Director, Country Cluster

Director, Country Cluster

BRAC International Holdings B.V.

Career with BRAC International

BRAC’s vision is a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination where everyone has the opportunity to realise their potential. Our mission is to empower people and communities facing poverty, illiteracy, disease, and social injustice. Through innovative economic and social programmes, we aim to achieve large-scale, sustainable change by enabling individuals, particularly women, to build livelihoods, strengthen resilience, and improve their quality of life.

About the BRAC International Microfinance

BRAC International Microfinance (BI MF) oversees its microfinance subsidiaries outside Bangladesh, which are wholly or majority owned by the legal entity BRAC International Holdings B.V. (BIHBV), operating across eight countries in Africa and Asia. Within this mandate, BI MF expands financial inclusion by responsibly delivering financial services to people at the bottom of the pyramid, particularly women living in poverty in rural and hard-to-reach areas, to create self-employment opportunities, build financial resilience, and harness their entrepreneurial spirit by empowering them economically. The achievement of both ‘Impact and Scale’ are critically important, ensuring that each subsidiary has systems in place to realise both components of the mission.

BI MF provides strategic direction, governance oversight, and institutional strengthening across the portfolio. Today, its operations serve over one million clients (97% women), managing a loan portfolio of approximately USD 277 million, and employing over 7,000 staff, of whom 87% are female.

About the Position

As a member of the BIHBV Senior Management Team (SMT), the Director, Country Cluster, BIHBV (DCC) occupies a pivotal leadership position strengthening the strategic, operational, and systems capacity of BI MF entities across an assigned cluster of subsidiaries, ensuring coherence and consistent performance across the portfolio. The role ensures delivery of the approved Annual Strategic Plan (ASP) through structured performance oversight, early identification of gaps, and timely course correction, while preserving CEOs’ full executive accountability for entity operations and results.

Operating at a critical interface within a matrix structure, the DCC aligns BI MF priorities with entity-level execution, serving as the first escalation point for operational, regulatory, risk, and reputational issues.

The role acts as a strategic sounding board to CEOs, supporting them to navigate complex regulatory environments, government and stakeholder relationships, and addressing key operational challenges. In doing so, the role coordinates and mobilises support from BI MF central technical teams across Finance, Strategy, Operations, IT, HR, Audit etc. to address entity-level priorities and reinforce execution discipline.

The role also drives cross-entity alignment and learning, fostering the exchange of best practices, strengthening institutional capabilities, and promoting consistent standards across the cluster.

Job Responsibilities:

The role operates at a critical interface within a matrix structure, aligning BI MF priorities with entity-level execution while maintaining clear accountability boundaries. Key responsibilities include the following:

1. Cluster Performance and Accountability

• Ensure delivery of annual strategic plan commitments across the cluster through structured performance oversight and CEO accountability.
• Drive impact at scale across the cluster, identifying strategic opportunities for growth and fostering a culture of entrepreneurial and impact-driven decision-making.
• Monitor performance across financial, operational, risk, and impact metrics, highlighting deviations and risks.
• Monitor operational, financial and impact performance across the cluster and flag deviations from targets.
• Support CEOs in addressing performance gaps and strengthening operational and financial discipline.
• Coordinate with BI MF Central technical teams where technical assistance or intervention is required.
• Challenge and support CEOs to address underperformance and deliver agreed results.
• Ensure consistency in performance standards, reporting, and execution discipline across entities.

2. Operational Oversight and Escalation

• Act as the first escalation point for CEOs on operational challenges, providing targeted support without assuming day-to-day management responsibility.
• Remove execution bottlenecks and ensure timely resolution of critical issues.
• Maintain execution discipline across entities through structured follow-up and accountability.
• Support CEOs in ensuring that Board materials, performance reporting, and escalation of issues meet BI MF management and governance standards.
• Ensure structured response, clear escalation pathways, and timely engagement of technical assistance from the BI MF central team and the Managing Director (MD) where required.
• Support CEOs in managing key stakeholder relationships (regulators, central banks, investors, development partners).
• Partner with CEOs to drive timely closure of audit findings and strengthen internal control environments, ensuring audit gaps are addressed systematically and do not recur.

3. Governance, Risk and Compliance

• Strengthen governance discipline at subsidiary level by improving quality, consistency, and timeliness of reporting to BI MF and entity Boards.
• Maintain clear and structured information flow between entities and BI MF SMT to support effective oversight and decision-making.
• Act as the first escalation point for operational, regulatory, risks, and reputational issues, including fraud, portfolio stress, regulatory breaches, systems or cybersecurity incidents.
• Partner with CEOs to navigate complex regulatory environments, providing experienced judgment on balancing compliance requirements with business sustainability and BRAC’s mission, particularly where regulatory constraints impact outreach, cost structures, or growth.
• Manage governance and regulatory alignment across the cluster, partnering with CEOs to address complex requirements and alignment issues, and filtering, structuring, and escalating matters to the MD to ensure focus on only material and strategic decisions.

4. Cross-Entity Learning and Leadership Support

• Foster cross-entity learning and exchange, encouraging adoption of best practices, continuous improvement, and consistent standards across the cluster.
• Act as a strategic sounding board to CEOs on execution priorities, performance improvement, and complex trade-offs.
• Support leadership development and strengthening of senior teams within the cluster.
• Spend time regularly in-country with CEOs and their teams, building on-the-ground insight and providing coaching and support to strengthen execution and leadership capability.

5. Safeguarding:

• Establish a safeguarding culture across all levels of the program by implementing the safeguarding policy. Act as a key source of support, guidance and expertise on safeguarding for establishing a safe working environment.
• Responsible for ensuring team members are appropriately trained, supported and have access to resources regarding issues that are identified and actioned in accordance with the safeguarding policy and procedure.
• Follow the safeguarding reporting procedure in case any reportable incident takes place, and encourage others to do so.

Experience

• Senior leadership experience in microfinance, banking, or financial services, including prior experience in a C-suite or equivalent executive role.
• Demonstrated accountability for performance, strategy execution, and stakeholder engagement.
• Experience managing multi-country operations or portfolios.
• Strong track record in driving performance and operational improvement.
• Experience working with regulated entities and governance structures.

Knowledge, Skills & Competencies

• Microfinance operations, portfolio management
• Risk management and internal control frameworks
• Regulatory environments and compliance frameworks
• Financial performance and sustainability
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively, including the ability to articulate BI’s mission, vision, and impact to diverse stakeholders
• Ability to influence decision-making in complex and high-stakes environments
• Strong execution and performance management capability
• High accountability and decision-making ability
• Stakeholder management and influencing skills
• Ability to lead senior leaders (e.g. CEOs) effectively
• Problem-solving and crisis management capability

Additional Requirements:

• Demonstrated ability to analyse data and apply evidence-based decision-making.
• Strong organisational and financial acumen.
• Willingness and capacity for frequent international travel as required by the role.

How to Apply

Please submit your resume and cover letter via the link below:

Director Country Cluster, BIHBV

Application deadline: 06-July-26

BRAC is an equal opportunity employer.

BRAC is committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share the same commitment. We believe every stakeholder and every member of the communities we work with has the right to be protected from all forms of harm, abuse, neglect, harassment, and exploitation - regardless of age, race, religion, and gender, status as an individual with a disability or ethnic origin. Therefore, our recruitment process includes extensive reference and background checks, self-disclosure of prior issues regarding sexual or other misconduct and criminal records and our values are a part of our Performance Management System.

Only complete applications will be accepted, and short-listed candidates will be contacted.