Manager, Strategic Planning and Communications – Islamic Development Bank – Saudi Arabia – Jeddah

JOB PURPOSE:
This role holder is responsible for managing the development of ICIEC’s corporate strategy by serving as the integration hub for key business processes, as a catalyst for change including business transformation, and as a consultant or trusted business advisor in helping to create sustainable growth. In consultation with Senior Management, this role holder is responsible in shaping the future strategic direction of ICIEC taking into account the dynamics of the external market, industry and competitor analysis. All these will result in identifying long and short-term business objectives and targets.
The role holder will also be responsible for generating and analyzing reports on the strategy implementation, profitability and cost distribution across departments and internal/external business operations to identify opportunities for capital optimization. In addition, the role is the authorized position to communicate any formal statement on behalf of ICIEC to any external stakeholders.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Managerial Responsibilities
Manages, updates and monitors the progress of the Corporation’s strategy development, in line with the established corporate objectives.
Manages the implementation plans of the strategic projects of ICIEC, providing leadership and facilitating work processes in order to achieve high performance standards.
Vision Development and Monitoring
Facilitates the alignment of ICIEC’s strategies towards the IsDB medium-term strategies and thematic programs to long-term strategies/vision and enhances the strategic-framework, methodologies, toolkits and resources.
Monitors and assesses ICIEC’s long-term strategies/vision implementation in alignment with the medium term strategies assessment and reporting.
Keeps abreast of specific areas of global political-economic development and produces thematic strategic alerts and serves as subject matter expert in specific focus areas.
Regularly provides strategic intelligence on key business themes with implications to ICIEC’s long and medium terms strategies, for the CEO’s consideration.
Facilitates the formulation of ICIEC’s longer term specific thematic strategies and policy framework.
Strategic Alignment
Identifies new business opportunities as a result of the export credit and investment insurance industry’s development dynamics.
Contributes to the efforts of aligning medium and short-term business plans to long term strategies and the Corporate Vision.
Conceptualizes and develops innovative development models aspired to in the context of the Islamic Vision for Development contributing towards the realization of ISDB long term strategies such as the micro takaful project.
Monitors and analyzes the assigned regional/country-based vision to help refine ISDB long term and operational strategies.
Market Intelligence
Analyzes the macro-economic, financial, political and socio-economic trends in the Member Countries to identify focus countries for future growth of ICIEC in line with the change in direction of the organizational strategy towards a new product and portfolio structure.
Analyzes market competition strategies and plans through effective analysis of the products, services, and strategies of key market players and their revenue trends.
Collects market intelligence data from available industry reports, public information sources, field reports and purchased sources; and effectively analyses this information to understand ICIEC’s competitive landscape.
Synthesizes current market/business intelligence and trend data then determines ICIEC’s position in the market in order to articulate recommendations for action.
Strategy Planning
Manages the development of ICIEC’s corporate strategy serving as an integration hub with all key stakeholders: Board of directors, CEO, Operations, and Risk, Finance and support services.
Conducts SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis and understands ICIEC’s internal and external environment and reports requisite findings to management.
Validates the strategy by translating the strategy components into a financial model, to test the viability of the strategic initiatives, and to set the baseline of the performance indicators, enabling for analyzing the variances in order to develop the necessary corrective actions whether on the level of the strategy or on the level of the implementation projects of the strategy.
Aligns the strategy components, such as the business growth target with the cost size and the optimal capital structure, and refines any contradiction with full communication to the concerned stakeholders.
Verifies full integration between the long term strategy and ICIEC objective with all medium and short term plans.
Verifies ICIEC strategy plan with the IsDB group mandate and ensures that ICIEC is serving its mandate as well as it is aligned with the overall Group strategy.
Implements the framework for carrying out internal/external strategic analysis, identifying scenarios, assessing options for the way forward and formulates recommendations to the Senior Management.
Cascades organization strategy to all Departments, defines key milestones, monitors the progression of agreed upon goals and reports progress for all Departments.
