Director, General Services and Procurement at African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

African Development Bank Group (AfDB) – Established in 1964, the African Development Bank is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 80 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries). The Bank’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Director, General Services and Procurement, CHGS

Reference: ADB/20/026
Location: Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
Grade: EL5
Position N°: 50092470

The Complex

The Vice-Presidency, Human Resources and Corporate Services ensures the delivery of efficient, people-centered, client-oriented, corporate services to ensure overall institutional effectiveness in all aspects of the Bank’s corporate services.
The complex leads efforts to digitalize and transform the Bank into a knowledge-driven workforce, promote human resources policies that enhance talent, drive a performance-driven culture, and ensure the competitiveness of the Bank as the employer of choice.
The complex ensures that all Human Resources and Corporate Services are re-aligned to drive greater corporate performance and execution of the Bank’s strategic vision and priorities. The complex is responsible for providing leadership in the formulation and implementation of Bank’s strategies on people, IT, General services and institutional procurements, Language Services, business continuity and, health and safety strategies.

The Hiring Department:

The primary roles of the of the General Services and Procurement department are to manage the Bank’s assets, oversee all corporate procurement of goods, services, work and real estate, coordinate all staff travel and transport of Bank’s goods and staff, catering services and other logistics arrangements and the mail services and keep staff informed about services offered.
To this end the General Services and Procurement department formulates and applies rules for procurement, storage, and maintenance of furniture, office equipment and supply; design, prepare and implement programmes for the construction or acquisition and maintenance of buildings and premises; formulate and ensure the proper and effective application of administration policies within the Bank in such areas as communications, transport, travels, security, protection and safety of the Bank’s staff and property; and perform related duties.
The department is responsible for managing the Bank’s fixed assets (valued at over 100,000,000 Units of Account). The General Services and Procurement department comprises 3 divisions supervised by the Director General Services and Procurement. These divisions are: (i). Operations and Maintenance Division; (ii). Corporate Procurement Division; and (iii). Support Services Division.

The Position

The Director, General Services and Procurement department reports to the Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Services and is key to the attainment of the Bank’s transformative agenda for Africa through ensuring that there is adequate management of the Bank’s administrative affairs and assets management.
Notably: (i) the optimization of the Bank institutional procurement and expenses; (iii) cost benefit analysis on some of the Bank services such buy / construct vs lease, negotiation of services such as travel and hotels catering, cleaning, transport, insurance.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Director is responsible for developing a strategic approach to defining, planning, organizing, coordinating and leading the activities of the Department. His/her duties include:

Lead the effective delivery of the General Services and Procurement department work and budget programming;
Ensure the effective budget resources management with the objective of cost saving;
Lead the institutional procurement planning, control and implementation of all corporate activities relating to works, goods, services, contracts and insurance, ensuring that staff are empowered with a clear focus on clients’ orientation and results;
Develop the AfDB Real Estate Development Strategy (including the Headquarters, Regional and Country Offices) and implement deriving annual implementation plans;
Drive efficiencies to achieve increased effectiveness in service delivery and in the acquisition and management of works, goods and services, ensuring value for money of all corporate activities of the General Services and Procurement department;
Lead the development and implementation of policies, procedures and processes for procurement of works, goods and services;
Ensure that the Key Performance Indicators set for the department are met;
Lead the General Services and Procurement management team by leading the strategic staffing of the department to ensure appropriate skills mix, regularly assessing the management team and overseeing overall performance management and outcomes of the department, and the learning needs of the department with the support of the Human Resources Department;
Promote the Gender strategy by ensuring that the Bank is a safe place for women to work by making available provision of gender-related equipment in all Bank’s offices premises;
Lead offices space planning and management of assets to support the Bank’s the decentralization strategy;
Lead the development and implementation of policies, procedures and processes for management of Bank’s Assets including the operation and maintenance of Bank properties (Bank real estate at HQ and in the Bank’s country offices), inventories etc;
Lead the development and implementation of policies, procedures and processes relating to Bank vehicles, travel and shipment;
Lead the development and implementation of policies, procedures and processes relating to the disposal of Bank Assets;
Lead the work program and resources programming related to the Bank’s mailing and restaurants services;
Oversee the implementation of corporate plans for the Headquarters building;
Lead and monitor the change management to ensure that the ultimate goal of the Bank is met and propose or recommend any corrective measures;
Perform other related duties such as participation in various standing committees’ meetings such as Capital Investment Steering Committee, Annual Meeting Committee, Purchasing Committee, and Board meetings dealing with matters related to the Department’s function.

Selection Criteria

Hold at least a Master’s degree or its equivalent in Engineering, Management, Business Administration or closely related disciplines;
Have a minimum of ten (10) years of relevant extensive and progressive experience in the private sector or an internationally recognized Financial or development Institution similar to the Bank, five (5) years of professional experience should be at a managerial level;
Have solid professional experience in Assets management (real estate, facilities, warehouse, fixed assets,etc.), procurement of works, goods and services, contracts management and purchasing, air travel services management (vehicle and air);
Have a professional qualification in asset management, facility management, project management or procurement will be an added advantage as well as competence in the use of ERP Systems (preferably SAP) and software relevant to project administration (share point) and standard Microsoft Suite of applications such as Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint;
Strong managerial skills, including interpersonal communication and client-orientation;
Ability to undertake sound analysis (skills and methods), in order to conceptualize future work or organizational changes and develop strategies for change which includes strategic mind-set and capacity to translate strategic thinking into a compelling plan of action of a large international institution;
Ability to build partnerships with a broad range of clients and deliver results that meet the needs and long term interests of clients within and outside the institution;
Ability to develop a successful leadership style to establish and achieve exceptional organization performance and the ability to handle multiple responsibilities in a fast-paced environment;
Demonstrated ability to ensure the timely accomplishment of tasks in the Department by giving valuable advice and providing constructive feedback;
Ability to build and lead a motivated and committed team across functional boundaries and utilize talent and expertise of team members in a productive way;
Strong interpersonal skills. Capacity to influence and inspire confidence;
Excellent written and verbal communications skills in French or English with a good working knowledge of the other language.