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Background

People and communities around the world have the solutions to social injustice, authoritarianism, and the climate crisis. But repressive governments, corrupt corporations, and armed groups use violence and oppression to try and silence them.

By building resistance and resilience among those challenging unaccountable power, Open Briefing supports a shared vision for a world where communities and ecosystems can thrive.

As a mission-driven nonprofit, we join forces with grassroots activists, community groups, and social movements at risk. Working together, we strengthen their physical safety, digital resilience, and collective wellbeing. As a social impact consultancy, we help leading nonprofits and foundations navigate risk and support the people and partnerships that make change possible.

This dual approach allows us to work at every level of civil society, from the grassroots to the global.

We have scaled to meet a 66% surge in demand for our support over the past two years, with our international team now responding to 11 new cases every week. Last year, we:

• Answered 575 calls for assistance across 100 countries.
• Delivered over 6,000 hours of mentoring and accompaniment.
• Trained over 1,000 activists in 112 holistic security workshops.

Across all our work, the same approach guides us. We come with questions, not just answers. We listen to the knowledge and experiences of the people we support before sharing our own. Then we act, together.

We are expanding our diverse, inspired, and purpose-driven team. Will you join us as our new director of digital and information security?

Role description

As our director of digital and information security, you will lead our digital risk and resilience team and programme in order to help build resistance and resilience among the people and movements challenging unaccountable power.

Your focus in this senior role at this crucial time will be on leadership, strategy, growth, and culture, with specific responsibility for our digital risk and resilience programme, internal information security, and tech transformation. Your responsibilities will include:

Lead our digital risk and resilience programme

1. Manage the design and delivery of our digital and information security support, including:
   • Coordinate the digital security mentoring, accompaniment, and capacity sharing we deliver to at-risk activists and low-resource civil society organisations referred through our rapid response mechanism.
   • Oversee the professional information security consultancy and advisory services we provide to high-profile nonprofit and foundation clients.
   • Develop our holistic security approach and ensure the smooth delivery of holistic security projects as part of our cross-programme leadership group.
2. Lead a team of digital and information security professionals and technologists, including:
   • Build and maintain an effective team, and recruit, onboard, and mentor new consultants as required to meet increased demand or to fill gaps.
   • Inspire, motivate, and line manage team members and foster a team culture that ensures psychological safety and reflects our values.
   • Quality assure and provide expert input into the work of consultants in the team as appropriate.
3. Drive our evolution in this risk domain from a service-focussed workstream to an impact-driven programme, including:
   • Build strategic relationships with hubs, hotlines, networks, and other key nodes in the protection ecosystem, particularly across the global majority.
   • Produce tools, guides, and trainings on key digital and information security issues of concern to activists and organisations at risk.
   • Raise Open Briefing’s profile in the digital rights and tech communities by representing the organisation externally, including at conferences and events and within relevant civil society networks.

Champion our own digital and information security

1. Maintain an up-to-date registry of our valuable and sensitive information assets and the technical and organisational measures in place to protect them.
2. Define, prioritise, and implement additional technical and organisational measures to better protect each of our valuable and sensitive information assets.
3. Continuously improve the digital hygiene of our team members and the security of our devices, accounts, communications, and website by introducing additional general measures, including device management and regular digital security training.
4. Coordinate our response to any data breach or security incident involving our information assets, devices, accounts, communications, or website.

Drive tech transformation in our organisation

1. Act as a catalyst for change and drive tech transformation as a strategic enabler of our growth and scale.
2. Map current systems and workflows to identify gaps, reduce complexity, and deliver improvements that strengthen security and ease staff burden.
3. Lead the specification, procurement, and implementation of new tools – including secure case management, communication, and collaboration systems – and oversee change management and training to ensure successful adoption across our team.
4. Establish a clear and responsive process for handling team requests for IT and digital security support, ensuring timely assistance and continuous improvement.

Shape our organisational strategy and culture

1. Play an active role in strategic decision making, organisation development, and delivering our three-year strategy as a key part of our senior leadership team.
2. Support our CEO and development director to cultivate new and existing funding partnerships, including for our digital risk and resilience programme.
3. Model our organisation’s values and culture by using inclusive language, acting with empathy and compassion, and demonstrating a solutions-focussed and growth mindset in your interactions with all our internal and external stakeholders.

