Associate Director, Operations, Ebola Response

About the role

The Associate Director, Operations – Ebola Response provides senior operations leadership for Ebola outbreak response activities across the STRIDES portfolio. Reporting to the STRIDES Implementation Director, the role ensures rapid, compliant implementation of field operations, emergency procurement, staffing, partner coordination, budget management, donor responsiveness, and risk management.

Key responsibilities

• Lead operations for current Ebola response activities across multiple countries, ensuring strategic coherence and compliance with organizational, host‑government, and donor policies.
• Coordinate response activation, surge staffing, consultant support, travel, procurement, budget tracking, issue escalation and follow‑up on priorities.
• Build capacity of project and response teams to manage emergency operations, field coordination, documentation and compliance in a high‑tempo outbreak environment.
• Collaborate with HQ DRC Ebola IMT, program management teams, in‑country teams and technical counterparts on emergency response management, security, duty of care, knowledge management and operational risk.
• Support programming and technical staff to capture lessons learned and best practices for incorporation into response and preparedness activities.
• Identify operational gaps, surge needs and opportunities for additional programming, and ensure routine monitoring visits for donor compliance and implementation quality.
• Coordinate budget management, expense control and contractual documentation with stakeholder units, and ensure timely procurement, staffing, travel approvals and budget monitoring.

Required profile

• Proven experience in leading emergency or outbreak response operations, preferably in health or humanitarian settings.
• Strong background in budget management, procurement, donor compliance and risk management.
• Ability to work closely with country teams, HQ units, incident management teams, government counterparts, donors and implementing partners.
• Excellent coordination and capacity‑building skills to support high‑tempo field environments.

Required skills