Head of Grants Management Unit

Head of Grants Management Unit | DRC - Danish Refugee Council

Head of Grants Management Unit

DRC - Danish Refugee Council Copenhagen National Senior level Speaks Arabic, Danish, English, French, Spanish

Application deadline: March 27, 2026

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Summary by Impactpool

The Head of Grants Management Unit (HoU) leads the grants management function at DRC, acting as a specialized technical advisor and strategic leader. This role involves promoting best practices in grants management and compliance across operations, managing a team of specialists, and overseeing the entire workflow in the ERP system. The HoU is responsible for developing policies, providing expert guidance, and facilitating capacity building within the organization. The position requires significant field experience in humanitarian or development contexts, along with strong leadership and communication skills.

Candidate Requirements:

At least 8 years of field experience in humanitarian/development organizations

At least 5 years of senior management experience

Sound understanding of Grants Management and Program Management

Experience with ERP systems like SAP or Microsoft Dynamics

Experience in planning and leading cross-disciplinary processes

Experience in training or capacity-building design

Systematic and analytical approach with attention to detail

Excellent coordination and communication skills

Master’s degree in a relevant field

Fluency in English

Who are we?

The Grants Management Unit (GMU) is one of the units under the Standards and Operational Support Division at HQ which leads, manages, and supports the various granting modalities globally. The mandate of the GMU is to support HQ, HQ Hubs and country operations in efficient and effective grants management, and partnership contracting, ultimately aiming at timely and high-quality assistance to the field operations. While daily grants management is centered at the field/legal entity/country office level, the HQ GMU provides a layer of support, coordination and oversight ensuring internal and external compliance, timely installment management ensuring overall DRC cash flow and liquidity, and document and data management through DRC’s Enterprise Resource Planning System - Dynamics (DYN), enabling audit readiness and strategic analysis of DRC’s grants portfolio. 

Additionally, GMU manages most grants management tasks for the HQ managed priority institutional donors (ECHO, EU, Danida etc.) including coordination and submission of timely, compliant and quality assured proposals and reports, grants opening and grants closure, and providing advice to country operations on donor compliance requirements.

GMU holds the accountability for global grants related systems and processes, standards and tools in addition to global processes and frameworks such as installment management and capacity assessments, CHS audits etc.

The GMU team comprises of 12 Grants Management Specialists covering country portfolios and HQ managed projects, a Senior Grants Advisor, a partnership and contracts advisor and a Student Assistant managed by the Head of the Grants Management Unit.

About the job

The Head of Unit (HoU) for GMU has the overall leadership of the grants management function in DRC as a highly specialized technical advisor in grants management and a strategic leader supporting the overall implementation of the departmental strategy for program excellence.

The HoU promotes best practice throughout DRC to promote and facilitate grants management excellence and compliance across DRC’s operations. They leads the GMU team and as the Business Process Owner (BPO) encapsulating the entire workflow in Dynamics (DRC’s ERP system) from donor fundraising, invoicing funds, managing grants and enabling strategic income management.

Key responsibilities of the role include:

Owner of DRCs grants management and contracting related policies and associated operational processes. For example due-diligence, contracting

Provide expert advice and guidance as well as technical support within the area of grants management and leadership of the GMU team

Capacity building across the organization

Manage substitution, surge capacity and technical support within grants management

You will also be part of the extended department management group for SPR as well as the group management of the division for Standards and Operational Support (SOS)

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to be an experienced manager with field experience from different country offices in a humanitarian/development organization.

All employees should master DRC's core competencies: Communicating, Taking the lead, Collaborating, Striving for excellence and Demonstrating integrity.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

Required

At least 8 years of field experience from different country offices in a humanitarian/development organization - preferably in grants or program position.

At least 5 years of experience as a senior manager, preferably technical specialists, advisors or coordinators.

Sound understanding of Grants Management, Program Management, the grants management phases, the project cycle management, and strategy development and implementation.

Experience working with grants or financial processes in an ERP system (e.g. SAP, Microsoft Dynamics).

Experience in planning, coordinating and leading processes that include multiple cross-disciplinary stakeholders across organizations.

Experience in facilitation, training or capacity-building design and implementation.

Systematic and analytical approach with a high degree of attention to detail and experience in systematic problem solving.

Excellent coordination, collaboration, networking and communication skills.

Master’s degree within relevant field of study.

Fluency in English (speaking, writing, reading)

Desirable

Communication skills in Danish, French, Spanish or Arabic is an advantage

We offer

Contract length: Permanent

Workplace: Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, just by Ryparken station

Start date: 1 May 2026 or as soon as possible thereafter

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and Lederaftalen (management agreement) which is available at lederne.dk. This is a national position for which Danish local terms and conditions apply. We encourage all nationalities to apply for the position, and if you do not have the existing right to work in Denmark, DRC will apply and coordinate the work permit process.

Application process

All applicants must upload a cover letter, an updated CV in English as well as a degree certificate.

Closing date for applications: 27th March 2026 .

Due to the urgency in filling this role, we will conduct online interviews on a rolling basis.

Further information

For questions regarding the vacancy please

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