About The Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity
The Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity (MBZFH) is an innovative philanthropy dedicated to advancing human potential and opportunity. Headquartered in Abu Dhabi and working across 45 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the Foundation unifies and elevates the UAE’s philanthropic efforts in global health and inclusive development. Rooted in Sheikh Zayed’s legacy of dignity and service, MBZFH builds enduring partnerships and makes transformative investments in the building blocks of human progress.
The Foundation’s focus is organized around reducing the burden of preventable diseases, strengthening health systems and enabling thriving communities. Its health portfolio spans communicable and infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, health infrastructure, the health workforce, maternal, newborn and child health, assistive technology and access to quality healthcare. By 2030, MBZFH aims to reach more than 500 million people across more than 50 countries.
Job Summary
Reporting to the Chief Programs Officer, the Director of Global Health shapes and manages MBZFH’s program portfolio by translating the Foundation’s strategy into a focused pipeline of high-quality philanthropic investments. The Director leads the day-to-day substance of the Foundation’s frontline grantmaking: sourcing and screening opportunities, designing funding instruments, leading programmatic and technical due diligence, preparing investment recommendations, mobilizing partners, overseeing delivery, and ensuring that results and learning inform future decisions.
The role is the Foundation’s senior operational and technical leader for programmatic investments in communicable diseases (including infectious diseases) and non-communicable diseases, while ensuring that these investments connect coherently with health systems, workforce and infrastructure priorities. The Director will build and lead a multidisciplinary Programs team and steward relationships with donors and co-funders, grantees and implementing partners, technical agencies, multilaterals, NGOs and host-country governments.
Responsibilities
1. Portfolio Strategy, Pipeline and Investment Planning
- Lead development and active management of a coherent multi-country program portfolio and pipeline across communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases and related health-system priorities.
- Identify program needs and opportunity areas by maintaining a forward view of disease burden, country priorities, policy shifts, delivery constraints, funding gaps and emerging innovations; source, screen and prioritize investments against agreed strategic, technical, geographic, impact, risk and value-for-money criteria.
- Develop opportunity briefs, portfolio plans and recommendations that make trade-offs explicit and enable timely decisions by the Chief Programs Officer, leadership and governance bodies.
- Shape functional program and disbursement plans and contribute to institutional planning and budgeting led by Strategy & Planning and Business Operations.
2. Philanthropic Grantmaking and Funding Instruments
- Lead the programmatic design and management of philanthropic funding instruments, including grants, technical assistance, capacity-building support, co-financing and pooled-funding mechanisms; ensure each is supported by a strong theory of change, implementation model, budget, risk assumptions, delivery milestones and sustainability or transition plan.
- Lead programmatic and technical due diligence and coordinate financial, fiduciary, legal, compliance, safeguarding and risk inputs from the relevant functions.
- Prepare investment memoranda and program recommendations for review and approval, articulating strategic fit, expected outcomes, partner capability, value for money, risk and MBZFH’s distinctive contribution; recommend disbursements, reallocations, amendments, renewals, corrective actions and close-out decisions based on verified performance and agreed decision rights.
- Work with Grant Operations to ensure consistent use of grant policies, systems, templates, workflows and documentation standards throughout the project lifecycle.
3. Technical Leadership: Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases
- Serve as MBZFH’s technical lead for investments in communicable, infectious and non-communicable diseases, drawing on internal expertise and commissioning external advice, assurance or surge capacity where required.
- Ensure program strategies and investment decisions are grounded in the best available evidence, relevant normative guidance, disease-burden data, country context and the lived realities of affected communities.
- Set and uphold technical quality standards across relevant intervention models and guide integrated approaches where communicable diseases, NCDs, maternal and child health, access to quality care, workforce capability and health systems intersect.
- Provide programmatic and technical advice to host-country governments and other public-sector partners, while respecting country leadership, national priorities and institutional mandates.
4. Program Delivery, Performance and Learning
- Lead partner onboarding and mobilization and establish clear delivery, reporting, escalation and decision-making arrangements for each investment.
- Oversee grantee and implementing-partner performance against milestones, budgets and intended outcomes; resolve barriers and intervene early when performance or risk deteriorates, while reinforcing partner accountability and capacity.
- Maintain a reliable portfolio dashboard and provide the Chief Programs Officer and leadership with timely updates on progress, risks, disbursement readiness, corrective action and forecast results.
- Partner with MEL to establish indicators, baselines, targets and reporting plans; verify performance through implementation and close-out, and use evaluation and learning to strengthen delivery and future investment decisions.
5. Partnerships, Co-Funding and Country Engagement
- Own delivery-linked partnerships and trusted relationships with donors and co-funders, grantees, implementing partners, multilaterals, NGOs, technical agencies and host-country governments, including co-financing, technical-assistance, country-delivery and grant-accountability arrangements.
