Executive Project Director

International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX); Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 101,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

IREX seeks an Executive Project Director to provide senior U.S.-based strategy, technical oversight, and compliance leadership for an 18-month donor-funded program advancing the free flow of information in challenging environments.

The role requires senior leadership, strong regional context in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the ability to manage sensitive work with professionalism, discretion, and sound judgment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive professional experience with leadership of complex donor-funded programs.
• Strong English and Spanish communication, both written and spoken.
• Proven ability to build relationships with donors, partners, and dispersed teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead program planning, coordination, and delivery with staff, consultants, and advisors.
• Serve as liaison with the donor, ensuring donor-facing analysis and reports.
• Oversee budget, compliance, subgrant oversight, and risk management.
• Provide senior management for diverse, dispersed teams across multiple countries.

Skills

Leadership experience

Bilingual English/Spanish

Stakeholder engagement

Cross-cultural collaboration

Risk management

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Who We Are

IREX is a global solutions provider that partners with communities and institutions in the United States and around the world to cultivate leaders, expand access to education, and create economic opportunity. With deep expertise, a forward-looking vision, and world-class practices in AI for Education, Future-Ready Workforce, Higher Education Solutions, Leadership Development, and Online Safety, IREX delivers innovative and proven solutions that help people, institutions, and communities thrive in a rapidly changing world.

IREX seeks an Executive Project Director to provide senior U.S.-based strategic, technical, operational, and compliance leadership for an 18-month donor-funded program supporting the free flow of information.

Job Summary

The Executive Project Director will lead a complex program focused on strengthening the free flow of information in a highly restrictive operating environment. This role serves as IREX’s principal liaison with the donor and is accountable for overall program quality, work planning, partner engagement, subgrant oversight, financial management, compliance, monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptive implementation. The ideal candidate brings senior leadership experience, strong contextual understanding of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the ability to manage sensitive, risk-informed work with professionalism, discretion, and sound judgment.

What You’ll Do

• Program Leadership & Operations: Lead work planning and day-to-day coordination with program staff, consultants, advisors, and technical specialists to ensure coherent, high-quality implementation. Oversee activity delivery, adaptive implementation, technical assistance, monitoring, evaluation, learning, value-for-money analysis, and donor-facing reporting. Ensure program support is practical, responsive to partner needs, and aligned with donor requirements and IREX policies.

• Donor, Partner & Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as IREX’s principal liaison with the donor and coordinate with donors, partners, media actors, research organizations, technical experts, diaspora stakeholders, and other counterparts. Build and maintain strong working relationships while maintaining appropriate confidentiality for sensitive work. Produce concise briefings, donor-facing analysis, risk updates, technical reports, and evidence products that clearly distinguish verified findings from indicative trends.

• Finance, Compliance & Subgrant Oversight: Oversee budget management, financial tracking, subgrant oversight, partner due diligence, compliance monitoring, and risk-sensitive support for local or regional organizations with varied administrative capacity. Ensure implementation complies with U.S. Government award requirements and IREX policies. Apply need-to-know protocols, data minimization, secure documentation practices, and security-informed approaches to protect partners, staff, sources, respondents, and affected communities.

• Team Leadership & Collaboration: Provide senior management for program staff, consultants, short-term advisors, and technical specialists supporting media resilience, digital safety, responsible AI adoption, audience engagement, subgrants, MEL, and compliance. Build and supervise diverse, dispersed teams across multiple countries, delegate work with clear expectations, mentor team members, and foster a risk-informed, security-conscious, collaborative team culture.

• Growth & New Business Support: Contribute technical and contextual expertise to proposal strategy, technical design, and opportunity development. Identify opportunities to strengthen partner capacity, resilience, and sustainability and support strategic engagement that advances IREX’s mission and partnerships.

Our Culture is Our People

At IREX, our culture is built on our people—and on how we work together to create meaningful impact every day. We look for colleagues who bring purpose, intellectual curiosity, collaborative problem solving, and a results driven, bias for action to help strengthen communities and advance our mission.

Successful candidates build trust across differences, move ideas into action, seek new perspectives, embrace change, and represent IREX with authenticity and professionalism. We value people who bring strong expertise and a generous team spirit to work that advances our mission.

Skills & Experience

• 10+ years of progressive professional experience, including leadership of complex donor-funded programs and senior management or technical oversight responsibilities.

• Experience in Latin America and the Caribbean and demonstrated understanding of media freedom, civic space, independent media operations, digital safety, cybersecurity, secure communications, censorship, surveillance, connectivity constraints, and restrictive or high-risk operating environments.

• Strong oral and written communication skills in English and Spanish, including the ability to produce donor-facing analysis, risk updates, technical reports, and concise briefings.

• Demonstrated ability to build relationships with donors, media organizations, civil society actors, research partners, technical experts, diaspora stakeholders, and dispersed teams across multiple countries.

• Experience with risk-sensitive sub-granting, monitoring, technical assistance, budget oversight, compliance, monitoring, evaluation, learning, and donor reporting.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.

• 10+ years of progressive job experience.

• Strong professional proficiency in English and Spanish.

You must have unrestricted authorization to work in the United States.

Salary Range: ($101,000 - $125,000)

What We Offer

At IREX, you’ll work alongside committed, passionate, and collaborative colleagues who are united by a shared mission—making it a truly rewarding place to work. We offer learning, development, and growth opportunities, along with a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your overall well-being.

Please note: While we aim to offer competitive compensation, not all candidates will be eligible for the upper end of the salary range.

Disability Specifications

IREX will make reasonable accommodations in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments of 2008.

Equal Opportunity Employer

IREX seeks to attract the best-qualified candidates who support IREX’s mission and who respect and promote excellence through diversity. IREX is committed to equal opportunity and follows recruitment and selection practices that comply with all applicable employment laws. To this end, IREX recruits, hires, trains, and promotes individuals based on merit and experience.

We conduct background checks on all successful candidates.This position is not eligible for Immigration Sponsorship.

NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE