Position Title: Vice President, Global Health Promotion, Prevention and Policy Advocacy

Location: Washington, DC or Remote

Department: Health

Reports to: Chief Health Officer

Position Summary

Special Olympics is excited to announce a search for an innovative and collaborative leader who has the goal of making a significant difference in the world for one of the most marginalized populations - those with intellectual disabilities.

Special Olympics Inc. (SOI) is an international NGO serving over 6 million people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in 193 countries. Best known for its engagement around sports, SOI promotes a myriad of health services and activities and houses the largest global database of health screenings of people with intellectual disabilities. SOI’s Health strategy is directed towards promoting equity and reducing health disparities for the 6 million athletes and 80 million people with ID around the world through four strategic activities: (1) Preventive care services, including early intervention for those under 8 years of age, fitness programs and public health promotion activities; (2) Assessment services, directed at preventive health screenings and early detection of the most common conditions for people with ID and developing person-centered care coordination and connections to reduce those conditions; (3) Training services, to engage the health care workforce using evidence-based learning activities that employ virtual and hands-on interactions to improve quality of care; and (4) Promoting health systems reform through partnerships with provider and government organizations and promoting strong self-advocacy.

This Vice President supplies the opportunity for an experienced, motivated leader to grow and expand our health programming across all strategic priorities. This individual will play a critical role supporting Special Olympics’ new 2021-2031 global health strategy by advancing the development, planning and implementation of various thematic areas including, but not limited to, early interventions, health promotion, preventive care and fitness programming as well as advocacy towards inclusive health system reforms. The prevention team is committed to improving athlete health through primary prevention, including early childhood development, physical activity and fitness, health promotion, engagement with families and providers around preventive care, and social-emotional well-being. The advocacy team works to develop inclusive health systems by increasing self and family advocacy skills and working with stakeholders towards inclusive policies, practices and models of care.

This position requires deep passion toward improving the health of an important, vulnerable population and drive, thought leadership, advanced communication skills, collaboration across geographic regions and cultures, and cross-systems integration abilities. Necessary technical experience includes the ability to manage community-based participatory action projects, health programming, evaluation and global health policy/health systems change. SO is poised to expand the scope of this work by growing the funding and operational base for prevention and advocacy. Our plan includes expansion of our early childhood program to focus on improving developmental outcomes in all domains; preventive care and fitness programming; and improving the training of health coaches to motivate and support changes to healthy habits. We also work to advance advocacy through improving access to care, monitoring and incentivizing quality of care, promoting inclusive health policies in governments and multi-laterals on the country and global scale, and developing innovative models of inclusive community-based care.

This position offers the opportunity for an experienced leader with a deep passion and drive, a commitment to leading a global collaborative cutting edge team, the ability to deliver innovative results-driven programs on a global scale, advanced communication and cross-systems integration abilities, and a commitment to marginalized populations, specifically those with intellectual disabilities.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide overall leadership to Special Olympics’ health strategy including, but not limited to, prevention and advocacy strategies, including global coordination, technical assistance and overall strategy, field implementation, operations and monitoring, partner relationships and results dissemination
• Work collaboratively with functional, regional, and country teams to oversee the development and delivery of in-person and virtual global preventive health interventions directed toward improving the health and wellness for people with intellectual disabilities;
• Provide overall vision and strategic direction for the pillars and provide leadership to staff and partners to ensure they are working toward goals that will achieve expected results.
• Directly supervise senior staff and others as assigned; develop clear and achievable objectives, evaluate performance against objectives, mentor, and provide corrective guidance as appropriate.
• Oversee and coordinate prevention and advocacy planning, budgeting (projections and spending), decision-making, implementation, and operations
• Prepare project plans, impact reports, policy analyses, recommendations, white papers, peer reviewed and other publications for internal and external audiences
• Represent health promotion, prevention and policy projects to other entities and stakeholders
• Secure grant and donor funding opportunities to advance health programming globally
• Serve on the leadership team of the Special Olympics health department and provide strategic leadership regarding health ongoing prevention, fitness and advocacy.

Required Qualifications:

• At least 10-12 years of professional experience leading large, international development or global community health teams and projects;
• Master’s degree in international development, public health, or similar and/or clinical degree, licensure or certification in relevant health discipline;
• 8+ years of direct supervision and leadership of project teams with a focus on motivating teams to excel, change management and expansion;

• Demonstrated experience as a project director or in a senior leadership position of global or multi-country projects requiring the assembling, managing, and supervising of complex teams.
• Significant experience in obtaining, managing, planning and implementation of large USG, foundation and other grants;
• Prior experience developing strategic plans, workplans, and/or activity plans for large multi-country programs
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills, especially in successful proposal and manuscript writing and ability to communicate across disciplines and to non-technical audiences using simple, clear language
• Strong organizational and time management skills, and ability to manage multiple priorities and people in a fast-paced, deadline driven setting.

Desired Qualifications

• Successful experience cultivating, securing and stewarding partners and sponsors;
• Interest or experience in working with people with intellectual disabilities, in a professional or personal capacity;
• Fluency/proficiency in language other than English.

Special Olympics provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.