Senior Director, Governmental Partnerships

Core Accountabilities

• Build and maintain strong relationships with local/ sector entities classified under strategic relationships in order to understand the Saudi national interest, and their requirements. This includes directing the establishment and enhancement of relationships through understanding entities mandates and priorities, developing and implementing a stakeholder and communication plan, reporting on engagement and maintaining a database for all contacts.
• Work in close collaboration with the VP, Relationship Management to support the partnerships departments with their interactions with local/ sector entities classified under strategic relationships, support in introducing new opportunities, and provide them with the local knowledge and context to ensure appropriate support.
• Direct and manage close relationships with senior officials and key members of local and sector entities classified under strategic relationships by establishing strong contacts, facilitating regular meetings to discuss progress of partnership initiatives (including objectives and agendas) and identifying roadblocks and potential areas where the organization can support entities to ensure continuous development of business relations and partnerships.
• Liaise with local and sector entities classified under strategic relationships by providing and collecting inputs on priorities and potential partnership opportunities to identify, share, test and refine economic, socio-cultural, political and security partnerships and business opportunities. This includes supporting in refining strategies for partnerships and business opportunities to match needed requirements.
• Direct the facilitation and participation of on joint dialogs and workshops on prioritization and refinement of identified opportunities to ensure prioritized opportunities have clear development and execution ownership within stakeholders’ entities classified under the strategic relationships.
• Identify areas of support that local and sector entities classified under strategic relationships may require in development of opportunities and recommend potential solutions to ensure effective business development. This includes supporting partnerships department during the identification and development of strategic and secondary opportunities within the set priorities and themes.
• Provide close collaboration and liaise with the partnership departments, and local/ sector entities classified under strategic relationships to collect/share information on latest advancement of initiatives, identify potential risks/roadblocks and recommend mitigation actions in order to track and follow up on implementation of partnership initiatives and enablers.
• Support local and sector entities classified under strategic relationships in managing and facilitating relationships with large corporates, SMEs and industry associations including private and public sectors by identifying enablers to increase and improve interactions.
• Support the planning and executing of visits and events through collaboration with the relevant local/ sector stakeholders classified under strategic relationships and the relevant partnership departments. This includes involving them in foreign visits and events as necessary.
• Build and maintain deep understanding of the local and sector entities classified under strategic relationships this includes relevant insights and analysis on local stakeholder to enable better and quicker collaboration for current and future opportunities. This includes assigning responsibilities, capturing their requirements, priorities, key contacts, etc. and capturing them in a centralized EDMS system.
• Collaborate with local/ sector entities classified under strategic relationships to collect data on partnerships and initiatives and to track status updates on MoUs. This includes following up on partnerships and MoUs implementation and activities.
• Engage with local/ sector entities classified under strategic relationships on country strategies, initiatives, challenges, enablers and supporting them in managing relationships with 3^rd parties.

Academic & Professional Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, General Management, Economics, Political Science, International Business, General Diplomacy or related field.
• Master’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, General Management, Economics, Political Science, International Business, General Diplomacy or related fieldis an added advantage.

Experience

• A minimum of 12 years of solid/extensive experience with at least 4-6 years holding a leadership position in a:
• Diverse/multi-cultural business industry,
• Multi-national companies;
• Strategic development, global business development or similar type role.  
• In-depth experience operating within and across cross-functional teams (relationship management) in a start-up environment and experience identifying partners, analysing and structuring complex agreement structures with a consistent record of execution.

• Advanced understanding of the Saudi national interests.
• Advanced understanding and knowledge of the local/ sector entities within KSA.
• Advanced understanding of relationship management methods, tools and techniques.
• Advanced understanding of stakeholder management and requirements.
• Advanced understanding of the social and culture aspects of KSA.
• Good understanding of CRM and prospecting databases.
• Fluency in English and Arabic languages.