capacity, recruiting and developing a top-notch workforce and the processes that ensure the organization runs smoothly 
• Leadership and Organization.  Exceptional capacity for managing and leading people; a team builder who has experience in scaling up organizations; ability to connect staff both on an individual level and in large groups; capacity to enforce accountability, develop and empower top-notch leaders from the bottom up, lead from the top down, cultivate entrepreneurship, and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the team so as to put people in a position to succeed 
• Action Oriented.  Enjoys working hard and looks for challenges; able to act and react as necessary, even if limited information is available; not afraid to take charge of a situation; can overcome resistance to leadership and take unpopular stands when necessary 
• General Management.  Thorough understanding of finance, systems, and HR; broad experience with the full range of business functions and systems, including strategic development and planning, budgeting, business analysis, finance, information systems, human resources, and marketing 
• Solid Educational Background.  Undergraduate degree required; MBA or similar advanced degree highly desired
• Experience.  12-5 years of management experience, with 7 of those years being in a senior leadership position which oversaw most functions of the organization

WORK RELATIONSHIPS

Reporting to:  Executive Director/Founder

Member of:  Central Office - Executive Team

Supervises:  International Finance Director, 3 Country Directors, Central Office Associate, Operations/HR/Admin/IT/Legal/Logistics Staff

External Contacts: Partners, Donors, Policy Makers, Government, Vendors, NGO Leaders, Media

 

OTHER INFORMATION

Employment Type:  Full Time

Salary Range:  Provided upon invitation to interview (as a young org founded in China, we encourage you to adjust your expectations; the opportunity will appeal to you more than the salary level)

Qualifications:  MBA preferred 

Experience (years):  12-15> years of proven general management experience

Job Location:  Beijing, China (the central office may be moved within a year)

Post Date:  July 1st 2013

 

Please submit your cover letter and resume here at www.smartrecruiters.com/included. Please only submit it to us at [email protected] if you are unable to upload it online at this link.  If you would like to learn more about our work, please visit the website at www.included.org.