Initiates corrective actions to address short falls in the plans and keeps the Chief Executive Officer informed about progress on a frequent and timely basis.
Communicates strategy plans, policies and guidelines to relevant stakeholders within and outside the organization and all employees to ensure clarity and consistency in communication of ICIEC’s overall objectives.
Performance Monitoring
Identifies and defines key performance indicators derived from ICIEC’s annual business plan (business insured, premium income, risk appetite and financial performance etc.), and establishes periodic targets to monitor business performance.
Monitors and analyzes ICIEC’s performance by undertaking comprehensive analysis including data gathering, data cleansing, validating and reporting in order to devise effective action plans for performance improvement.
Compares business performance data to previous periods and market trends in order to help the Management develop recommendations for improvements in revenue growth or resource allocation.
Generates relevant reports on ICIEC’s progress on the established plan in order to ensure adherence to articulated strategies and plans and liaises with relevant stakeholders to undertake necessary corrective action.
Provides technical expertise in conducting performance analysis for selected products, services and promotions using appropriate analytical tools.
Budgeting Process
Assures integration between the business plan with the budget and in alignment with ICIEC strategy.
Directs and coordinates the development of budgets, short and long-term financial forecasts and related operating budgets for ICIEC and individual Departments.
Monitors the actual performance of the departments against the budgets and ensures preparation of periodic MIS reports on the same for Senior Management to review.
Communicates and discusses comparative variance analysis, analytical reviews, productivity analysis etc. with the individual departments, and provides inputs to Senior Management on the possible reasons for variances and recommendations for future.
Prepares, in coordination with the Department of Finance & IT, monthly budget utilization reports at the organization level and at cost center level and highlights any discrepancy of budget utilization on monthly basis.
Communication
Establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships with multilateral development institutions and MDBs.
Builds close and cordial relationships with key state level government counterparts to ensure high impact of analytical work.
Engages in strategic networking with Governments, private sector institutions, NGOs, philanthropic organizations and individuals.
Contributes to the project database and platform for networking with the Group via the President’s Delivery Unit.
Reviews and assesses strategy briefings and presents them to the senior management for further decision making.
Monitors, reviews and assesses reports prepared on KPIs, and performance of IsDB vis-à-vis the Strategic thrusts.
Analyzes reports and compiles them in a lucid and comprehensive form to help the senior management in decision making.
Prepares and presents periodic performance reports and recommendations to the management.
Represents ICIEC in various Working Groups and Committees within the Group, as required.
Program/Portfolio Management and Monitoring
Develops for implementation, a Performance Management Plan (PMP) that will support the monitoring and reporting of results and the evaluation of program performance and/or impact.
Participates substantively in the quality assurance of all ICIEC programs and projects, aimed at compliance with ICIEC strategy, guidelines and criteria.
Participates in the refinement and development of the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. While contributing to the monitoring of ICIEC programs/projects, with the Lead Specialist, Program Monitoring and Evaluation.
Knowledge Sharing and Innovation
Contributes to the Vision-based Result and Vision Roadmap/Journey in light of global development.
Publishes thematic thoughts on socio-economic development on Export Credit Takaful focus area.
Represents ICIEC at appropriate professional and public forums as and when required.
Regularly meets strategic planning related officials and stakeholders to sense any change in their objectives and strategies.
People Management Responsibilities
Defines goals and key performance indicators for each member of the team and ensures effective application of the ICIEC Performance and Development Review process.
Ensures high level of employee engagement and capability development by providing on-going feedback and coaching to team members.

JOB REQUIREMENTS:
Field of Study
Business Administration, Finance, Accounting, Economics, Marketing
Academic Qualifications and Relevant Experience

Qualification Level
High School Diploma
Bachelor’s Degree
Master’s Degree
Doctorate

Experience
N/A
12-15 years
10 years
7 Years
Nature of Experience
Prior experience in strategic planning/consulting function, Business Process Reengineering, monitoring & evaluation
Similar experience in MDBs/IFIs is an added advantage

BUSINESS LANGAUGE SKILLS:
Good command of written and spoken English essential, additional languages such as Arabic, French is an added advantage

Click here to Apply Online

Enter your email address to receive latest Gulf Jobs Updates: