Global Head - Food Security at Blue Ventures

Responsibilities

• Provide oversight and leadership for the development and delivery of technical support, guidance, training, and mentoring to partners and Blue Ventures’ practitioners focused on intervention to improve the returns of small-scale fishers.
• Leading a “training and tools” approach by creating training materials, useful tools and freely available resources that build skills to enable partners to deliver participatory, community based fisheries management approaches.
• Working closely with the Data Science team to embed digital data collection as a central tenet for successful Food Security interventions with all our partners.
• Building connections among partners across different geographies, with a particular focus on ensuring information, lessons learned, and best practices are identified and proactively shared.
• In close collaboration with the Technical Knowledge team, country teams and regional partners (e.g. universities and government agencies), supporting partners to assess and fill their own capacity gaps by providing training programmes and technical guidance to improve their knowledge and practical skills and incorporate approaches and tools into their programming.
• Assessing nutritional contribution of community catch, linking fish catch data collected digitally to fish consumption patterns and nutritional composition, and visualising this information through dashboards that highlight species that are particularly high in micronutrients essential to women and children.
• In close collaboration with the Global Head Community Based Fisheries Management, identify species that the community need to consider for management attention and provide guidance on how those species can be effectively managed.
• Develop awareness materials for communities to understand the fundamental importance of their local fish for their own food and nutritional sovereignty, and how to retain nutritional quality and increase their financial returns through techniques that improve quality and reduce wastage.
• In close collaboration with the Advocacy team, work with governments to inform policy and planning to broaden the aims of fisheries management to achieve local food and nutrition objectives, in addition to the existing economic and conservation goals.
• Support managers and country teams by overseeing the technical quality of activities implemented under the Food Security pillar.
• Liaising with Country teams to ensure a gender equitable approach.
• Ongoing development of Blue Ventures’ best practice principles for Food Security interventions (through internal and external consultative processes), including monitoring and evaluation, and ensuring training and tools are freely available and accessible to all.
• Ensuring technical rigour on knowledge products, reports, and other external documents relating to Food Security interventions and ensuring adaptation and evolution of strategies and approaches where needed
• Championing the documentation and sharing of Food Security interventions internally and externally, to elevate their importance as a critical path to safeguard livelihoods and protect coastal ecosystems.
• Championing Blue Ventures’ mission at relevant events and identifying opportunities for partners and colleagues to do so as well.
• Cultivating a dynamic and supportive network within the small-scale fisheries and marine conservation sector.
• Contributing to Blue Ventures’ organisational development by representing our work and progress with partners and donors.

Skills and experience

Required

• Postgraduate-level qualification in nutrition science, fisheries science, conservation or a relevant health related field.
• Substantive experience working in a field relating to nutrition, food security or fisheries, especially in a community context.
• Knowledge of challenges faced by small-scale fisheries, including women, and how these can be practically overcome through community-led participatory processes.
• Experience of research methods and monitoring and evaluation for nutrition or fisheries projects, and/or gender-sensitive data analysis and research skills.
• Excellent communication, analytical and technical writing skills as well as an ability to communicate technical information in a clear and concise manner for a general audience.
• Experience providing teaching, coaching or mentoring in technical areas.
• Ability to work well as part of a multicultural team, demonstrating empathy and adaptability.
• Willingness to travel and spend time in remote and challenging environments for work.
• Experience working in Blue Ventures’ target regions, including knowledge of marine environmental issues and cultural context.
• Fluent oral and written English and desirable to have one additional language spoken in Blue Ventures geographies: French, Malagasy, Swahili, Portuguese, Spanish or Bahasa Indonesia.

We would also love to see

• Adaptability: The successful candidate should be adaptable and able to navigate through diverse and dynamic environments, being open to change, embracing new ideas, and adjusting based on feedback.
• Empathy: The Global Head should have the ability to understand and relate to the challenges and aspirations of local communities, fostering trust and constructive engagement.
• Collaborative Approach: The ideal candidate would demonstrate a collaborative leadership style. Working effectively with a multi-disciplinary, international team and building strong relationships with external partners and stakeholders.
• Visionary Leadership: The role demands a visionary leader who can champion Blue Ventures' mission and values passionately. The ideal candidate should inspire and motivate the team and partners towards a shared vision of restoring ocean life, empowering communities, and driving positive change in fisheries management and marine conservation.

You will be a great fit if

• You show a commitment to Blue Ventures’ mission and values, evidenced by a high level of personal and professional integrity, humility and humanity.
• You demonstrate a strong bias for action and comfort with the uncertain; you are motivated to move forward, make decisions, and finalise details quickly once information is available.
• You’ve shown a willingness and ability to challenge the status quo creatively and productively.
• You have an analytical mindset and orientation toward measurement, outcomes and continuous improvement and learning. You value in others, and yourself, data-driven and consultative decision-making.
• You think critically and put a high value on offering and receiving constructive feedback and criticism.
• You’re a natural relationship builder and have a proven ability to work collaboratively with others in a complex organisation, demonstrating professional curiosity, team building and facilitation skills. You enjoy collaboration and have a genuine interest in learning from and developing others.
• You’re a people person who takes pride and pleasure in developing talent and creating safe, happy, productive and engaging workplace cultures and environments for staff at all levels and from varied backgrounds. You crave building teams, finding talent, nurturing relationships, and tackling challenging people-related issues.
• You are a passionate professional who combines strong leadership skills with patience and a humble approach.
• You’re able to engage people’s energies, hearts and minds in service of a mission.
• You use exemplary interpersonal skills to establish relationships of trust and influence
• You’re detail-oriented and compliance-minded; you enjoy dotting i’s and crossing t’s
• You demonstrate excellent organisational skills, an ability to marshall resources, and continually improve systems and processes.
• You show self-motivation, flexibility, and the ability to work and thrive in a fast-paced, energetic, entrepreneurial environment.
• You’re trustworthy in managing sensitive situations and information; you are discrete, professional, and possess excellent judgement
• You are comfortable with a playfully professional workplace culture.