Job Description

What we do

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) works worldwide to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to people affected by conflict and armed violence. We take action in response to emergencies and, at the same time, promote respect for international humanitarian law. We are an independent and neutral organization, and our mandate stems essentially from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. We work closely with National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and with their International Federation in order to ensure a concerted, rational and rapid humanitarian response to the needs of the victims of armed conflict or any other situation of internal violence. We direct and coordinate the international activities conducted in these situations sustainability.

Purpose of the Position

The GSS Transformation Lead Office leads and drives strategic transformation across all service lines including Finance, HR, IT, Logistics, and Administrative Services to enhance service quality, efficiency, agility, and cost-effectiveness, while ensuring alignment with the organisation’s strategy and humanitarian mission. This role establishes, guides, and manages the Transformation Office as the central driver of change, from defining the strategic roadmap to delivering tangible outcomes that strengthen field operations, meet donor and compliance requirements, and ensure organisational sustainability.

Main Duties & Responsibilities I

Leadership & Strategic orientation of Transformation Office

• Participates in defining and shaping the transformation roadmap for Shared Services, ensuring alignment with SDT priorities and the GSS vision.

• Identifies opportunities, develops approaches, and prepares proposals or orientations — collaborating with the Resource Mobilization Division as needed. Partners with Technology & Innovation (T&I) to accelerate both technological and non-technological transformation initiatives. Aligns with other ICRC strategic programs and identifies synergies to strengthen overall strategic coherence.

• Brings an external perspective by monitoring technology trends, regulatory developments, and humanitarian best practices, and proposes the adoption of relevant approaches that align with the ICRC’s strategy.

Service Line / Functional Transformation

• Coordinates transformation efforts across all service lines (HR, Finance, Procurement, Logistics, ICT), standardizing and centralizing processes where feasible, and eliminating duplication.

• Collaborates with Heads of Service Lines, Metier, and GPOs to plan and deliver transformation initiatives.

• Partners with and advises Service Line Leadership on both technological and non-technological transformation initiatives, and represents GSS in E2E and other cross-cutting transformation programs.

Main Duties & Responsibilities II

Technology, Digital Enablement & Innovation

• Champions adoption of digital tools and automation including workflow tools, self-service portals, and analytics to accelerate and streamline services.

• Ensures technical solutions are resilient, secure, and suitable for humanitarian contexts (e.g., offline capabilities, redundancy, security).

• Creates an innovative ecosystem to generate ideas, run hackathons, pilot new solutions, evaluate success, and scale proven initiatives across the organization.

• Establishes a design-thinking culture to embed innovation and continuous improvement as a core way of working across GSS.

Change Management & Stakeholder Engagement

• Partners with HoSL on the GSS communications, engagement with Metier and Field Ops, mitigating resistance for the GSS lead initiatives and programs
• Facilitates an engage ecosystem with internal stakeholders (field Operations, Metier, HQ) to foster accountability, the HoSL to share the performance, support required and feedback.
• Maintains transparent communication on progress, challenges, and lessons learned

Main Duties & Responsibilities III

Performance Measurement & Continuous Improvement

• Establishes baseline metrics (cost, cycle times, error rates, customer satisfaction) and defines KPIs.
• Acts as deputy to the Head of GSS on matters related to transformation, governance, and the operating model during their absence.

• Contributes to the design of a GSS operating model that enables a performance-driven ecosystem.

• Designs and manages a performance-driven framework to structure Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and KPIs for adoption by Heads of Service Lines across GSS.

• Focuses on outcome-driven reviews, developing dashboards and reports to monitor progress and drive corrective actions.

• Conducts post-implementation reviews, disseminates lessons learned, and embeds continuous improvement.

• Gathers feedback from field offices and internal customers, integrating improvements across services.

Governance, Oversight & Accountability

• Establishes and runs governance structures to manage transformation initiatives, monitoring progress and desired outcomes.

• Ensures initiatives are delivered on time, to quality standards, and within budget.

• Prepares and submits regular program updates to the Directorate.

Main Duties & Responsibilities IV

Budget Accountability

• Monitors project financial performance, manages spending within approved budgets, and flags cost overruns.

• Demonstrates cost efficiency and value delivered, including ROI and efficiency gains against targets.

• Ensures transparent allocation of costs across service lines and regional/country offices.

• Requires light to occasional travel to other GSS locations.

People Management

• Leads and manages the Transformation Office global teams (15–20 members) with 4–5 direct reports across Transitions, Service Delivery, Data Analytics, Change Management, Digital Enablement, and Performance Measurement.

• Defines roles, sets performance goals, and provides coaching and development opportunities.

• Identifies capacity gaps and arranges learning and training to build required competencies.
• Fosters a culture of collaboration, accountability, and innovation, while embodying humanitarian values such as integrity and empathy
• Strongly motivated by humanitarian work
• Able to work under pressure in a potentially dangerous environment

Scope & Impact

Drives a performance-oriented and continuous improvement culture to deliver impactful services that support field operations, humanitarian efforts, and donor confidence, achieving 5–10% efficiency gains year-over-year. Creates a continuous improvement framework for collecting, evaluating, and implementing ideas through Six Sigma projects or other process improvement methods, liaising with GPOs and BPOs in partnership with GSS service lines. Builds institutional capacity, enhances staff competencies, develops talent pools, and ensures the sustainability of transformation efforts. Implements the GSS digitization roadmap by adopting RPA, chatbots, and AI to drive efficiencies and improve customer satisfaction. Expands the scope of GSS organically in line with benchmarking studies presented to the Directorate. Fosters collaboration, enhances responsiveness, strengthens stakeholder confidence, and ensures compliance and strategic alignment.

Relationships

• Internally, interacts with the GSS Service Lines, SDT Leadership in support of the Head of Shared Services, interacts with the Directorate and other Leadership forums The Region/Delegations at the GSS locations.

• Externally, interacts at higher levels of private corporations, consultants and other Shared Services

Experience Required

• Typically possesses 12–15 years of overall professional experience.

• Brings a minimum of ten years’ proven experience in leading high-impact transformation initiatives within Global Shared Services or comparable environments, including hub-and-spoke or satellite operating models.

• Prior exposure to the adoption and implementation of RPA, AI, and ML solutions is considered a strong asset.

• Demonstrates a consistent and verifiable track record of successfully managing strategic partnerships and delivering complex, organization-wide initiatives.

• Experience working with international humanitarian organizations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, or international fundraising organizations is an asset.

• Experience leading or contributing to Master Black Belt or Black Belt projects is good to have.

• Exhibits strong strategic and financial acumen, with a proven history of ensuring long-term partnership sustainability.

Additional Information

• Type of role: Required Rotation
• Working rate: 100%
• Starting date: ASAP
• Location: Geneva
• Length of assignment: until 31st Dec, 2029
• Application deadline: Sunday, 1st Feb 2026

The ICRC values diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates.

Our values

• At the ICRC, we value impact, collaboration, respect, and compassion. We seek candidates who demonstrate behaviors based on these shared values. For more information on the ICRC values, please visit this page.