Operations Director

Lie Detectors is looking for an experienced Operations Director with demonstrated experience of budget management, legal compliance as well as managing HR structures in an international environment, supporting our fight against disinformation and for media literacy.

Lie Detectors (https://lie-detectors.org) is an independent and award-winning news literacy project in Europe working to tackle disinformation and its corrosive effect on democracy. We do this by empowering citizens to sort fact from fiction online and understand how professional journalism works, by analysing impact and trends in media literacy work and by informing policy debates in the fields of education policy and digital rights. We are a motivated and competent team of 20 staff and a community of more than 250, currently active in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland, with operations due to begin in further countries in 2023. See coverage of our work in the Financial Times, BBC, Spiegel Online, German broadcaster ZDF, the European Business Summit as well as feedback from our journalist community.

Are you our ideal candidate?

As Operations Director you will have demonstrated experience with budgeting and financial planning and management, as well as human resources management in an international environment. You will have had experience overseeing corporate legal matters and coordinating with external legal providers and accountants. You will be an experienced negotiator and a strong, effective and supportive leader. You will have an affinity for and commitment to the work of Lie Detectors.

You will, among other things:

  • Liaise with our legal teams on issues of legal compliance, HR, privacy/data protection, as well as risk management and governance
  • Plan and manage our budget, accounting and HR systems, pulling together the strands also of our national budgets and accounts and presenting management accounts and financial reports to the CEO and Board
  • Oversee human resources management internally and work with external HR consultants
  • Ensure contractual consistency across international teams, consultants, suppliers and leases
  • Oversee robust data-management and IT systems to facilitate our expansion
  • Manage a Brussels-based team and work with country-level staff tasked with budget and legal responsibilities
  • Work with the senior management team in codifying Lie Detectors’ work and practices and developing the organisation.

You will have at least 15 years of experience. Excellent English plus French and/or German are a must for this job, other European languages a bonus. You will ideally have a relevant postgraduate finance or legal qualification plus demonstrated experience.

What we offer

  • A role at 100% or 90%
  • Competitive salary and benefits package with a starting salary of 90.000€ – 100.000€ depending on experience
  • An interesting, varied and impactful job
  • A unique opportunity to advance and accelerate practical work to tackle digital disinformation and polarisation
  • Work in partnership with external HR, finance and legal experts
  • Where relevant, home office set up to facilitate hybrid office work
  • You’ll join a well-meshed and brilliant team – we’re proud to say that a recent external health-check found our team to have remarkably high levels of trust, respect and motivation.


Location

Ideally, you’ll be located in Brussels, but we will consider strong candidates in Berlin, Cologne and London.

Your application

If this sounds like an exciting and suitable next challenge for you, send us your CV and a cover letter in English outlining how your past experience equips you for the role by COB 30 March 2023 to jobs@lie-detectors.org.

Should you see this posting after the deadline, feel free to contact us to check whether applying still makes sense. If you are applying within the month of April, please send your cv and cover letter to Anna.Koj@mavence.com. Mavence is our partner for this recruitment. 

Lie Detectors is committed to building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and everyone is encouraged to apply. Lie Detectors is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, disability, national origin, age or any other status protected by applicable law.

We are working with an external consultancy to fill this position. The consultant will have access to documents that you submit during the recruitment process and may contact individual candidates on behalf of Lie Detectors.