- Co-design programs with country stakeholders so investments respond to national plans, build local capability, strengthen domestic ownership and support sustainable financing.
- Support high-value institutional partnerships and co-funding opportunities with External Relations, providing technical substance, delivery models, investment propositions and partner-performance insight.
- Represent MBZFH, as delegated, in governance bodies of co-funded initiatives, safeguarding its objectives, influence and accountability; coordinate with the Chief of Staff and External Relations to align relevant engagements with UAE diplomatic interests and ensure coherent relationship management and external positioning.
6. Cross-Functional Leadership and Organizational Stewardship
- Work with Strategy & Planning and MEL to translate institutional priorities into portfolio themes, annual plans, resource choices and decision-useful results frameworks, and to feed validated program evidence, evaluation and learning back into strategy.
- Coordinate with Grant Operations, Business Operations and Finance, Legal Affairs, and Audit & Risk Management on grant workflows, budgets, procurement, disbursement readiness, records and close-out, and on the identification, mitigation and escalation of contractual, regulatory, safeguarding, fiduciary, reputational and programmatic risks.
- Work with the Infrastructure Director where outcomes depend on health assets, workforce development or infrastructure-related delivery, maintaining clear portfolio accountability; partner with Communications and External Relations to communicate credible results and support advocacy, convening and external engagement.
- Model a startup mindset: build fit-for-purpose systems and ways of working, make disciplined decisions amid ambiguity, and strengthen the Foundation’s readiness to scale.
7. Team and Capability Leadership
- Build, lead and develop a high-performing Programs team spanning portfolio management, partnerships, program management and program support.
- Set clear accountabilities, priorities and performance expectations; coach team members; create strong delivery rhythms; and foster technical excellence, collaboration and learning.
- Deploy internal staff, in-country representation, external experts and technical advisors deliberately, maintaining sufficient internal judgment and avoiding over-delegation to partners.
- Promote a culture of dignity, service, integrity, evidence, responsible stewardship and respectful partnership across all program work.
Candidate Profile
Experience
- At least 12 years of progressively responsible experience in program design, grantmaking, implementation or portfolio management in global health, philanthropy, development assistance or a closely related field, including substantial senior leadership responsibility.
- Demonstrated leadership of complex, multi-country global health portfolios, with material experience in communicable or infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases; credible oversight across both areas is strongly preferred.
- Strong track record across the full philanthropic grant lifecycle: pipeline development, funding-instrument design, due diligence, investment recommendations, contracting inputs, partner mobilization, performance management, adaptive action, renewal and close-out.
- Experience managing large or strategically significant grants and working with co-financing, pooled-funding or multi-donor initiatives.
- Proven success managing relationships with donors, co-funders, grantees, implementing organizations, host-country governments, multilaterals, NGOs and technical agencies.
- Experience leading multidisciplinary teams and collaborating across strategy, MEL, finance, grant operations, legal, risk, communications and external relations.
- Field experience in multiple developing-country contexts, preferably across Africa, Asia or the Middle East, with a grounded understanding of health-system constraints and country-led development.
- Experience working in a startup, institutional formation or scaling environment is highly desirable.
Education and Technical Knowledge
- Advanced degree in public health, medicine, epidemiology, health economics, international development, public policy or another relevant discipline; equivalent depth of professional experience may be considered.
- Strong understanding of communicable and non-communicable disease programming, health systems, evidence-based intervention design and the policy and financing environments that shape sustainable health outcomes.
- Sound knowledge of philanthropic and grantmaking practice, program finance, risk-based due diligence, results measurement, partner capacity assessment, and donor and regulatory compliance.
- Ability to interrogate technical evidence, financial and program data, risk information and partner performance, and translate these into clear investment and management decisions.
Leadership Capabilities
- Strategic portfolio leadership – connects long-term ambition to thematic choices, pipeline decisions, resource allocation and executable delivery plans.
- Technical credibility and judgment – asks the right questions, uses evidence well and can lead specialists without narrowing the portfolio to a single discipline.
- Philanthropic stewardship – balances ambition, innovation, partner enablement, value for money, accountability and responsible risk-taking.
- Partnership and diplomacy – builds trust across donors, grantees, governments and technical actors while navigating different interests, power and accountability relationships.
- Cross-functional leadership – creates clarity at organizational interfaces, convenes colleagues around shared outcomes and moves work forward without relying solely on hierarchy.
- Delivery and adaptive management – maintains grip on complex portfolios, resolves bottlenecks and changes course when evidence or context requires it.
- Communication and influence – synthesizes complex issues into compelling recommendations and communicates with technical, executive, governmental and governance audiences.
- People leadership – builds capability, sets high standards, delegates well and creates an inclusive, accountable and learning-oriented team culture.
- Integrity and service – acts with discretion, humility, sound judgment and an unwavering commitment to the dignity and wellbeing of the communities MBZFH serves.
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