Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Program Officer, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Job

Date: Apr 10, 2014
Location: Seattle, WA, US

Division: Global Development Program
Department: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
Location: Seattle

Foundation Overview
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people-especially those with the fewest resources-have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Sue Desmond-Hellmann and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

Group Summary
The Foundation's Global Development Program is working with motivated partners to create opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. We seek to catalyze action by others and to leverage the foundation's particular capabilities, such as taking risks to drive innovation and engaging with a wide range of partners to achieve measurable results.

Within this program, the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WSH) initiative focuses its efforts on supporting effective, sustainable and scalable ways to assist the 2.5 billion people who lack access to adequate sanitation. The WSH team launched its new strategy in July 2011 under the banner “Let's Reinvent the Toilet” and is developing an ambitious research and development program to turn this vision into a reality.

The Transformative Technologies initiative within the WSH strategy is investing in radical technological innovation that aim at step-changes in the sustainability and profitability of sanitation. Our future investments to reinvent the toilet aim to expand and build on these with the objective of making safe and affordable toilets available to many millions of low income consumers and making neighborhoods and cities cleaner and safer. The focus will increasingly support products compliance with national and international standards and certificates; assist the development of final product specifications that are acceptable to the end users and product certification to drive access to the global market.

The key components of the Transformative Technologies initiative investment portfolio include the development, deployment, and commercialization of:
- A waterless, hygienic toilet for household use or shared use;
- New emptying technologies: Mechanical solutions which allow for dewatering biosolids onsite, de-sanding, separating trash and disinfecting filtered water, at a cost lower than current market practices to compete with manual emptiers;
- Improved waste processing solutions: Innovations in limited number of industrial technologies to process fecal sludge at neighborhood or decentralized level to recover energy (fuel, electricity, biogas, or biochar) or resources (water, fertilizer, biosolids), with the aim of generating a profitable business for operators/industries.
Development of innovative business models to make sanitation service affordable to the majority of poor people and facilitate the adoption of appropriate innovations is a critical supporting component to our investments in new technology.

Responsibilities
The PO will lead an investment portfolio to complement ongoing technology development and commercialization efforts with the aim of increasing adoption to new technologies and access to the global market, particularly in pro-poor market in developing countries. The PO will make investment to support products compliance with national and international standards and certificates; assist the development of final product specifications that are acceptable to the end users and reflect their needs and aspirations as well as protecting users, operators and the operating environment; develop test plans, gather and distill the data and disseminate to the wider team for review and feedback; The PO will develop and lead the relationship with national and international standards and certification authorities to develop certificates of conformity for Foundation-funded technologies that qualify for global commercialization. The PO will be responsible for the coordination of certification and accreditation tasks with Foundation partners.

Work with colleagues to make strategic investment that ensure compliance of technologies with national and international standards and certification requirements.

Lead a strategic portfolio to secure access to the global market through products certification and compliance with national and international standards.

Develop test plans, gather and distill the data and disseminate to the wider team for review and feedback.

Support national and international regulatory bodies to adopt or develop new certification process that support adoption of sanitation innovations.

Develop label for leading product that will drive access to global market.

Provide technical support to Foundation partners and grantees to internalize product certification process in project outcomes and product development cycle.

Develop a certification and standardization criteria to guide the development of technology funded by the Foundation.

Build and maintain an excellent communication and relationship with national and international certification and accreditation bodies to keep foundation updated on latest development and new requirements for product certification.

Qualifications
- At least five years professional experience in fields of inspection, auditing and / or certification preferred.
- University degree in engineering, natural sciences, MBA or other relevant disciplines.
- Excellent understanding of international standards; certification processes and organization (example: ISO and IEC).
- Demonstrate experience in products certification to support end users adoption and global commercialization.
- Understanding of, and engagement with, certification or regulatory agencies in the developing world (Africa or Asia) for several years is preferred.
- Ability to think/act like an investor.
- Ability to work collaboratively as part of a larger team.
- Experience working with a range of clients, colleagues, consultants, and other partners with broad exposure to private, public and NGO sectors.
- Strong analytical skills, including quantitative assessments and a focused approach to complex problems.
- Excellent negotiation skills.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills to convey complex situations in a clear, concise manner.
- Excellent command of English language is obligatory. Additional knowledge of other modern languages is an asset.
- Demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a fast-paced environment.
- Innovative and open-minded approach to all aspects of work. Ability to question and challenge colleagues, including managers, and partners in a constructive manner.
- Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people.
- Ability to travel up to 33% of time international and domestic as needs dictate.
- Impatient and optimistic.

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a comprehensive background check.

Requisition Number: 4434BR

Nearest Major Market: Seattle
Job Segments: Program Manager, Architecture, Global Health, NGO, Public Health, Management, Engineering, Healthcare, Government

Please see link for further information: careers.gatesfoundation.org/job/Seattle-...b-WA-98101/20113500/

(posted by Friederike)