Partnerships Senior Officer
Organization: UNOPS
Closing date: 23 Aug 2026
To achieve its goals, UN Global Pulse is looking for a Partnership Senior Officer (Partnerships and New Business) to support the Partnerships Team. The Partnership Senior Officer (Partnerships and New Business) contributes to developing new funding opportunities and cultivating strategic partnerships to support the work of UN Global Pulse.
The role focuses on prospecting, proposal development, and engagement with prospective UNGP partners. The role will also have a focus on organising and coordinating UNGP participation in high-level events. In particular, this role will have a focus on engaging with the Finnish and Nordic innovation ecosystem.
Role Purpose:
The Partnership Senior Officer (Partnerships & New Business) supports UN Global Pulse's efforts to identify, cultivate, and secure new funding opportunities and strategic partnerships, with a particular focus on engagement across the Finnish and Nordic innovation ecosystem.
The role contributes to prospect mapping and pipeline management, the development of high-quality proposals and donor materials, and the coordination of UNGP's participation in visibility-building and donor-facing events. The incumbent also plays a supporting role in internal coordination, ensuring information flows effectively across hubs and teams, and helping to foster a collaborative fundraising culture that strengthens UN Global Pulse's partnership base and broader positioning within the donor and innovation community.
Functions / Key Results Expected:
Under the supervision of the Partnerships Lead, the incumbent will:
1) Support new business development & prospecting
• Conduct prospect mapping to identify new financial and non-financial collaboration opportunities.
• Maintain and monitor a robust new business pipeline, ensuring accurate record keeping, including entries to CRM (client relationship management database), forecasting and reporting.
• Support outreach to newly identified prospects and coordinate introductory meetings to support their cultivation.
2) Support proposal development and resource mobilization
• Draft concept notes, project proposals, donor reports, and pitch decks .
• Coordinate internal inputs are gathered from across the relevant teams to ensure well-aligned proposals that benefit and include multiple UNGP priorities.
• Promote ethical and equitable approaches in all partnership activities and engagements.
3) Support ecosystem engagement and events management
• Support in lead of internal event mapping, identify strategic visibility-building and donor engagement opportunities across UNGP and translating these into actionable events calendar.
• Support in design and delivery of donor facing and global visibility events, aligning format and content to partnerships objectives and target audiences and overseeing budgets and logistics
• Represent UN Global Pulse at selected external meetings and events, when delegated.
• Assist in shaping visibility building events and partner engagements that advance UNGP’s positioning within the innovation and donor ecosystem.
4) Contribute to internal coordination and communication
• Contribute to the development and implementation of the new business strategy and annual plans.
• Build strong relationships across internal UNGP and UN teams to gather insights and stories that can inform partnership development.
• Contribute to a collaborative, ambitious, knowledge-sharing and inclusive fundraising culture across the organisation.
• Effective communication with internal and external partners.
• Ensure accurate information sharing across hubs in particular relating to new prospects and engagement opportunities.
The incumbent of this position will be the personnel of UNOPS under its full responsibility.
The results achieved will contribute to growing UN Global Pulse’s partnership pipeline and strengthening the UN’s innovation scaling efforts globally. Effective delivery in this role will enhance credibility, expand networks, and increase access to resources.
• Successful proposal submissions and conversions.
• Demonstrated support to partnership activities contributing to innovation scaling.
• Strengthened engagement with Finnish/Nordic ecosystem actors.
• Positive feedback from internal stakeholders on coordination and stewardship.
• Well executed donor facing and visibility events and support of external event coordination that strengthen UNGP’s positioning and generate follow-up engagement.
Skills:
Event Management, Information Management, Stakeholder Management, Enterprise Communication & Collaboration, Integrity, Results oriented
Education Requirements
Required:
• An advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) preferably in International Relations, Business Administration, Public Policy, Communications, Innovation Management, or other related field with 2 years of relevant experience is required OR
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor's or equivalent) preferably in International Relations, Business Administration, Public Policy, Communications, Innovation Management, or other related field with 4 years of relevant experience
Experience Requirements
Required:
• Relevant experience is defined as experience in partnerships, donor relations, business development, or similar.
• Experience in events management, including planning and delivering high-profile or donor-facing events.
• Experience in developing or implementing partnerships and donor plans, including budget management.
Desirable:
• Knowledge of the donor funding landscape and emerging trends is desirable.
• Experience engaging with innovation ecosystems, philanthropy, is an asset.
• Experience with managing projects with a variety of stakeholders is desirable.
• Experience in establishing and implementing partnership strategies and plans in a UN context is desirable.
• Experience in building and cultivating strategic donor partnerships with senior stakeholders and demonstrable experience of engaging with private sector, foundations, government and multi-lateral donors is an asset.
• Experience in developing and managing partnership databases and tracking systems is an asset.
• Experience with private sector fundraising in a UN or humanitarian setting is an asset
Language Requirements:
Language Proficiency Level Requirement:
• English
• Fluent
• Required
• Finnish
• Intermediate
• Desirable
Additional Information:
• UNOPS does not accept unsolicited resumes.
• UNOPS will at no stage of the recruitment process request candidates to make payments of any kind.
• Applications to vacancies must be received before midnight Copenhagen time (CET) on the closing date of the announcement. Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and invited to proceed to the next stage of the selection process, which may include various assessments.
• UNOPS embraces diversity and is committed to equal employment opportunity. Our workforce consists of a wide range of nationalities, cultures, languages, races, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities. We strive to sustain and strengthen this diversity, fostering an inclusive working environment where all personnel are treated with respect and have equal access to opportunities.
• UNOPS evaluates all applications based on the skills, qualifications and experience outlined in the vacancy announcement. We are committed to a fair and transparent selection process and welcome diverse perspectives, including those of women, indigenous and racialized communities, individuals of diverse gender identities and sexual orientations, and persons with disabilities.
• We are committed to enabling all candidates to perform at their best during the assessment process. If you are shortlisted and require support or reasonable accommodation to complete any assessment, please inform our human resources team upon receiving your invitation.
• UNOPS has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), sexual harassment, and other forms of abusive conduct, including discrimination, abuse of authority, and harassment. To uphold these standards, background checks are conducted for all final candidates to help ensure that individuals with a history of such conduct are not hired. By applying for a position with UNOPS, candidates acknowledge and consent to these verification processes.
• Terms and Conditions
• 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 (they take around 4 hours to complete) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS. Refreshers or new mandatory courses may be required during your contract. Please note that you will not receive any compensation for taking courses and refreshers. For more information on a retainer contract here.
• For more details about the contract types, please click here.
• All UNOPS personnel are responsible for performing their duties in accordance with the UN Charter and UNOPS Policies and Instructions, as well as other relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, all personnel must demonstrate an understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a manner consistent with UN core values and the UN Common Agenda.
• It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential personnel. Recruitment in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.
How to apply:
For more information and how to apply, please follow the link:
https://careers.unops.org/careersmarketplace/JobDetail/Partnerships-Senior-Officer/4101