Description

Location: Netherlands, UK, or US - Remote
Open to candidates in any country where Mercy Corps is registered and able to employ staff.
Applicants must hold independent right to work for the country of hiring.

Purpose of Engagement

Mercy Corps is seeking an experienced and senior digital transformation leader to conduct a structured enterprise diagnostic of its current digital, data, and technology landscape and provide prioritized, actionable recommendations which a) strengthen enterprise alignment across functions, regions, and operating contexts, and b) identify opportunities to evolve Mercy Corps' global technology ecosystem (including delivery models, partners, and vendors) in preparation for long-term digital leadership under a future permanent Chief Technology Officer and c) mitigate identified risks. The engagement will clarify the current-state baseline, alignment gaps, and the most important near-term decision points required to stabilize and position Global Technology for effective, integrated execution under the permanent CTO.

This engagement is diagnostic and preparatory in nature. It is not intended to define a full future-state enterprise technology strategy, which will sit with the incoming CTO.

Objectives

• Establish a clear, evidence-based understanding of Mercy Corps' current digital maturity, including how maturity varies across functions, regions, and country operating contexts
• Identify material vulnerabilities, risks, opportunities, and stabilization priorities, including those arising from fragmented tools, duplicated capabilities, uneven support capacity, and misaligned decision-rights
• Clarify short-term decision points and strategic options for executive consideration, including where enterprise standards and governance are needed to enable speed without creating unmanaged risk.
• Provide a recommended sequenced set of immediate next steps (0-6 months) that improve enterprise alignment, reduce exposure, and accelerate coordinated delivery across functions and geographies.
• Equip the incoming CTO with a clear technical starting brief, including a consolidated view of core platforms, integration dependencies, current delivery capacity, and the most consequential alignment and ecosystem decisions to address in the first year.

Scope of Work

A. Enterprise Digital Maturity Diagnostic
Assess current state of maturity in Mercy Corps across five domains:

Digital Strategy and Governance

• Map decision-rights, governance forums, and escalation paths for enterprise platforms, regional/country solutions, and program technologies.
• Assess the extent to which standards and guardrails enable aligned execution versus creating fragmentation or shadow solutions

Technology Architecture and Systems

• Baseline enterprise platforms and major systems, with attention to interoperability, integration dependencies, identity/access patterns, and lifecycle/ownership clarity.
• Identify where multiple tools or platforms deliver similar outcomes across functions/regions and assess consolidation or rationalization opportunities.

Organizational Capability

• Assess delivery capacity and capability distribution across HQ, regions, and countries (roles, skills, coverage, and operating rhythms).
• Evaluate service management maturity and "ways of working" across teams to identify opportunities for more integrated, globally distributed delivery.
• Conduct a high-level assessment of the organization's enterprise technology ecosystem to evaluate how well current systems support the future operating model.
• Identify opportunities to strengthen integration across Finance, HR, IT and other corporate functions, streamline processes, strengthen data and reporting capabilities, and establish priorities for future technology investment.

Cybersecurity and Data Risk

• Assess risk posture across HQ/region/country contexts, including coverage gaps (policies, controls, monitoring, incident readiness) and high-risk operating realities.
• Identify areas where uneven practices or local workarounds increase enterprise risk.

Data and Analytics

• Assess data governance maturity, data quality, stewardship/accountability, and the extent to which analytics supports decision-making consistently across functions and regions.
• Identify priority opportunities to standardize core data definitions and enable cross-enterprise reporting.

Hardware and IT infrastructure

• Assess infrastructure fitness across varied operating environments (including connectivity constraints), endpoint standards, identity and device management, and business continuity readiness.
• Identify high-impact opportunities to simplify and standardize while maintaining local relevance.
• Work with key stakeholders to assess optimal approach to migrate servers currently housed in Portland office building.
• Deliverable: Diagnostic summary report and overview for ELT.

B. Risk, Opportunities and Stabilization Priorities

Identify:

• Critical vulnerabilities requiring immediate action.
• Operational fragilities that threaten business continuity.
• Governance gaps creating exposure.
• Key misalignments across functions/geographies (e.g., duplicated tooling, inconsistent processes, uneven support coverage) and practical steps required to restore alignment.
• "Quick wins" that build confidence and momentum

Deliverable:

• Executive heat map (red / amber / green by domain)
• Top 5-10 stabilization actions and indicative cost and resource implications.

C. Strategic Options and Decision Framing

• Articulate 2-3 high-level future operating model pathways, including opportunities for efficiency gains, including but not limited to outsourcing and offshoring.
• Clarify trade-offs and implications associated with different options.
• Outline capability and sequencing considerations.
• Identify key financial considerations.

Deliverable:

• Decision framing memo for ELT.
• Recommended priority areas for first 12 months of permanent CTO tenure

D. CTO Onboarding Brief
Prepare a structured transition pack for the incoming CTO including:

• Diagnostic summary.
• Risk register.
• Suggested immediate priorities.
• Known constraints and opportunities.
• Early stakeholder map.
• Options to diversify and strengthen the global IT ecosystem, including delivery model choices, vendor/partner landscape, and recommendations to reduce single points of dependency).
• Other materials which have been identified as relevant and useful.

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions
This is a remote position based in the selected candidate's country of permanent residence and may require up to 25% international travel, which may include travel to insecure locations where freedom of movement is limited and areas where amenities are limited.

Ongoing Learning
In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Team Engagement and Effectiveness
Achieving our mission starts with how we build our team and collaborate. By bringing together individuals with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives, we strengthen our ability to solve complex challenges and drive innovation. We foster a culture of trust and respect, where every team member is valued for their contributions, empowered to reach their full potential, and motivated to do their best work.
We recognize that building a strong and effective team is an ongoing process, and we remain committed to learning, improving, and growing together.