Who We Are

IREX is a global development and education organization. We strive for a more just, prosperous, and inclusive world—where individuals reach their full potential, governments serve their people, and communities thrive. With a projected annual portfolio of more than $100 million and more than 600 staff worldwide, we work with partners in more than 100 countries in four areas essential to progress: cultivating leaders, empowering youth, strengthening institutions, and increasing access to quality education and information.

Young people are a tremendous force for positive, transformational change at the local, national, and global levels. IREX has been supporting and developing youth changemakers for over 50 years, and currently has nearly 40 youth-serving programs in 100 countries. IREX’s proven approach to youth development promotes relevant education, professional development, civic engagement, and job skills. We focus on catalyzing and empowering youth and youth-serving organizations and institutions to build their abilities to drive change in their communities around the world.

IREX is looking for an entrepreneurial and results driven leader who has an excellent command of global youth development efforts to serve as its Director of Youth Development. The Director of Youth Development will provide leadership across the organization to help IREX define and achieve ever more ambitious youth impact goals. They will collaborate with and guide other leaders, program managers, and practitioners to help them develop and observe standards of excellence in youth programming. The successful candidate will have a deep expertise leading, designing, and managing youth development programs, and a successful track record collaborating with and inspiring others, and partnering with governments, the private sector, and the philanthropic community.

The Director of Youth Development role combines strategy with high standards for excellence, impact, and evidence. It requires advanced relationship building skills and the ability to cultivate a spirit of learning, innovation, and entrepreneurship across programs and practice areas. The Director will work with the Vice President of Global Programs to further strengthen systems for delivering high quality services and products, and to position IREX for increased impact and future growth. The Director will continually assess the competitive environment to consolidate existing partnerships and identify new opportunities for IREX to advance its mission.

We are doers. Our decades of on-the-ground experience help us create greater impact, practical recommendations, and lasting partnerships.

Are you the next member of our team?

Your Background & Skills

• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s Degree preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in global youth development, including experience in developing and emerging economies.
• Experience serving as a youth leader and/or direct experience in a leadership role as a young entrepreneur or entrepreneur desired.
• Demonstrated passion for and thought leadership in youth development.
• Strong experience and knowledge of best practices in youth development.
• Experience building a portfolio and contributing to new business development.
• Experience leading, motivating, developing, mentoring and managing a diverse team of high-capacity international staff.
• Demonstrated commitment to IREX values (https://www.irex.org/our-values) and collaborative staff management style.
• Ability to set and guide strategic vision and goals for youth development and contribute to setting short and long-term organizational goals.
• Excellent organizational planning, presentation, and professional-technical writing skills.
• Agile learning skills that lead to personal and group continued learning of practice technical area.
• Strong donor, partner, and peer collaboration and negotiation skills.
• Strong budgeting and financial planning acumen.
• Speaking, reading and writing proficiency in English required.
• You must have unrestricted authorization to work in the United States.

Your Daily Tasks

• Provides strategic vision and guidance to leaders and practitioners working on youth development across the organization.
• Collaborates with others to set high standards for impact, measurement, scaling and adaptive learning.
• Guides practitioners on sound, forward-looking technical support.
• Manages youth technical advisor(s) and coaches youth development experts and staff across IREX
• Supports project teams to ensuring effective and relevant youth development programming with a focus on results, impact, and donor deliverables. May oversee effective and timely management of project start-up and close downs.
• Publicly represents and promotes IREX's youth development work and expertise to a range of external audiences through strategic communications, speaking engagements, articles and other forms of engagement.
• Develops and consults with donors and partners to promote IREX’s youth development work.
• Provides high-level representation and support for large program events and key interventions.
• Establishes new strategic relationships/partnerships and deepens and expands existing relationships/partnerships/programs.
• Leads and/or contributes to complex proposal efforts ensuring that global best practices, research, and technical approaches are incorporated into design; mentors’ other staff in leading and designing high quality proposals and concept notes.
• Stays abreast of what is happening in the Youth Development Community outside of IREX, collaborates with external peers to know what others are doing in the sector and establishes IREX as a thought leader based on the impact, scalability and innovative achievements of our work.
• Oversees Youth portfolio annual budget.
• Monitors and supports project teams as needed to manage within (static or changing) program budgets, or to pursue cost-share.
• Develops and implements a talent management plan for “youth development” practitioners including recruitment, training and other professional development globally.
• Ensures IREX values are ''lived" by staff by setting example and tone for staff and emphasizing the importance/necessity of practicing our values to achieve impact.
• Provides sound and forward-looking technical and management support and coaching to Youth projects; provides leadership and vision to IREX's youth work across the organization in support of its youth impact goal.
• Champions Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) through developing and implementing DEI strategy that aligns with IREX’s DEI goals.

IREX will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments of 2008.

We conduct background checks on all successful candidates.

This position is eligible for Remote work. The eligible employee is a regular, full-time staff who works from a worksite outside the DC metro area on a more permanent or ongoing basis.

This position is not eligible for Immigration Sponsorship.

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EOE – Equal Opportunity Employer

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/vets.