IT Director job at Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

About IPA

Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) generates and applies research to help people living in poverty thrive. Our global IT function supports approximately 450 staff across 20 country offices, hundreds of field-based data collectors, and a distributed workforce operating in varied connectivity environments. The IT team of six, supplemented by external consultants, manages a data-intensive, integration-heavy technology environment built primarily on SaaS platforms and Microsoft Azure.

Job Summary

The IT Director leads IPA's global IT function, setting strategy, developing and owning governance, and building a team capable of delivering reliable, secure, and user-centered technology services across a complex international organization.

This is a leadership and management role. The IT Director is responsible for what gets built and how, not for building it directly. Success looks like a well-structured team with clear ownership, a governance framework that actually gets followed, and technology decisions that hold up over time. The right person is energized by developing people, translating organizational needs into technology priorities, and creating systems of accountability, not by hands-on implementation.

The IT Director will also ensure that IPA’s IT policies, governance frameworks, and control mechanisms are compliant with applicable regulatory and donor requirements and remain practical, proportionate, and aligned with the organization’s evolving operational needs.

Responsibilities

The following outlines the key duties and responsibilities of this role, to be carried out in close coordination with the Global Operations Senior Director and IPA’s Senior Management Team.

• Define and steward IT strategy and governance
  • Develop and maintain IPA's IT strategy, ensuring it adjusts to organizational priorities, resource constraints, compliance obligations and operational realities across a distributed, multi-country environment.
  • Own IPA's IT governance framework — policies, standards, and controls covering security, access management, data governance, acceptable use, vendor management, and emerging technologies.
  • Ensure governance is practical, compliant with regulatory and donor requirements, and proportionate to organizational risk and operational realities. Policies should be enforceable and understood across country offices, not just documented.
  • Advise senior leadership on technology risks, investment decisions, and compliance obligations in clear, non-technical terms.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies — including AI and automation — and recommend responsible, mission-aligned adoption pathways.
• Lead the IT function and its people
  • Manage, develop, and retain a team of six IT professionals, including systems administrators, data engineers, and support staff, providing clear direction, regular feedback, and opportunities for growth.
  • Recruit for capability gaps and build toward a team structure where technical domains have clear ownership and accountability, while ensuring there are always enough redundancies on all tasks.
  • Foster a culture of documentation, service orientation, and accountability — where good work is visible and standards are consistently upheld.
  • Set team priorities in coordination with the Senior Director, Operations & Systems, and communicate clearly about trade-offs and capacity.
  • Ensure that IT operates as a service-oriented function, prioritizing responsiveness, clarity, and alignment with operational and research needs.
• Ensure security, compliance, and risk management
  • Lead IPA's information security direction, ensuring controls are proportionate to organizational risk and resourced appropriately.
  • Ensure compliance with donor, contractual, and regulatory requirements related to data protection and information security.
  • Oversee audit readiness and coordinate responses to security or data incidents, including engagement with legal and senior leadership.
• Drive organizational alignment
  • Lead change management for significant technology transitions, ensuring staff across country offices understand and adopt new systems and practices.
  • Oversee IT budget planning and financial reporting, ensuring transparency of total cost of ownership and value for money.

Qualifications

Required

• 7+ years in a senior IT leadership role with accountability for the reliability, security, and availability of enterprise systems in production environments.
• 5+ years managing IT teams, including direct oversight of senior technical staff (engineers, architects, system admins) — with a demonstrated track record of developing people and building team capability.
• 5+ years overseeing enterprise system integrations, SaaS platforms and cloud environments (ERP, CRM, data warehouse, or comparable).
• 5+ years as a senior escalation authority for technical or security incidents.
• 3+ years developing or managing IT governance frameworks, policies, and internal controls.
• 3+ years in environments with regulatory, donor, or audit compliance requirements related to data protection or information security.
• 3+ years overseeing IT budgeting, vendor management, and SLA accountability.
• 3+ years leading change management for enterprise technology implementations.
• Experience communicating technology risks and decisions to non-technical senior stakeholders.
• Familiarity with enterprise business intelligence environments (e.g., Power BI).

