Principal Consultant

We are seeking a Principal Consultant to join a highly skilled group of people, united in their purpose to contribute to a more equitable and sustainable world. We believe in the power of evidence in driving positive social, economic and environmental change. Through our monitoring, evaluation, learning and strategy work with partners globally, we are helping to deliver better outcomes for people and the planet.

We want to make a difference, come and join us and be part of our long term goal of striving for technical excellence that meets the highest professional and ethical standards.

We are located in the heart of Brighton but you don’t need to be in the office every day, we work on a hybrid basis where travel to the office is expected for weekly team meetings and key company events.   However, you will already have the right to live and work in the UK and be able to travel both nationally and internationally.

Location: Hybrid

Contract: Full time permanent

Closing date: 26th November, however interviewing on a rolling basis - please apply as soon as possible for your application to be considered.

Practice Overview

The Health team are positioned within the Human Development Practice and oversee a dynamic and rapidly evolving portfolio. This is broadly in four thematic areas: sexual and reproductive health and rights, health systems strengthening, global health strategy and global health security. We support solutions to complex problems current in global health, such as tackling anti-microbial resistance, pursuing youth-led design for health programming, applying resilience-thinking to the continuity of sexual and reproductive health services in fragile states, unpacking the way national systems work to deliver health services and many others.

Our growing education practice focus includes education reform, and providing data, information and evidence to policy-makers, program architects and implementors. We have an internal team of 14, working across the portfolio, supported by a large network of external experts, and by our own business services teams.  We leverage this expertise to deliver high quality services to a diverse client base including FCDO, UK Department of Health & Social Care, Gavi, World Health Foundation, USAID, Global Partnership for Education, the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNICEF, BMGF, CIFF, Wellcome Trust, Public Health England, Hewlett Foundation and Elma.

The Role

We are recruiting for an experienced consultant to join the team to provide technical delivery and leadership on projects and programmes across the whole portfolio and to provide operational management and leadership to the Practice .   

Technical delivery: They will lead and contribute to project delivery, develop and own stakeholder relationships, support the development of strong, high performing teams, contribute to business development activities, and build our reputational capital and market presence.  The core technical strengths of all our consultants are focused around four key areas:

• Evidence Advocate:  using robust evidence to support clients and shape global debates;
• Change Agent:  guiding clients in reflecting, learning and managing change;
• Project Manager: building high performing project teams that deliver quality and commercial targets;
• Trusted Advisor: building and shaping long term relationships with clients and partners that add value and deliver commercial success.

Leadership: Working closely with the existing leadership team, the role is essential to the success and development of our collective work. It will be delivered by close liaison with Human Development team members and other parts of the business. This role requires a collaborative mindset, emotional intelligence and strong organisational skills. It is focused around three key areas:

• People:  Shaping the team structure and individual portfolios appropriately to ensure balanced workloads and utilisation targets are met, facilitating the sharing of resources with other Practices.
• Commercial:  Co-ordination of bid management and the Practice’s engagement with and delivery of account management. Oversight of all commercial KPIs including project profitability, management of billing schedule, and debt management.
• Building Itad:  Ensuring management messaging is cascaded, discussed and actioned, active engagement in company initiatives, oversight of adherence to company policies and ways of working including effective planning of practice meetings and awaydays, overseeing implementation of Practice strategic plan and associated KPIs.

The Candidate

You will have a proven track record in a global health area, which may fall within one or more of the following topics: health systems strengthening, global health strategy, sexual and reproductive health and rights, global health security and/or education. As we continue to develop our service offering in the US, experience with US government related project delivery would be welcomed

As a Programme Manager you will have a track record in managing and leading the delivery of complex projects, setting clear direction, managing risk and ensuring delivery of high quality outputs that meet commercial targets and provide value for money.

As an evidence advocate you will be utilising your knowledge and experience of MEL to lead and advise others in the design and implementation of complex MEL projects and workstreams. You will have demonstrated technical expertise in designing MEL systems, tools and processes for a range of clients, and designing and delivering evaluations using a range of approaches and methodologies. You have used these methods to present evidence and analysis to clients – both written and verbally – in a clear, distilled and accessible way, facilitating engagement and use.

As a change agent you will have demonstrated facilitation and communication skills and experience, conveying ideas to clients and teams in a clear and focused style, flexing your technique to suit the environment, and in a way that generates buy-in and supports learning.

As a trusted advisor you will have a strong understanding of how our clients work, and demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with clients that generate repeat work. You will also have experience in successfully leading complex bid processes, including building and managing large teams and consortia.

You will also have a track record in the management of internal and external high-performance teams .  With excellent communication skills, you can adapt to different situations and issues, have empathy, be able to delegate and empower effectively and have strong organisational skills, able to work closely with technical consultants and business units to efficiently deliver results.

At Itad, we are committed to actively promoting diversity, equality and inclusion to empower people both within our organisation and through our work. We know that employees with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences make us a more effective and innovative company and we therefore welcome and encourage applications from interested candidates regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, or belief.

The salary rage for this role is circa £70,000 - £75,000 depending on your experience.  We also offer a comprehensive learning and development programme, flexible working patterns and a matched company pension up to 5%.  You will have 26 days core holiday (for the 2022-23 holiday year), plus a further 3 flexible days and public holidays which you can take whenever you want to. 

Itad is a leading international development consultancy providing technical advice to governments, foundations, multilateral agencies and non-profits on how to maximise the impact of their investments. We have a 30-year track record of providing our clients with the information and insight they need to make development work smarter, produce better results and improve people’s lives.

Our knowledge and expertise are grouped around Practice areas including Human Development, Fragile and Conflict-affected Settings (FCAS), Inclusive Growth, Resilience and Natural Resources and Markets, and Governance and Institutional Strengthening.   We continue to grow in size, commercial performance and professional reputation and we are increasingly recognised as a global leader with a diverse client base including international development agencies and philanthropic foundations.  Our first international office was opened in Washington DC in 2019 which reflects and supports this growth.

Our core areas of work are: 

• Independent evaluation of large-scale, long-term multi-disciplinary programs, strategies and organisations, where we have over 30 years of experience;
• The design and implementation of complex, multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder M&E systems;
• Supporting learning and engagement as part of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) frameworks with a focus on utility and adaptive management; and
• Providing advice to organisations on program strategy and design, including theories of change, impact/uptake pathways, and Value for Money (VfM).