Associate Director, Latin America and the Caribbean

Open Society Institute; Bogotá; Hybrid; COP 394,335,000 - 591,502,000; Full time

Job summary

Open Society Institute is seeking an Associate Director for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) based in Bogota with hybrid work arrangements across Bogota, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro. The role reports to the Managing Director, Programs LAC, and will lead program opportunities, ensure robust financial and risk controls, and build networks across governments, NGOs, and philanthropy.

The ideal candidate has extensive leadership experience in large-scale philanthropy programs, strong

Qualifications

• Many years' experience in the field with senior leadership exposure.
• Extensive leadership expertise across program areas.
• Experience with financial ($5m+), legal and risk accountability at large scale programs.
• Experience in the non-profit sector (multilateral, NGO, foundation, or similar).
• Fluency in the local language where the role is based.
• Experience in operational resource planning (people) and leading international teams.
• Ability to conceive, design and manage cross-department or cross-program projects with strong time, budget and stakeholder control.
• Ability to gather and organize information to drive decisions.
• Ability to conduct research to inform management decisions.
• Skilled at identifying patterns and translating insights into actions.
• Experience in budgeting, strategic analysis and planning.
• Strong collaboration with public, private and NGO stakeholders.
• Building and maintaining networks of stakeholders and partners.
• Promoting strategic cooperation with government and other sectors.
• Knowledge of grant-making practices and philanthropy field.
• Ability to generate synergies and fill capacity gaps across fields.
• Demonstrate care for partner organizations and staff.

Responsibilities

• Support the Managing Director, Programs LAC, in articulating compelling opportunities and translating them into workable project plans.
• Ensure financial, risk, and legal management is reflected in planning and implementation with stakeholders.
• Support resource planning needs for the LAC region.
• Engage with embedded staff from OSF teams and senior leaders.
• Monitor and report progress of opportunities in the LAC region to senior OSF leaders.
• Leverage OSF's work globally, applying impact investment, strategic litigation, and advocacy where relevant.
• Represent opportunity themes externally at all levels and build a broad network with governments, organizations, funders, and experts.
• Oversee grant-making processes across portfolios, including grantee communications, reporting, and payments.
• Manage partner relationships with Regional Policy Groups and other stakeholders to achieve OSF's objectives.
• Collaborate with MD Units' Associate Directors to share ideas and coordinate work.
• Depose for the Managing Director as needed and resolve delivery issues with the Program team.

Job description

Associate Director, Latin America and the Caribbean. Bogota. Posting Date: 11/09/2026. Deadline: 11/23/2026

Role Title: Associate Director, Programs Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

Contract Type: Regular

Workstyle Arrangement: Hybrid

Reporting To: Managing Director, Programs LAC

Department: Programs

Location: Bogota, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro

Team Name: Programs, LAC

Role purpose:

Associate Directors are accomplished, networked in their field, and bring deep experience in their thematic area of specialty. Associate Directors will support the Managing Directors office as well as Opportunities assigned to their regions.

The expectation is that the Associate Directors will be strong managers, as well as subject matter experts for differing opportunities, able to build teams and work closely with OVP, Directors of Programs and Program Managers in building a collaborative culture of both risk-taking and teamwork.

Key responsibilities:

• Support the Managing Director, Programs LAC, for articulating a creative and exciting opening to make impact in the world into a workable project plan for implementation according to established criteria.
• Support the Managing Director, Programs LAC to ensure appropriate financial, risk, and legal management and control are articulated during the planning and implementation phase, and work with all relevant stakeholders to develop mitigation plans.
• Support the Managing Director, Programs LAC with resource requirements.
• Engage with embedded staff from other OSF teams in close cooperation with senior leaders.
• Monitor and regularly report on the progress of the various opportunities assigned to the LAC region to the Managing Director of Programs and other senior OSF leaders.
• Leverage OSF's work globally and employ the strategic capabilities of impact investment, strategic litigation, and advocacy to the opportunity.
• Represent the sub-set theme of given opportunity issues externally at all levels and grow a network accordingly that includes actors beyond the social sector into national and local governments, multilateral organizations, faith-based groups, grass-roots organizations, philanthropy, local experts, academia and think tanks, etc. to advance the opportunity. Depending on the opportunity this might include developing strong relationships with other funders and bringing them as partners into the opportunity.
• Oversee the effective management of the grant-making process (across the portfolio of opportunities) by communicating with grantees for proposal submission, assisting in grant record preparation, grants processing, payments, reporting, and other related processes.
• Manage relationships with partners, in close coordination with Regional Policy Groups as relevant, and work with them to achieve OSF's strategic objective through the opportunity.
• Collaborate with the other Managing Director Units Associate Directors to work more collaboratively, efficiently sharing ideas and modelling where appropriate.
• Deputise for the Managing Director, Programs LAC (as and when required); and resolve challenges and operational delivery issues with the Program team prior to required escalation to the Director of Programs.

The ideal candidate

• Multiple years' experience (in one or multiple organisations) where proficiency in the specific field or subject area has been comprehensively developed.
• Extensive leadership expertise in the various topics set out by our bodies of work.
• Prior financial ($5m+), legal and risk accountability at large-scale programmatic level.
• Prior working experience of operating within the non-profit community (for example multi-lateral, NGO, foundation or ambassadorial working environments).
• Fluent in local language where the role is based.
• Prior experience in operational resource planning (people) and people leadership experience of an international team (remote to the Associate Director's location).
• Conceives, designs and manages cross-department, cross-program or similarly complex projects; expected to effectively manage time, budget and stakeholders and network-wide or similarly complex coordination.
• Able to generate, capture and organize information and knowledge to deliver prescribed outcomes.
• Ability to conduct research to drive decision making by management.
• Skilled in drawing out patterns.
• Experience in budgeting, strategic analysis and planning.
• Working well with a variety of public, private and NGO stakeholders.
• Building and maintaining networks of stakeholders.
• Promote strategic cooperation with governmental and other sectors.
• Knowledge of grant making best practices and the field of philanthropy.
• Ability to build synergies, strengthen movements, and identify and fill capacity gaps across fields.
• Demonstrate care and concern about partner organizations and the people who work in them.
• Skilled at resource planning and ensuring effective operational management of a programmatic theme.
• Leadership capability to lead an opportunity (where required)