Business Operations Specialist

Category: Full-time

Reports to: Sr Manager, Global Operations

Location: US Remote, Philippines, Kenya, and India

About Water.org

1 in 10 people around the world lack access to safe water and 1 in 4 people don’t have access to a toilet. We are working every day to change this. We are Water.org. We’re here to bring water and sanitation to the world. We want to make it safe, accessible and cost-effective because we believe that water is the way to empowering a bright future that we can all share in, worldwide. We are an international nonprofit organization based in Kansas City, Missouri that has positively transformed millions of lives around the world through access to safe water and sanitation. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, we pioneer market-driven financial solutions to the global water crisis. For more than 25 years, we’ve been providing women hope, children health and families a future.

Summary

This position's primary locations are in the Kansas City area, Philippines, Kenya, or India. It is also open to remote in the following US states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Kansas and Washington, DC.

The Business Operations Specialist, within the Global Operations team in the Global Impact Department, coordinates the core objectives of the department, acting as both a department- wide business operations resource as well as a provider of advisory and strategic support for the Global Impact Leadership Team. This position champions mission-critical projects and initiatives that enhance the department’s ability to deliver impact, improve productivity, and mitigate risk. She/He/They connects the department through managing departmental planning and operations services, including documenting leadership-relevant and timely status updates and insights to effectively execute on business priorities.

This individual will work under the direction of the Sr. Manager, Global Operations and, in some cases, the Chief Global Impact Officer to establish or implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, or procedures to maintain consistent execution of business objectives and operational effectiveness priorities, including running the monthly GI Operating Reviews, executing department planning processes, and leading coordination and monitoring of department-wide projects and initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

Operational & Departmental Planning + Alignment (40%)

• Manage the monthly GI Operating Review process and ensure appropriate documentation and follow up on flagged issues.
• Assist department leadership with prioritizing, sequencing, and operationalizing department goal setting, priorities and initiatives, ensuring supporting documentation is captured and published, creating dashboards and similar mechanisms to support open collaboration and access for key stakeholders.
• Work with department leadership to develop methods and/or models for acquiring, synthesizing, and disseminating information regarding department priorities within and outside of the department.
• Monitor key priorities, initiatives, and projects; identifies potential conflicts of resources or inefficiencies and recommends tradeoffs / resolutions.
• Coordinate GI’s annual operational and budget planning, including cross-functional coordination with other operations functions and GI leadership.
• Monitor departmental budget, including liaising with Chief Global Impact Officer and Global Impact leadership team on variance analysis, feedback and projections for finance.

Departmental Initiative and Project Oversight (30%)

• Collaborate with the GI Leadership Team and HR’s Learning and Development team to develop, implement, and manage department-wide training initiatives and priorities
• Determine, prioritize, and coordinate Global Impact involvement in organization-wide initiatives.
• Analyze dept initiative and project progress and execution rates to identify significant risks and document recommendations for celebrating success and addressing improvement.
• At the direction of the Global Operations Lead and/or the Chief Global Impact Officer (or her designee), participate in special projects identified as a time-sensitive priority, which may include special research initiatives, initiatives requiring multiple stakeholder engagement, and/or providing support to other areas requiring temporary surge capacity.
• Ensure team usage, alignment, and management of the Global Impact calendar of events, priorities, and trainings.
• Ensure calendar is aligned with organizational deadlines, priorities and events Monitor upcoming deadlines and events and assigns team roles in calendar as required.

Communication + Engagement (30%)

• Identify and deploy strategies for dept-wide communication and engagement in partnership with department leadership, including direct support to the CGIO to coordinate communications and draft language as requested or assigned.
• Support preparation of presentations, documents, and other materials for communications other departments and teams.
• Promote adherence to Water.org branding and style guidelines for internal and external communications.
• Design and manage process and support for GI leadership team and department meetings; periodically review and refine approaches.
• Implement surveys and other feedback mechanisms to determine success and viability of department-wide communication and engagement.
• Synthesize internal survey feedback to refine and optimize communication approaches.

Management Responsibility

• Individual contributor with no subordinates.

Skills and Competencies

• Customer Focus – Building strong customer relationships and delivering customer- centric solutions.
• Communicates Effectively – Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences.
• Drives Results – Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.
• Collaborates – Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives.
• Self-development – Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using other formal and informal development channels.
• Optimize Work Processes – Knowing the most effective and efficient processes to get things done, with a focus on continuous improvement.
• Manages Ambiguity – Manages ambiguity by operating effectively, even when things are not certain or the way forward is not clear.
• Instills Trust – Gaining the confidence and trust of others through honesty, integrity, and authenticity.
• Financial Stewardship – Demonstrates fiscally responsible decision making as applicable to one’s role.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher.
• 5+ years of previous experience providing guidance and facilitating business operations for a team in a diverse and/or globally matrixed organization.
• Strong project management and planning skills evidenced through previous professional roles.
• Ability to gather, analyze and distill complex and disparate information related to business process and/or process-based capability development and analytics)
• Ability to prioritize and direct work, while maintaining a controlled understanding of workflow management.
• Effective business partnering skills with the ability to identify client needs quickly.
• Demonstrated advanced budget management skills.
• Strong and effective communication interpersonal skills.
• Advanced MS 365 Office skills
• Language(s): English

Travel Requirement

• Up to 10% of domestic and global travel. Global travel may only be required for specific department priorities and/or events.

Salary and Benefits

This position offers country-specific benefits and market-based, competitive salary; as well as periodic review for merit and incentive pay based on organizational and personal achievement.

Water.org is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to providing an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender expression, gender identity, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy status, military and veteran status, genetic information, and any other status protected by law. We provide qualified applicants and employees reasonable accommodation, when necessary, to enable individuals to complete the application process and/or perform the essential functions of the job. We believe social change happens when people with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and identities come together with a common purpose. We strive to build and maintain a diverse team that will advance our mission and work and encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.