Director, Ethics Office

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 5,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Role of the Ethics Office

UNOPS is committed to fostering an organizational culture of ethics and a harmonious and inclusive work environment, anchored in the values of integrity, accountability, transparency, respect and professionalism. The Ethics Office is integral to this effort, and it has an overall mandate to act as an independent organ pursuant to SGB (2007/11). 

The role of the Ethics Office is to strengthen and nurture a culture of ethics, integrity and accountability, and thereby enhance the trust in, and the credibility of, the organization, both internally and externally.. Ethics at UNOPS is fundamental to us achieving our mission. It isn't just what we do that matters but how we do it. As part of the United Nations, we have a responsibility to adhere to the highest ethical standards in our work.

The Ethics Office serves all personnel in UNOPS, wherever they are in the world. The Office provides a secure, confidential environment where personnel can consult on ethical issues and seek protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct. 

Other core areas for the Office include developing standards and consistently applying these in line with other members of the Ethics Panel of the United Nations, leading training and education on ethics issues, and conducting ethics outreach; safeguarding personnel by providing protection against retaliation, and administering the Organization’s Financial Disclosure Programme.

Role of the Director, Ethics Office

As an independent and influential leader in UNOPS, the Director, Ethics Office reports to the Executive Director, with functional guidance from  the Chairperson of the Ethics Panel of the United Nations (EPUN).  

The purpose of the role is to cultivate and nurture a culture of ethics, integrity and accountability, and thereby enhance the trust in, and the credibility of UNOPS, both internally and externally. The role serves as a key internally independent adviser to UNOPS senior management, with respect to conflicts of interest and other ethical implications of the organization’s major decisions, strategies and transactions.

In coordination with UNOPS internal stakeholders as well as the UN Ethics Panel, the role is responsible for systemizing ethics practices, ensuring  that   the UNOPS   rules, policies,  procedures and practices reinforce and promote the standards of integrity called for under the Charter of the United Nations.

The Director,  Ethics Office works independently when it comes to the ethics activities and may consult with the  Ethics Panel of the  UN on technical ethics issues

Summary of functions:

1. Ethics Office Leadership and operational management

2. Strategic advisory 

3. Promoting ethics culture

4. Representation and networking

5. Knowledge management and innovation 

• A Master’s degree in a relevant field such as Business Administration, Public Administration, law, or similar area.

• A combination of a Bachelor’s degree with an additional 2 years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of the education requirements outlined above.

• Minimum 10 years of progressively responsible leadership experience in ethics management in an international organization.

• Experience in providing conflicts-of-interest advice to employees and senior leadership and provision of independent guidance in respect to the ethical implications of the organizations’ major decisions.

• Experience in ethics strategy/framework development to promote an ethics culture across a diverse workforce, including financial disclosure administration or whistleblower protection and/or ethics training. 

• At least 5 years of leadership experience including demonstrated experience of supervising teams is required.

• Fluency in English 

• Proficiency in another UN official language, in particular French or Spanish would be an asset.

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.