Role purpose

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) will lead Practical Action as one globally connected and regionally empowered organisation providing strategic, organisational and external leadership at a pivotal moment for Practical Action and the wider international development sector. Building on the 2025–2030 strategy, the CEO will work with the Board of Trustees and Global Leadership Team to sharpen priorities, strengthen delivery and shape a compelling longer-term vision for the organisation.  

Practical Action is seeking a leader who is authentically committed to its purpose and locally led approach; strong external, financial and partnership capability; and the organisational leadership to turn strategy into sustained impact. The successful candidate will bring both global perspective and practical credibility, enabling others to lead while remaining personally accountable for the choices and outcomes that matter most.

Major Duties and Responsibilities

Strategy, Impact and Organisational Direction

• Work with the Board and Global Leadership Team to sharpen the 2025–2030 strategy, set enterprise priorities and shape Practical Action’s longer-term vision.
• Turn strategy into accountable delivery with clear ownership, milestones and measures of success.
• Drive coherent programmes, innovation, influencing and partnerships that deliver measurable, systems-level impact.
• Anticipate and respond to shifts in development, humanitarian action, climate finance, localisation, technology and funding.

Global Leadership, Governance and Operating Model

• Lead one globally connected organisation while empowering regional and country leaders to act locally.
• Clarify decision rights, delegated authority, budgets and accountability across all levels. Resolve barriers to execution and implement clear decision rights, delegated budgets and accountabilities, ensuring global functions enable effective regional and country leadership.
• Shape an agile operating model with strong governance, standards, systems and proportionate central support.
• Lead a high-performing Global Leadership Team with collective ownership, challenge and collaboration.
• Maintain a trusted Board relationship and high standards of financial stewardship, safeguarding, risk, compliance, ethics and accountability.

Financial Sustainability and Resource Mobilisation

• Ensure Practical Action has a sustainable financial model aligned with strategic priorities, disciplined investment and effective risk management.
• Lead major donor, government, philanthropic, corporate and strategic partner relationships.
• Strengthen pipeline quality, conversion and income to support priorities and long-term resilience.
• Diversify funding and clarify resource mobilisation responsibilities, capabilities and incentives across the organisation.
• Translate Practical Action’s distinctive strengths and evidence of impact into compelling propositions that attract funding, build strategic alliances and influence policy and investment.

External Leadership, Influence and Partnerships

• Act as Practical Action’s chief ambassador, strengthening its global profile and distinctive proposition.
• Build strategic alliances with communities, governments, funders, businesses, researchers, networks and peer agencies.
• Use evidence from practice to convene stakeholders and influence policy, delivery, finance and investment.
• Champion locally led development and ensure regional, national and community perspectives shape strategy, partnerships and advocacy.

People, Culture and Organisational Capability

• Build trust and belonging across the organisation through humble, empathetic and culturally intelligent leadership.
• Empower leaders through genuine delegation, clear standards and mutual accountability.
• Foster a caring, ambitious and accountable culture that values pace, learning, innovation and commercial awareness.
• Attract and develop diverse talent, strengthen succession and stay connected to delivery realities.

Innovation and Future Readiness

• Create the conditions to test, learn from and scale locally generated solutions.
• Use evidence and feedback from communities and programmes to improve decisions and strategy.
• Harness technology, innovative finance, new alliances and delivery models to increase impact across development, climate resilience and humanitarian action.

Early Success

• Build trust, diagnose organisational and financial challenges, position Practical Action for greater funding success, and unblock urgent decisions.
• Establish clearer priorities and operating and fundraising accountabilities. 
• Demonstrate financial progress, a more diversified funding pipeline and stronger global collaboration.
• Ensure the 2025–2030 strategy reflects critical external shifts and organisational priorities in an ever-changing world.

Profile 

• Substantial executive leadership experience in a complex international organisation, ideally in development, humanitarian action, philanthropy or social impact.
• Significant country and regional leadership experience beyond the UK and Europe, with credibility in Global South contexts.
• A strong record of leading organisational transformation across strategy, structure, culture, systems and ways of working.
• Experience leading decentralised, federated or matrixed organisations while balancing local authority with effective governance.
• Evidence of translating strategy into measurable organisational, financial and impact outcomes.
• Senior financial leadership, including organisational sustainability, budgeting, investment, performance and risk.
• Demonstrated success in diversifying income and personally cultivating, securing and stewarding donor relationships for programmes in the Global South, across institutional funding, foundations, philanthropy, blended finance, and corporate partnerships, with experience of innovative financing approaches.
• Strong external representation, influencing and alliance-building experience.
• Proven experience leading a dynamic international organisation through rapid change and disruption, adapting strategy, operations and funding to climate emergencies, conflicts and wars, health pandemics and technological change, including AI, while protecting staff wellbeing and sustaining delivery.

Knowledge, Skills and Leadership Attributes

• Deep commitment to Practical Action’s purpose, locally led development, equity and practical solutions that improve lives while addressing climate and environmental challenges.
• Strategic vision and systems thinking, combined with the ability to convert ambition into focused priorities, decisions and delivery.
• Strong political, commercial and financial judgement, with the confidence to pursue opportunity, manage calibrated risk and safeguard mission.
• Exceptional influencing, communication and ambassadorial skills, with credibility across communities, colleagues, governments, funders, businesses and global partners.
• High emotional intelligence, humility and cultural intelligence, with an inclusive leadership style that builds trust and recognises expertise across geographies and organisational levels.
• A decisive but enabling approach: willing to make difficult calls, delegate genuine authority and hold self and others accountable for results. 
• Entrepreneurial, curious and adaptive, with the judgement to challenge assumptions and the discipline to learn from evidence.
• Resilience, integrity and personal presence, together with the energy to lead through sustained change.
• Understanding of AI’s implications for development and inequality, with practical experience applying it responsibly.

Terms of Appointment

Accountable to: Board of Trustees

We treat all applications for employment fairly regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, caste, tribe, belief, age, marital status, pregnancy, caring responsibilities, sexual orientation, or disability. 

Practical Action is committed to safeguarding and protecting children and vulnerable adults and as such candidates will be subject to pre-employment checks including criminal checks and terrorist financing.

To ensure that Practical Action meets its obligations of safer recruitment, appointment to posts within Practical Action will be subject to a satisfactory criminal check. Criminal checks will be conducted for all roles.

The successful applicant must already have the right to both live and work in the country that they are applying for and should be willing and able to travel.

Role Location

The position may be based in any location where Practical Action has an office. Candidates must be eligible to work in the office location in which they will be based and able to travel internationally as required.

How to Apply

To apply for this position, please ensure you complete the Application Form provided below by 12 November 2026 (23:59 hrs, GMT). It is essential that you submit your CV in English, specifically in Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx), not exceeding 10MB.

Applications in other languages or formats will not be considered.

Rest assured, all information will be handled with the utmost confidentiality.

SRI Executive is exclusively retained by Practical Action to undertake this assignment.