Mexico City Program Manager, PREPARE II

Overview

Miyamoto International is a global engineering, construction management and project management company that provides critical services that sustain industries and safeguard communities with offices worldwide. Known for executing successful projects in some of the world’s most challenging environments, Miyamoto International has expanded its successful work under the PREPARE II Program in Costa Rica and Colombia to El Salvador and Mexico.

PREPARE II aims to strengthen and institutionalize the risk management and response capacity of public disaster authorities and private sector partners in highly vulnerable urban settings through targeted technical and capacity building assistance. In Mexico City, this will include activities to support the institutionalization of structural damage assessment protocols, methods and tools developed during response to the September 2017 earthquake, as well as capacity building assistance for urban search and rescue teams based on needs identified during and since the emergency.

Responsibilities

The Program Manager will be based in Mexico City. He/she will report to the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Regional Program Manager who will be covering multiple countries across the LAC region. The Mexico City Program Manager will also receive support from Miyamoto’s International Programs team, including the engineering teams who will oversee any technical submissions or technical programmatic activities. The successful candidate will also be expected to work closely with the Miyamoto International Mexico team.

This position is a blend of technical and program management. It also has policy components to integrate disaster risk reduction work into existing institutions and frameworks. It will require heavy representational work with government and other disaster risk reduction counterparts. The overall scope of responsibilities includes, but is not limited to Program Management and Leadership. The Mexico City Program Manager is responsible for the overall timely and quality delivery for all PREPARE II program deliverables and activities in Mexico City. This includes:

• Leading on engagement and coordination with relevant national and local stakeholders to deliver on program objectives.
• High-level representational duties with key government and other stakeholders.
• Leading on organizing and delivering workshops and conferences as outlined in the program.
• Leading on collecting data for required donor and other internal and external reporting.
• Leading on collecting data for required reporting on monitoring and evaluation information.
• Leading on collecting data for required technical assessments, according to the needs of the program (and/or identify data sources for future use).
• Leading on other program communication, including success stories and assistance with identifying and drafting content for social media.
• Making recommendations for institutionalization of disaster risk reduction activities within existing frameworks.
• Managing deliverables within the allocated program budget.
• Security Focal Point for Mexico City
• Other duties as requested by the LAC Regional Program Manager

​Candidate Profile

To be considered, applicants must demonstrate experience successfully managing high profile international development projects with a high-level of contextual and operating sensitivity in Mexico City. Highly desirable is past work on disaster risk reduction (DRR) programming in Mexico City and familiarity with public sector agencies and actors working in this area, as a focus of the work will be on strengthening DRR capacities, strategies and systems. In light of these requirements the selection team will only consider Mexican nationals for this opportunity. Relocation costs to Mexico City will not be reimbursed by the program.

Education 

• Degree in engineering and/or degree in public policy/affairs or other relevant field.

Knowledge

• Knowledge of public relations, ability and experience working with government agencies and officials. Highly desirable to have knowledge of public agencies working on disaster risk reduction programming.
• Professional fluency in Spanish and English with the ability to conduct high-level meetings, create high-level reports and translate documents in both languages.
• Ability and willingness to work openly and collaboratively with technical teams and professionals from other disciplines. Team player.
• Ability to successfully manage and execute challenging projects with international teams and remote supervision.
• Excellent networking and outreach skills.
• Self-starter with a high degree of professionalism and integrity and responsive to requests
• Excellent communicator able to work credibly and effectively with high-level government and private sector officials, as well as contribute to communications pieces, program reporting and social media posts
• Ability and willingness to work in a flexible, dynamic and global organization.

Experience

• Experience working with public agencies and officials in Mexico City and managing government relations, preferably in the disaster risk reduction field.
• Experience working on policy initiatives with a particular focus on seismic issues, or other disaster risk reduction and mitigation initiatives.
• An ideal candidate will have the experience or ability to review, advise on and draft regional, national and municipal/city natural disaster risk reduction strategies, policies and plans and knowledge of Mexico’s disaster risk reduction framework.
• Strong past experience managing complex projects, past experience working with international teams, development partners and/or institutional donors, including USAID, is strongly desired.
• Past experience successfully starting up new programs is highly desired.

​The proposed timeframe for this engagement is for nine months beginning in September/October, 2018.