Director of Learning, Monitoring & Evaluation

Bonsai Leadership Group is honored to support HERA in identifying its first Director of Learning, Monitoring & Evaluation.

ABOUT HERA

Established in 2023, HERA is a dynamic, global non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to protecting the health, income, and dignity of women on the frontlines of extreme heat. Given the significant gap in the understanding of extreme heat and its disproportional effects on women, HERA was co-founded by four women leaders who care deeply about addressing climate change and its impacts on women and vulnerable communities.

In its first two years, HERA has raised more than $20 million to expand its programs and impact. Today, HERA operates in eight countries, including Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Ghana, Liberia, Thailand, India, Kenya, and the United States. With local partners, HERA creates and delivers practical, durable solutions shaped by the experiences and needs of marginalized women toward better health, more income, and sustained dignity.

THE OPPORTUNITY

HERA is at a critical inflection point of growth and the organization's ability to define, demonstrate, and communicate its impact has never been more essential. Reporting to the Chief Program Officer (CPO) the Director of Learning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (the Director) will play a central role in building the credible, rigorous evidence base that makes that growth possible.

HERA deliberately leads with learning, naming this function Learning, Monitoring & Evaluation (LME) rather than the more common MEL. This reflects a values-driven commitment to approaching this work as a collaborative process with partners and communities, not a compliance or surveillance function. The Director will carry this orientation into every aspect of the role, from how systems are designed to how partners are supported and how evidence is put to use.

The Director will focus on building and strengthening HERA's approach to understanding, measuring, and communicating impact, partnering closely with the CPO to ensure HERA's LME is aligned with program vision, strategy, and practical realities. This includes translating complex, multi-layered work into credible and compelling evidence that reflects both direct outcomes and broader catalytic change and ensuring that insights from HERA's work are actively captured, synthesized, and used to strengthen program effectiveness and articulate impact to funders, partners, and the broader field.

This is a role for someone energized by building. HERA's systems, structures, and ways of working are still evolving, and the Director will be responsible for bringing clarity, coherence, and forward momentum. The single most important quality for success is the ability to hold tension between HERA's current state and its future ambition without collapsing into either one. That means not settling for what already exists, and not designing for a level of infrastructure, funding, or team capacity HERA hasn't yet built. This role requires comfort with ambiguity, flexibility, a collaborative spirit, and the ability to balance near-term needs with longer-term goals.

While the Director will bring deep technical expertise and set the direction for HERA's LME function, this work does not happen in isolation and is built on partnership across the organization. The Director will be closely supported by Finance, Operations, Programs, and Communications, drawing on their capacity and expertise to build systems, shape compelling narratives, and ensure that evidence of impact reaches funders, partners, and the general public.

KEY AREAS OF LEADERSHIP AND FOCUS

Strategy

Working closely with the CPO and program staff, lead the refinement and operationalization of HERA's Theory of Change and organizational LME framework, including defining, prioritizing, and validating indicators.

Develop and communicate a phased LME roadmap for the Executive Team, translating the LME framework into a clear organizational plan that sequences priorities, identifies resource needs, and tracks progress over time, refining the roadmap based on feedback and field learnings.

Consult with program staff to prioritize and right-size HERA’s LME approach, determining which indicators matter most given organizational capacity, funder realities, and program stage, and making principled trade-offs over time.

Center HERA's core values and principles in LME design, including attention to power, participation, voice, and representation, so that the experiences of women remain central to how HERA understands and communicates its impact.

Tools and Systems

Design and implement mixed-method data collection tools, selecting quantitative and qualitative approaches that fit program and funding realities, partner capacity, and the specific questions HERA needs to answer.

Partner with Programs and Operations to establish clear approaches to data collection, management, and quality assurance, ensuring data is reliable, consistently collected, and fit for both internal learning and external reporting and communications.

Engage cross-functional teams to build shared systems and processes for capturing, analyzing, aggregating, and sharing evidence across programs, geographies, and partners, enabling organization-wide learning and informed decision-making.

Provide thoughtful LME support to HERA's partner organizations, many of which are small nonprofits with limited evaluation capacity, designing approaches that strengthen partner practice without creating undue burden and building trust-based data relationships that reflect how HERA actually works on the ground.

Learning and Evidence Use

Lead data analysis and interpretation, synthesizing findings across programs and geographies into clear, actionable insights that inform program decisions and adaptations.

Ensure that LME efforts create credible, compelling data that demonstrate HERA’s track record and position the organization as a leader in women-centered heat solutions.

Lead and facilitate structured team learning, including reflection sessions, sense-making, and feedback loops, that move insights off the page and into active use by teams.

Collaborate with Programs and Communications to translate HERA's complex, multi-level impact into compelling narratives for funders, partners, and the broader field, including both direct outcomes and catalytic contributions that are harder to quantify.

Support proposal development and donor reporting by contributing LME frameworks, indicators, results chains, and evidence strategies, ensuring alignment between program data and funder requirements, and actively building dedicated LME budget lines into proposals to secure the resources needed to do this work well.

Contribute to the design of field-building research initiatives, including commissioned studies and academic partnerships, that fill identified gaps in the extreme heat evidence base and position HERA as a credible thought leader in the sector.

Organizational Leadership and Collaboration

Partner with leadership to align LME priorities with fundraising, reporting, and organizational strategy.

Collaborate closely with the Programs, Communications, Development, Operations, and Finance teams, building LME capacity across the organization and ensuring that evidence of impact reaches audiences beyond formal reporting channels, including HERA's online presence, social media, and public-facing publications.

Contribute to HERA's reputation as a credible and influential voice in women-centered heat solutions through field-building research initiatives, commissioned studies, academic partnerships, thought leadership publications, and sector convenings.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

The ideal candidate will possess many of the following attributes and experiences, though not all are required for consideration:

10+ years of experience in learning, monitoring, evaluation, or a related field within a complex, multi-partner or multi-country context, preferably in international development, climate adaptation, or gender equality. Experience in the Global South is strongly preferred.

Proven ability to operationalize Theories of Change and LME frameworks in environments where systems are still being built, translating ambitious frameworks into phased, practical approaches that align with donor requirements and reflect organizational capacity.

Fluency in mixed-method data collection, including tool development, data quality processes, and implementation across diverse and resource-constrained contexts.

Comfort navigating early-stage and growth-phase organizations, with the flexibility and pragmatism to build rigorously without rigidity.

Collaborative approach to partner capacity-building, experienced working with small NGOs with limited monitoring and evaluation infrastructure and motivated to strengthen partner practice without creating undue burden.

Sound judgment in balancing rigor with usability, able to design approaches credible enough for funders and practical enough for teams working across diverse contexts.

Skilled communicator with strong written and verbal English skills, able to translate complex, multi-level evidence into compelling narratives for funders, partners, and the broader field.

Natural capacity builder, motivated by strengthening LME practice across teams and partners rather than holding expertise centrally.

Deep commitment to participatory, inclusive approaches and centering the voice, agency, and lived experiences of women in how data is designed, collected, analyzed, and used.

Genuine learning orientation, bringing curiosity, humility, and commitment to continuous improvement in their own practice and how they support others.

HERA provides a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the health, well-being, and overall quality of life for its team members.