Preferred

• Experience leading IT in multi-country or distributed organizations, particularly in low-bandwidth or resource-constrained contexts.
• Background in international development, nonprofit, or donor-funded environments.
• Experience overseeing AI or automation initiatives in operational settings.
• Experience leading knowledge management or collaboration platform transformations.
• Professional working proficiency in Spanish or French.

Location and Time Zone Requirements

This is a remote position, only from a country where IPA has a registered office outside of the US (see here). Please note that IPA is not able to sponsor work authorization for foreign nationals in those locations.

Also, please note that the candidate must be able to maintain some overlap with teams across time zones. The working schedule should allow for at least 2–3 hours of overlap with both the East Africa Time (EAT) and U.S. Eastern Time (ET) zones for collaboration and meetings.

• Define and steward IT strategy and governance
  • Develop and maintain IPA's IT strategy, ensuring it adjusts to organizational priorities, resource constraints, compliance obligations and operational realities across a distributed, multi-country environment.
  • Own IPA's IT governance framework — policies, standards, and controls covering security, access management, data governance, acceptable use, vendor management, and emerging technologies.
  • Ensure governance is practical, compliant with regulatory and donor requirements, and proportionate to organizational risk and operational realities. Policies should be enforceable and understood across country offices, not just documented.
  • Advise senior leadership on technology risks, investment decisions, and compliance obligations in clear, non-technical terms.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies — including AI and automation — and recommend responsible, mission-aligned adoption pathways.
• Lead the IT function and its people
  • Manage, develop, and retain a team of six IT professionals, including systems administrators, data engineers, and support staff, providing clear direction, regular feedback, and opportunities for growth.
  • Recruit for capability gaps and build toward a team structure where technical domains have clear ownership and accountability, while ensuring there are always enough redundancies on all tasks.
  • Foster a culture of documentation, service orientation, and accountability — where good work is visible and standards are consistently upheld.
  • Set team priorities in coordination with the Senior Director, Operations & Systems, and communicate clearly about trade-offs and capacity.
  • Ensure that IT operates as a service-oriented function, prioritizing responsiveness, clarity, and alignment with operational and research needs.
• Ensure security, compliance, and risk management
  • Lead IPA's information security direction, ensuring controls are proportionate to organizational risk and resourced appropriately.
  • Ensure compliance with donor, contractual, and regulatory requirements related to data protection and information security.
  • Oversee audit readiness and coordinate responses to security or data incidents, including engagement with legal and senior leadership.
• Drive organizational alignment
  • Lead change management for significant technology transitions, ensuring staff across country offices understand and adopt new systems and practices.
  • Oversee IT budget planning and financial reporting, ensuring transparency of total cost of ownership and value for money.

• Experience communicating technology risks and decisions to non-technical senior stakeholders.
• Familiarity with enterprise business intelligence environments (e.g., Power BI).
• Experience leading IT in multi-country or distributed organizations, particularly in low-bandwidth or resource-constrained contexts.
• Background in international development, nonprofit, or donor-funded environments.
• Experience overseeing AI or automation initiatives in operational settings.
• Experience leading knowledge management or collaboration platform transformations.
• Professional working proficiency in Spanish or French.

• 7+ years in a senior IT leadership role with accountability for the reliability, security, and availability of enterprise systems in production environments.
• 5+ years managing IT teams, including direct oversight of senior technical staff (engineers, architects, system admins) — with a demonstrated track record of developing people and building team capability.
• 5+ years overseeing enterprise system integrations, SaaS platforms and cloud environments (ERP, CRM, data warehouse, or comparable).
• 5+ years as a senior escalation authority for technical or security incidents.
• 3+ years developing or managing IT governance frameworks, policies, and internal controls.
• 3+ years in environments with regulatory, donor, or audit compliance requirements related to data protection or information security.
• 3+ years overseeing IT budgeting, vendor management, and SLA accountability.
• 3+ years leading change management for enterprise technology implementations.