Founding Chair of the Board, VERAS Foundation

About VERAS Foundation: VERAS is a measurement-first disbursement integrity standard, applied at the registry level. Humanitarian programmes use it for beneficiary registry integrity, development programmes for public service payroll integrity, and government ministries for payroll integrity. Independent assessors grade a payment list against 21 indicators, so a donor can tie a funding tranche to the grade. The VERAS Foundation, being established in The Hague, will govern the standard: one method used across three sectors needs governance that no single-sector body can provide.

Vacancy: Founding Chair of the Board, VERAS Foundation

Chair Profile

The Chair leads the board through the Foundation’s registration, and then:

• keeps the method independent of any platform that produces evidence for assessments;
• holds assessors to one published method, so a grade means the same across programmes and over time;
• keeps the dispute process independent;
• represents the Foundation to donors, ministries and peer standard bodies.

Who we are looking for

Standing with multilateral or bilateral donors or development finance institutions, independent judgement, and an appetite for building governance at a foundation in formation. Relevant backgrounds include:

• retired World Bank or UNDP public financial management specialists, familiar with PEFA;
• ISS or Clingendael academics with expertise in donor conditionality;
• former senior UN, EU INTPA (formerly DEVCO) or ECHO officials, familiar with the Core Humanitarian Standard;
• former senior executives of international humanitarian or development organisations, with standing among institutional donors;
• retired development bank executives (FMO, KfW, AFD, EIB).

Independence
The Chair can hold no commercial, advisory or financial ties to any platform that produces evidence for VERAS assessments, or to any entity likely to be assessed under VERAS. Past roles with organisations likely to be assessed are disclosed, and the Chair steps aside from decisions that concern them.

Terms

• Voluntary and unpaid; travel by public transport within the Netherlands is reimbursed.
• Four quarterly board meetings in person in The Hague, plus lighter work in between.
• Initial term of two years, renewable.
• Working language: English.
• The board: the Chair, the methodology lead and further members confirmed at registration.

Contact:

Send a brief CV and a one-page statement of interest to chair-search@verasfoundation.org. We welcome applications from all backgrounds.

VERAS was initiated by GuardGhost, a platform that produces evidence for VERAS assessments. Moving the standard into independent hands is the founding Chair’s first task.