Reporting directly to the CEO, the Chief of Staff (CoS) serves as a strategic partner, integrator, and operational anchor across IDinsight’s global leadership. The CoS plays a critical role in ensuring that the CEO’s time, priorities, and strategic focus are deployed toward the organization’s highest-impact goals, while also supporting cross-organizational alignment and execution.

This role combines high-level strategy, systems thinking, and hands-on execution. The CoS works closely with the CEO, Executive Team, Board of Directors, and senior leaders across regions and functions to drive organizational effectiveness, strengthen internal linkages, and foster a culture of clarity, accountability, and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Strategy
  • Own and drive the organization’s goal-setting and performance tracking framework (currently an “Objectives and Key Results” system), ensuring annual goals are established, monitored, and reported to the Board
  • Develop inputs from quantitative analyses and consultations to monitor and refine the implementation of IDinsight’s multi-year strategy for impact growth.
  • Translate strategic priorities into clear, actionable plans, and coordinate cross-functional and regional execution against them
  • Facilitate standing meetings of senior leaders around current challenges and opportunities at the organizational level
  • Maintain awareness of key developments in the evidence, evaluation, and AI landscape and surface opportunities or risks relevant to IDinsight’s strategy and positioning
• Special projects
  • Elevate IDinsight’s operating standards by identifying, implementing, and tracking system and process improvements in partnership with functional and client-facing teams
  • Lead or participate in cross-team working groups and internal projects to achieve strategic objectives
  • Design and manage strategic talent and leadership development initiatives (e.g., rotational programs, onboarding frameworks) that build organizational capacity and support the professional growth of emerging leaders
• Internal communications and Executive Voice
  • Draft and manage CEO communications across internal channels (e.g., Slack, email, all-hands meetings), board materials, and stakeholder updates, serving as a trusted voice proxy for the CEO when needed
  • Shape the messaging and framing of organizational priorities, ensuring that strategic decisions are communicated with clarity and consistency across the organization
• Relationship building and coordination
  • Manage the Executive team’s preparation and involvement with organization-wide processes, internal team meetings, and other engagements that drive alignment, shared knowledge, and learning
  • Prepare and follow up on meetings by generating data-driven insights, developing presentations, drafting written deliverables, capturing and sharing meeting notes, maintaining task lists, and tracking critical next steps to completion
  • Develop talking points, presentations, and written materials for the CEO’s internal and external engagements, synthesizing complex information into clear, compelling narratives
  • Shape the messaging and framing of organizational priorities, ensuring that strategic decisions are communicated with clarity and consistency across the organization
  • When needed, participate directly in meetings and represent the CEO’s point of view in internal and external settings
• Executive and Board Management
  • Manage the CEO’s time, priorities, and information flow to ensure focus on the organization’s most strategic work
  • Support the Executive team in engagement with the Board of Directors, Board of Advisors, clients, funders, and other stakeholders
  • Lead Board engagement, including planning and executing board meetings, overseeing governance and compliance processes, and maintaining board knowledge management systems
  • Manage ongoing relationships with individual board members between meetings, ensuring timely follow-up on action items, facilitating information requests, and keeping governance communications on track
• Organizational Coordination and Change Management
  • Strengthen linkages between the Executive Team and regional and functional teams to ensure clear communication, information cascade, and organizational alignment.
  • Support and sometimes lead organizational change management initiatives that enhance coordination, performance, and culture.
  • Partner with senior leaders to steward key organizational initiatives, ensuring momentum, clarity, and accountability
• Thought Partnership and Representation
  • Serve as a trusted advisor and thought partner to the CEO and other members of the Executive Team
  • Pressure-test strategic decisions by providing independent analysis, surfacing risks and trade-offs, and offering candid counsel on cross-cutting organizational priorities
  • Synthesize information from across the organization to help the CEO and Executive Team maintain a clear, current picture of organizational health, emerging risks, and strategic opportunities
• Event Planning and Leadership Engagement
  • Lead the end-to-end planning and execution of high-impact internal events – including executive retreats, leadership summits, CEO roadshows, in-person board meetings, and organization-wide convenings – from scoping and programming design through vendor procurement, stakeholder coordination, and on-site delivery
• Technology and Operational Efficiency
  • Leverage technology and AI tools to improve executive workflows, streamline information management, and increase the efficiency of organizational coordination and reporting.
  • Identify and implement process improvements that reduce manual overhead for the CEO and Executive Team, enabling greater focus on high-impact work.

Skillset

• Strong commitment to advancing IDinsight’s mission and vision for the sector
• Strong understanding of development policy and social sector in LMICs required, with approximately 6 to 12 years of professional experience, including meaningful time working in or with LMIC contexts
• Standout project management skills, with an ability to easily switch between high-level considerations and nuts and bolts of implementation
  • Experience managing concurrent workstreams across multiple time zones, with the ability to maintain quality and momentum in a globally distributed organization.
• Experience designing and managing programs involving multiple stakeholders and junior team members, including mentoring, onboarding, and performance support. People management experience preferred
• Expertly develop and execute tactical assignments, including producing high-quality deliverables independently
• Excellent judgement and problem-solving abilities, with an ability to think through complex questions conscientiously and judiciously
• Demonstrated track record as a self-starter and leader, including comfort with ambiguity and dynamic environments and workstreams
• Strong communicator in multiple fora (written communications, public speaking, teamwork, and upward management)
• Strong written communication skills, including comfort ghostwriting for senior executives and adapting tone and voice across different audiences and channels
• Comfort with AI and technology tools for workflow automation, information management, and executive support
• Experience managing vendor relationships, procurement processes, or consultant engagements
• Solutions-oriented, with an ability to translate strategic ideas to action plans working across multiple work-streams in parallel
• Strong desire for professional growth and development, with a track record of openness to give and receive feedback;
• High level of independence and sharp attention to detail
• Strong ability to maintain integrity and confidentiality in complex situations; to handle sensitive information, data, and issues with mature and discreet professionalism
• Ability to serve as a culture carrier for IDinsight – someone who embodies and reinforces the organization’s values, principles, norms, and ways of working across teams and contexts
• Intellectually curious, with a genuine interest in how evidence, data, and AI can improve decision-making for social impact

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