Senior Global Director of Country Operations at GiveDirectly

Job Description

Job Summary

GiveDirectly is seeking a Global Head of Country Operations to strengthen and scale operations across all our country offices. This role will shape the operating model that powers GiveDirectly’s next decade of growth. They will build strong country office foundations and level up our ability to scale and serve recipients excellently and adaptively, working in partnership with our COO and other department leads across the organization. The ideal candidate has delivered results across a diverse set of contexts, brings order to chaos, and can partner with senior leaders as well as they can roll up their sleeves to get critical work shipped.. This is a rare opportunity to architect the backbone of a global organization delivering hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

Strengthen and standardize country operations

• Ensure clear roles, crisp accountability, and strong operating routines.
• Define and implement simple, scalable operating models across HR, finance, procurement, compliance, IT, security, and risk.
• Embed global standards in context-appropriate ways that reduce friction so dollars reach recipients faster and more reliably.

Coordination between program teams and central functions

• Coordinate and represent country office realities in global standards setting, priority setting, and resource allocation
• Ensure rollout of global standards in ways that are context appropriate, user-friendly, meaningful, and rigorous

Drive strong financial management and performance

• Oversee financial management across all country offices ($350M+/year), ensuring budgets enable scale and mitigate risk.
• Establish clear KPIs, dashboards, and operating reviews to maintain cost-efficiency.

Lead country expansions and transitions

• Oversee new country launches and compliant wind-downs with clear playbooks and risk mitigation.
• Coordinate across functions to ensure smooth execution.

Strengthen systems and institutional capability

• Translate operational insights into repeatable systems, tools, and automation that reduce manual work.
• Champion continuous improvement and technology adoption to scale efficiently and nimbly.

Enable proactive risk and cross-org alignment

• Maintain a global risk framework and lead or support crisis management when needed.
• Serve as the operational bridge between country leadership and global teams, ensuring priorities are well-resourced and executed consistently.

Other responsibilities as required

Example Deliverables

• Partner with COO to refresh roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities and how they are split between country directors and global shared services departments
• Lead an ops & finance working group to to identify and test step-change efficiency improvement at scale (using budget & process data, then piloting changes)
• Launch a new country office in a crisis-prone region in 3 months
• Systematize contracting approval processes to cut cycle time  by 2x while maintaining compliance & auditability.

Minimum Qualifications Required

• Proactive thinker and systems builder, who can both resolve today’s issues and also prepare us for tomorrow’s opportunities
• Track record of delivering results and owning increasing responsibilities
• Gets things done. Thrives in a lean, fast paced, and hands on environment
• Excellent ability to influence and manage diverse stakeholders, including change management
• Able to juggle a wide range of responsibilities reliably and nimbly
• Diverse work background: Has demonstrated adaptability across high-performing contexts and demands e.g. in AI/tech, management consulting, or other private sector
• Operations breadth across functions like finance, HR, procurement, compliance, ethics, IT, audit, and/or risk, compliance, ethics, IT, corporate audit, and/or risk management. 
• Deep experience living and/or working in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Excited about GD values and mission