Advance your own growth and development

1. Engage in our programme of training and coaching in order to grow as a leader.
2. Remain up to date with key developments in digital and information security and relevant technology, such as data protection regulations, digital rights, internet freedom, and new surveillance and censorship technologies.

You will be supported in your role by a digital risk and resilience coordinator and a team of highly-motivated consultants, other members of the senior leadership team, our office manager, and a CEO who models servant leadership. You will also have detailed handover notes and access to our extensive internal knowledge base and up-to-date project management system.

To help you grow as a leader, we will co-design your quarterly objectives, regularly review your priorities and progress, and provide an annual 360 performance and growth review. All team members also have access to unlimited professional coaching and other learning and development opportunities.

Person specification

Essential

1. You will be an experienced and empathetic leader or manager who values collaboration and teamwork.
2. You will have a proven track record in digital and information security roles.
3. You will have considerable digital and information security expertise and be able to communicate and apply that knowledge clearly, concisely, and effectively.
4. You will have experience working with nonprofits and foundations and/or grassroots movements, organisations, and activists.
5. You will have experience working in professional consultancy and advisory roles.
6. You will be sensitive to the progressive and rights-based missions and diverse profiles of our clients and other stakeholders.
7. You will have excellent written and spoken English.
8. You will be based in a country with a time zone that is UTC +/- 3 hours or able to accommodate our core working hours.

Desirable

1. You may have a strong understanding of the physical security and psychosocial aspects of holistic security and how they interact with digital risk and resilience.
2. You may have proficiency in additional languages.

Terms and conditions

We are a global, remote-first, and digital nomad-friendly organisation. This is a home-working role with some potential for occasional international travel.

We are looking for someone who wants to become part of our close-knit team and develop a long-term working relationship with us and our stakeholders. You will be properly onboarded and continually supported by empowering managers and highly-experienced colleagues. Your line manager will be our CEO, Chris Abbott.

This is a full-time employed role. We will offer you a remuneration package made up of fair pay, sector-leading benefits, and progressive leave policies, including:

• Salary of £72,400 per annum.
• 7% employer pension contribution (UK).
• Family private medical insurance.
• Employee Assistance Programme, including welfare counselling.
• Unlimited professional coaching.
• Enhanced annual leave of 25 days plus local public holidays.
• Additional leave days for annual closedown.
• Enhanced sick pay.
• Flexible working, including flexitime and remote and home working.
• Access to local coworking spaces.
• Support for climate action:
  • Personal carbon emissions offsetting.
  • Up to two additional leave days for sustainable travel.
  • Up to two additional leave days for climate activism.
• Apple MacBook Pro and peripherals.

‬‭In order to ensure that we comply with local laws and regulations, Open Briefing staff based‬ outside the United Kingdom will be contracted locally through an‬‭ employer of record‬‭ (EOR).‬ Wherever possible, we apply the same terms and conditions of employment to all staff,‬ whether employed directly or through an EOR. Where there are differences due to local laws and regulations, we will apply the better of the provisions set out above or the local statutory requirements.

How to apply

To apply, please submit your CV and cover letter (no more than two pages each) using the secure form.

You will be asked three screening questions in the form as part of your application:

1. What excites you about Open Briefing and this role?
2. In this role, you’ll support civic actors facing complex threats from state, corporate, or criminal adversaries. These actors often have limited resources, knowledge, or experience to identify or respond to such risks. What do you see as the key factors when designing effective digital and information security strategies in this context? If possible, please share an example of a role or project in which you tackled similar challenges
3. Our team is diverse in language, culture, location, working style, and employment model. Many of our consultants work with us part-time, alongside other clients, and are embedded in a wider ecosystem. Your role will be to support their growth, match them to the right work, and integrate their efforts across a broader, cross-functional team. What challenges would you anticipate in leading such a diverse, distributed team? Please share an example of a role in which you managed similar challenges – ideally within a global civil society or service-oriented organisation.

Please note the following dates:

• Closing date: 20 June 2025 (16:00 UTC)
• First round interviews: 30 June and 1 July 2025
• Second round interviews: 3 and 4 July 2025
• Desired start date: 1 August 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter

Please let us know in your cover letter if any of these dates are problematic and we will try to accommodate. Given the nature of our work, the successful applicant will need to complete a reasonable vetting process before being appointed.