Chief Services Officer

With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 31,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities:

The Chief Services Officer (CSO) provides enterprise-wide leadership for World Vision International’s (WVI) global service functions that support and enable the field, with accountability for ensuring services are integrated, resilient, and delivered to a high standard across the Partnership. The role leads key global service portfolios, strengthens organisational resilience and stewardship, and provides financial leadership and accountability across the CSO portfolio, including oversight of VisionFund (a regulated financial institution) and large operating portfolios. The CSO ensures strong financial performance and discipline, effective risk management, and appropriate governance and assurance in both stable and crisis contexts. The role also champions digital, data, and technology-enabled service delivery, including the informed adoption of digital tools and AI capabilities aligned to WVI’s digital transformation direction.

In support of World Vision’s Mission, Vision, and Our Promise Phase 3, the CSO models and fosters a culture aligned with the organisation’s core values, mindsets, and behaviours. The role balances enterprise‑wide strategic alignment with agility and disciplined execution, ensuring global services are delivered with excellence, accountability, and sustained impact.

The CSO will work closely with the World Vision International CEO and President (“CEO”) and will be called upon to deputise for the CEO in various capacities, including, but not limited to, Crisis Leadership Teams, targeted strategic initiatives, Board sub-committees, Regional Forums, and serving as a President’s nominee on World Vision Boards, as appropriate.

Working closely with the CEO and the Office of the President, and as a member of the Executive Leadership Team (ExL) and the Strategy Realisation Steering Committee (SRSC), the CSO provides long-range strategic leadership, integration, and oversight of key service portfolios across the partnership, including:

• Global Programs and Resources
• Faith and Development
• VisionFund
• Safety, Security and Resilience

This portfolio may evolve over time in line with organisational needs and strategic priorities. The role is fundamental to strengthening unity, trust, collaboration, and alignment across the World Vision Partnership, ensuring that global services are resilient, mission-aligned, and fit for the future.

Governance and Leadership Roles

• Member of the Executive Leadership Team (ExL)
• Member of the Strategy Realisation Steering Committee (SRSC)
• Staff to the WVI Board

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Deputise for the WVI CEO and President

In close collaboration with the Office of the President, support and enable the CEO by acting as a delegated executive leader within a clearly defined mandate. Represent the CEO across governance, leadership, and operational contexts, including executive sponsorship of partnership‑wide initiatives, participation in Crisis Leadership Teams, stewardship of Boards and Board Committees, representation at Regional Forums, and leadership coverage during CEO leaves of absence. Ensure continuity of leadership, effective decision‑making, and organisational assurance.

Leadership Oversight of Global Services Functions

Provide enterprise level leadership and accountability for the full CSO global services portfolio, including Global Programmes and Resources, Faith and Development, VisionFund, and Safety, Security and Resilience. Enable senior leadership teams to translate strategy into consistently high-quality operational outcomes across development, humanitarian, transition, and fragile contexts, supported by strong financial stewardship, clear P&L and budget accountability, VisionFund institutional oversight, and robust financial risk management.

Sponsor and lead partnership‑wide initiatives to strengthen programme quality, safeguarding, evidence generation, and impact measurement. Drive coherence and integration across technical sectors, programme standards, and delivery models, and simplify operating models by clearly defining Global Centre, Region, and Field roles for guidance, assurance, and operational support.

Champion the coherent integration of Faith and Development across programming, leadership practice, and community engagement—ensuring faith expression is mission faithful, contextually appropriate, and operationally grounded. Strengthen strategic alignment between VisionFund, livelihoods programming, humanitarian recovery, and donor priorities to maximise impact and sustainability.

Serve as a trusted advisor to the President/CEO and Executive Leadership Team on service delivery, security, resilience, and enterprise risk. Set, oversee, and assure the CSO portfolio’s risk appetite and enterprise risk management framework, ensuring effective governance, safeguarding, escalation, and Board and Executive Leadership assurance—particularly in fragile and high-risk operating environments.

Champion technology‑enabled service delivery across the CSO portfolio, making informed, enterprise‑level decisions on digital tools, data, and responsible use of AI to improve quality, efficiency, resilience, and accountability. Lead large‑scale organisational change and transformation, including service integration and operating model simplification, to strengthen clarity, effectiveness, and partnership‑wide delivery.

Build and sustain high‑performing senior leadership teams, with clear accountability for talent development, succession planning, and the cultivation of a strong and diverse leadership bench across the CSO portfolio.

Drive Collaboration and Alignment

Drive collaboration and alignment across the World Vision Partnership by engaging leaders and teams across diverse entities, regions, cultures, and contexts to strengthen trust, coherence, and enterprise‑wide service delivery. Build respectful, high‑trust relationships that enable service integration, shared accountability, and the lived expression of the Covenant of Partnership.

Ensure clear, consistent, and purposeful communication that supports shared understanding, collaborative decision‑making, and sustained commitment to transformation and change initiatives. Anticipate and respond to emerging humanitarian, development, security, and operational challenges, strengthening organisational preparedness, adaptability, and resilience in an increasingly complex operating environment.

Required Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

• Master’s degree preferred in economics, marketing, business administration, public administration/management or related field
• A deep personal commitment to World Vision’s vision, mission and core values.
• Clear Christian faith commitment and capacity to provide spiritual leadership
• Broad and deep executive experience working in global organisations at the executive level including experience across several functions – 15 + years
• A depth and breadth of Field and Humanitarian & Emergencies Affairs (HEA) experience in a variety of contexts
• Experience of complex governance structures, and proven success working with Board and Board Committees
• Senior financial leadership across large operating portfolios, including P&L/budget accountability, financial risk management, and institutional familiarity with microfinance/financial inclusion (e.g., VisionFund or similar).
• Demonstrated enterprise risk management experience, including setting/operating within risk appetite and managing complex, multi-dimensional risk portfolios across humanitarian response, security/fragile contexts, and financial services.
• A commitment to life-long learning, a growth mindset and ability to foster a culture of learning and agility. An active learner who shares ideas with clarity.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and presentational abilities. 
• Ability to develop trusted relationships
• Ability to synthesise high ambiguity and broker effective solutions at global scale
• Proven successful experience in operations management
• Demonstrated breadth of business and organisation development experience and facilitation of group processes
• Extensive international experiences and comfort in working across cultures and within complex organisational structures
• Fluent English both written and verbal
• The position requires the ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 40% of the time.

Preferred Experience, Knowledge and/or other Qualifications:

• Strong leadership skills and team management capabilities
• Strong engagement, interpersonal and influencing skills
• Personal resilience and ability to role model well being
• Problem-solving skills and capacity to deliver under pressure; pragmatism; persistence
• Strong demonstrable reserves of motivation and energy to embrace new challenges and craft impactful and sustained interventions in innovative ways
• Proficiency in French or Spanish (or both) an advantage

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organisation with a mission centred on following Jesus Christ in service to the world´s most vulnerable children. Therefore, in all locations to the fullest extent legally permissible, the successful applicant will affirm our core documents, observe conduct compatible with Christian principles, serve at a high level of professional ethics and strive to act in accordance with cultural sensitivities. Furthermore, regular attendance with team and office devotions, chapel and prayer gatherings are expected in line with policies in the World Vision host location and its departments.

Applicant Types Accepted: