Main purpose of job:

You will work with the Country Director as an integral part of the Embassy economic team in Addis in pursuit of the objectives set out in DIT’s Regional Trade Plan for Africa and Country Plan for Ethiopia. As Deputy Country Director, you will lead the team’s commercial work, advising UK investors and exporters to help them realise their ambitions, leading ambitious awareness-building campaigns among UK businesses in priority sectors, holding key relationships within the Government of Ethiopia and supporting UK companies already in the market to continue to operate successfully. In addition to this, you will have responsibility for the day-to-day operational management of the wider DIT-Ethiopia team.

Context:

The Department for International Trade (DIT) is the Trade Promotion and Negotiation organisation for the UK. We promote UK businesses overseas and attract foreign investment to our shores. We have 3,000 staff across the globe in over 100 countries. Our aspiration is to address some of the challenges facing the UK, by helping British businesses to internationalise and grow overseas and as well as helping African businesses better engage with the UK and the world.

DIT Africa is one of the nine DIT global networks and is led by Emma Wade-Smith, HM Trade Commissioner (HMTC) for Africa. The Africa Region is exciting and energising and UK firms have a strong presence here, making the UK one of the largest investors in the continent. With some of the strongest growing economies in the world and booming population growth there are numerous more opportunities for UK firms; from tech start-ups in the West to infrastructure in the East. The Network’s role is to promote these opportunities and position the UK as the continent’s number one trading partner and investor.

DIT in Ethiopia is based at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa. We are a core part of the wider economic-focused Prosperity Team comprising DIT, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DFID), all working to alleviate poverty, improve economic development, and enhance investment and trade between the UK and Ethiopia.

Roles and responsibilities :

• Providing team leadership: You will identify and regularly review the full set of team priorities including our trade promotion, outward investment, trade policy and market access workstreams, working across the team in order to ensure that these are fully aligned to the DIT Africa Regional Trade Plan, the DIT Ethiopia Country Plan, and the British Embassy’s wider Prosperity Strategy.

• Establish a world-class commercial support unit: You will have ownership for the team’s commercial pipeline of both investment and export projects, and will be responsible for devising and executing strategies to drive this pipeline forward. To deliver upon this, you will line manage a small team including one investment and one trade advisor, ensuring that they have clear objectives and activities in place to support those objectives.

• Leading the team’s senior visits work: Critical to our success is that we leverage departmental ministers, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, senior civil servants and business delegations to the cause of the team. You will design, pitch for and execute senior visits into the Ethiopian market, as well as inward visits to the UK by Ethiopian delegations.

• Linking up with the wider Prosperity Team: You will work to develop a deep understanding of the suite of HMG programming in Ethiopia to ensure DIT priorities and interests are considered and aligned with HMG programme planning. As part of this you will work closely with colleagues across Government to identify synergies and opportunities for collaboration on areas of mutual interest that will deliver the Embassy’s Prosperity Strategy.

• Day-to-day team management: You will have responsibility for the team’s financial operations and monitoring, reporting to the Country Director, as well as ensuring that the team remains ODA compliant.

• Deputise for the Country Director: You will deputise for the Country Director when required, ensuring that senior stakeholders are kept informed of strategic developments, and representing DIT Africa / Ethiopia both internally and externally.

As the successful candidate, you will be a dynamic leader with good communication skills, able to motivate the trade and investment team and prosperity colleagues, and engage credibly with senior people in order to represent interests of the DIT Ethiopia team and its people. You will be good at thinking strategically and planning for the future. You will be able to demonstrate the management capability to support a high performing, flexible and agile team; and have a proven ability to build good relationships with stakeholders and clients. You will also be comfortable drilling down into the detail to manage the performance.

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

There will be formal line management responsibilities for one Sector Investment Advisor and one Trade Advisor. The role holder will also formally manage the team’s country budget, reporting to the Director of Trade and Investment.