Senior Director, Humanitarian Policy, Advocacy & External Engagement (New York, NY)

At a glance

Closes in 14 days

Where

United States

Closes

12 October 2026

Posted

15 September 2026

With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith. Come join our 33,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories! Here’s where you come in: As Senior Director, Humanitarian Policy, Advocacy & External Engagement, you will lead World Vision's humanitarian policy, advocacy, and external engagement agenda, ensuring that the World Vision Partnership is well represented, influential, and connected within global humanitarian decision-making processes. You will lead a globally distributed team of humanitarian policy and advocacy professionals and provide strategic direction in identifying the priorities, stakeholders, forums, and key moments where World Vision's engagement can achieve the greatest influence and impact. Serving as World Vision's senior humanitarian representative in New York, with selected representational responsibilities in other global capitals as required, you will act as a critical bridge between Disaster Management and Advocacy & External Engagement. You will ensure that humanitarian advocacy and external engagement priorities are aligned across the two functions and translated into a coherent approach for Regional Offices, Support Offices, and Field Offices. You will connect global policy and influencing efforts with operational realities, evidence, and priorities from across the Partnership, while advising senior leaders on emerging humanitarian trends, risks, opportunities, and strategic positioning. You will ensure that senior leaders are well equipped to engage effectively in humanitarian policy, diplomatic, and external processes.

• Minimum 15 years of progressive leadership experience in humanitarian action, policy, advocacy, partnerships or related fields, including significant experience in senior management roles.
• Substantial field-based humanitarian experience, including exposure to large-scale emergencies and humanitarian coordination mechanisms.
• Postgraduate degree in international relations, international development, humanitarian affairs, public policy, law, political science or a related field.
• Strong knowledge of humanitarian diplomacy, multilateral processes and policy influencing, including engagement with the United Nations system, Member States and intergovernmental bodies.
• Demonstrated experience shaping humanitarian policy and advocacy strategies, building strategic partnerships, and representing organisations in high-level external and multilateral forums.
• Proven ability to analyse complex humanitarian, political and policy issues and translate evidence into clear, persuasive and actionable recommendations for senior leaders and external stakeholders.
• Experience leading multicultural and geographically dispersed teams, combined with strong strategic thinking, partnership-building, negotiation and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent written and verbal proficiency in English.
• Proficiency in an additional language, particularly French, Arabic, Spanish or Portuguese, is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of multiple UN languages is a strong asset
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally, including to humanitarian contexts, donor capitals, and key policy, advocacy and partnership forums, as required.
• Flexibility to work across multiple time zones and accommodate occasional extended working hours in support of humanitarian emergencies, high-level external engagements and international meetings.
• Availability to deploy, when required, for short-term assignments to humanitarian and fragile contexts to support emergency responses, external representation, partnerships and policy engagement.
• Ability to operate effectively in dynamic, complex and high-pressure environments, balancing strategic leadership, external engagement and emergency response priorities.
• This position is required to be based in New York. Candidates must already possess the legal right to live and work in the United States at the time of application.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally, including to humanitarian contexts, as required.
• Ability to work for extended periods using standard office technology and participate in virtual and in-person meetings.
• Ability to operate effectively in diverse environments, including humanitarian and fragile contexts, where working and living conditions may at times be challenging.

Who may apply

No country restriction stated

Candidates must already possess the legal right to live and work in the United States at the time of application.

Know someone this suits?

Sharing is how most people here hear about an opportunity in time.

• WhatsApp
• Telegram
• X
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Email