Chief Operating Officer

• About Fòs Feminista
• Fòs Feminista is a global intersectional feminist organization advancing the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Led and governed by the Global South, Fòs Feminista works through a constellation of affiliated organizations, legal entities, strategic partnerships, and movement relationships with around 200 civil society partners across 40 countries.

Our work integrates advocacy, grantmaking, research, movement-building, sexual and reproductive healthcare, and innovative finance to strengthen feminist organizations and movements worldwide. Operating across multiple jurisdictions and institutional structures, Fòs Feminista brings together legal, political, philanthropic, and movement strategies to advance gender justice and achieve lasting systemic change.

• Position overview
• Fòs Feminista is seeking a Chief Operating Officer to provide strategic and operational leadership across the organization.
• Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer and serving on the Strategic Management Team (SMT), the COO will translate strategy into coordinated plans, sound resource decisions, effective institutional systems, and accountable implementation.
• The COO will integrate People, Inclusion, and Culture; Business Intelligence, Evaluation and Research; and Legal Affairs. The Chief Financial Officer will report to the COO for operational integration and fiduciary responsibilities while retaining a direct relationship with the CEO. The role requires a leader who can move between strategy and execution and work across functions, regions, and cultures.

Position within the organization

• Reports to : Chief Executive Officer
• Leadership body: Strategic Management Team

• Direct and functional oversight:
• •People, Inclusion, and Culture
• •Business Intelligence, Evaluation and Research
• •Legal Affairs
• •Chief Financial Officer, within the dual-reporting arrangement described above

• Principal responsibilities
• 1. Executive leadership and strategic execution
• •Serve as a strategic partner to the CEO and an active member of the SMT, contributing to the development, review, and implementation of organizational strategy.
• •Translate priorities into annual and multi-year plans that connect responsibilities, timelines, resources, and measures of progress.
• •Help SMT assess opportunities and challenges in relation to mission impact, finances, organizational capacity, risk, and effects on partners; monitor progress and address barriers.
• •Support organizational continuity, assume responsibilities delegated by the CEO, and represent Fòs Feminista with the Board, partners, donors, advisers, and other external actors as appropriate.

• 2. Organizational integration and performance
• •Act as a principal integrator across strategy, finance, people, evidence, legal affairs, resource mobilization, and operational capacity.
• •Strengthen cross-unit planning, clarify responsibilities and decision points, and ensure that organizational gaps and matters without a clear institutional owner are addressed.
• •Lead policy development, integrated systems implementation, the responsible use of AI, and major organizational change to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

• 3. Financial stewardship and organizational sustainability
• •Provide executive oversight of financial planning and performance with the CFO and CEO, connecting budgets, forecasts, staffing, fundraising projections, program commitments, and organizational priorities.
• •Support budgets, financial scenarios, and resource-allocation recommendations; monitor performance, sustainability, and risks; and ensure that SMT receives timely analysis.
• •Ensure strong systems for financial controls, restricted funding, grants and contracts, audits, procurement, and compliance while protecting the CFO’s professional and fiduciary responsibilities, including direct access to the CEO and, where appropriate, the Board.

• 4. Connection with resource mobilization
• •Align revenue strategies and major proposals with organizational priorities, delivery capacity, financial forecasts, commitments to partners, realistic costing, and risk analysis.
• •Strengthen coordination throughout the funding cycle; support governance and performance monitoring of the Feminist Impact Fund; and assess the funding portfolio’s effect on longer-term sustainability.
• •Join selected donor discussions when institutional, financial, or operational questions require executive participation. Fundraising strategy, donor cultivation, and revenue generation remain with Resource Mobilization and the CEO.

• 5. People, inclusion, and culture
• •Provide strategic leadership to People, Inclusion, and Culture and ensure that recruitment, performance, compensation, development, succession, and staff well-being support the mission and strategy.
• •Strengthen management practice, organizational design, workforce planning, accountability, and team development while sustaining trust and collaboration.
• •Ensure that people practices reflect feminist values, equity and inclusion, and a distributed multilingual workforce, and that difficult matters can be addressed with clarity, fairness, and appropriate confidentiality.

• 6. Business intelligence, evidence, and organizational learning
• •Provide strategic oversight to Business Intelligence, Evaluation and Research; strengthen the use of data in planning and decisions; and ensure that reporting and indicators serve learning and accountability.
• •Ensure appropriate governance, protection, and ethical use of organizational and partner data. Oversee and integrate staff safety, digital and information security, AI risks, and crisis response.

• 7. Legal affairs, compliance, and risk
• •Provide executive oversight of Legal Affairs and ensure that legal considerations enter organizational planning and decisions early.
• •Maintain an organization-wide approach to legal, financial, operational, safeguarding, security, data, reputational, and people-related risks, including appropriate controls, escalation, continuity arrangements, and responses to significant compliance matters.
• •Ensure that contractual, regulatory, and governance obligations across jurisdictions are understood and managed.
• •Protect the professional independence of Legal Affairs. Its head retains direct access to the CEO and, when required, the appropriate Board body, including for concerns involving any senior manager or the COO.

Decision-making and authority

The COO will exercise authority delegated by the CEO and established through organizational policies, approved plans, and governance responsibilities. Decisions with significant strategic, financial, legal, reputational, workforce, or partner implications will be brought to the CEO, SMT, or Board. The COO will support them with integrated analysis, clear options, and effective implementation.

• Leadership profile
• The successful candidate will be a senior organizational leader with the judgment, experience, and relational capacity to work across multiple functions and institutional contexts. They will combine strategic perspective with disciplined execution and lead through coordination, trust, and influence as well as formal reporting relationships.
• They will bring:
• •Demonstrated experience in a senior executive or enterprise-wide role in a complex international nonprofit, philanthropic, social-impact, or other mission-driven organization.
• •Experience leading or integrating several functions, such as finance, people and culture, operations, legal or compliance, organizational data, strategy implementation, or business development.
• •Strong financial literacy and experience using budgets, forecasts, and analysis to guide decisions and connect strategy with measurable results.
• •Experience working across countries, cultures, legal environments, or distributed teams and building productive relationships with senior colleagues, boards, staff, partners, donors, and advisers.
• •Experie