Project Director, USAID/Advancing Digital Democracy

Project Director, USAID/Advancing Digital Democracy

About Palladium:

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 4,000 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

This Opportunity:

The Digital Solutions and Transformation Portfolio within the Data Informatics and Analytical Solutions (DIAS) Community of Practice is seeking a Project Director to lead an upcoming global project to support USAID's Advancing Digital Democracy activity. The Program aims to support the development of digital innovation that respects human rights in partner countries. It will provide comprehensive assistance to stakeholders, including governments, civil society and the private sector, to achieve this goal. The DIAS Practice is a dynamic and innovative group with talented and passionate members, working together to strengthen and harness digital and data ecosystems to accelerate development investments and outcomes and create positive impact.

The Project Director will provide strategic, managerial and technical leadership to the project. The Project Director will help advance USAID's digital democracy agenda, leading a team of equally passionate digital development and democracy professionals and program managers to implement a wide range of activities that promote open, secure, and inclusive digital democracies in which data-driven technologies advance, rather than undermine, democratic values and respect for human rights.

The Project Director will have experience developing and implementing organization-wide strategies, with strong interpersonal skills to develop and manage complex relationships across various stakeholders in various sectors. Finally, the Project Director will have demonstrated project management experience to ensure delivery of a wide variety of technical activities in service of advancing USAID's Digital Strategy Policy.

This is a full-time, key personnel senior position based in Washington, DC and is contingent upon award.

You and Your Career:

If you are a problem-solver, collaborator, and doer, and you have expertise in strategic planning, leading global projects with USAID, or relevant digital government democracy and human rights experience, we are interested in hearing from you. We are a learning organization and provide growth opportunities from the start. We pride ourselves on giving you the freedom, resources, and guidance to chart a fulfilling career

Reporting and Supervision:

The Project Director will report to the Palladium Home Office Program Manager and will work closely with USAID/Washington D.C. and USAID Missions.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

1. Direct the project's strategic vision, design, and implementation with the aim of advancing open, secure, and inclusive digital democracies in which data-driven technologies advance, rather than undermine, democratic values and respect for human rights.
2. Serve as the main point of contact for the activity and with the responsibility of liaising directly with the activity COR on all technical issues.
3. Oversee the design and strategy of new project buy-ins and workplans, ensure timely submissions to and approval by the client, ensure that agreed activities and targets are fully accomplished, meet expected technical and management quality standards, and are delivered on schedule and on budget.
4. Develop, manage, and maintain strategic partnerships with USAID, other U.S. government agencies and projects, host-country governments and counterparts, international donors, multilateral organizations, and civil society and private sector partners in developing countries.
5. Identify opportunities and negotiate partnership programs to leverage synergistic donor, governmental, and organizational resources.
6. Manage and mentor a team of senior technical and program management staff and facilitate strong communication and coordination with and between all team members.
7. Ensure effective internal systems for adaptive program delivery; results tracking and reporting; staff recruitment, mobilization, and retention; and contracting and financial management to rapidly, efficiently respond to dynamic program needs.
8. Facilitate proactive technical and programmatic monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptation across all levels of the project to mitigate risks to the program and refine program focus to apply lessons learned, respond to emerging needs, and take advantage of new opportunities.
9. Develop and oversee a system for the identification, packaging and dissemination of good practices and lessons learned from project implementation.

Key Competencies Required:

1. Bachelor's degree (master's degree preferred) in business administration, information systems, political science or international development and fifteen (15) years of experience adaptively managing USAID activities, including contracts and buy-ins, and proven experience building and managing dynamic, flexible teams.
2. Strong financial management experience including the ability to develop, track and monitor budgets and overall financial health of the project.
3. Strong interpersonal skills with a high level of emotional intelligence for effective communication and interaction within the project and to promote and position the project in the broader digital transformation arena.
4. Sound management skills to guide all project human, technical, and financial resources.
5. Strong communications, writing, and oral presentation skills in English. Professional fluency in additional languages preferred (e.g. French, Spanish, Portuguese).
6. Willingness to travel up to 30% of the time.

Professional Expertise:

1. Experience leading USAID activities that catalyse democracy, governance, or economic growth outcomes worldwide related to digital transformation, digital government, digital policy development.
2. Experience building and maintaining relationships with high-level government officials, key policymakers or national regulatory authorities.
3. Experience cultivating and managing relationships across multiple technical sectors, digital development, policy and strategy, democracy, digital rights, digital inclusion, and/or digital transformation.
4. Demonstrated experience in building partnerships to achieve mutual goals and objectives, including with U.S. government agencies, host-country governments and counterparts, international donors, multilateral organizations, and civil society and private sector partners in developing countries.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion - Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made due to a disability or you are a neurodivergent individual or for any other circumstance, please email our team at and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding - We define Safeguarding as "the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm." We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process.