Associate Director, Global CRM (Salesforce)

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future. This position sits within Marketing Technology, the team that builds and runs the systems IRC uses to raise funds, engage supporters and advocate for the people we serve. These include the enterprise Salesforce CRM, our donation platforms, the global Rescue.org website and our email communications platforms. Together they underpin the fundraising, communications and advocacy work of External Relations around the world. Job Overview / Summary (What and Why): IRC’s Salesforce platform sits at the heart of how we raise funds and stay in touch with supporters. It manages a multi-million dollar fundraising operation, is used by around 500 staff, and runs as a single global, GDPR-compliant org built on a heavily customised Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). We are now evaluating a potential move to Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, and exploring how AI, including Agentforce and integrations with models such as Anthropic’s Claude, can work responsibly inside the platform. The Associate Director will lead that next chapter. Reporting to the Senior Director, Marketing Technology, the postholder owns the platform’s strategy, roadmap and architecture, and plays a central role in how Salesforce evolves at the IRC in the future. The role brings together three things that rarely sit in one job: architect-level Salesforce judgement, leadership of a technical team, and a real understanding of how a global nonprofit raises and manages income. The postholder leads and develops the CRM team, holds contractors and delivery partners to clear standards of quality, security and supportability, and explains technical choices and trade-offs in plain language to senior leaders. This is a team leadership role that stays close to the technology. We expect the postholder to spend most of their time on strategy, architecture and leading the team, while remaining hands-on where it matters: designing solutions, reviewing the team’s work and building when the situation calls for it. In their first year, the postholder will: Get to know the current NPSP org in depth, including its customisations, integrations and technical debt, and the teams who depend on it. Agree a clear platform roadmap and the governance to deliver it with stakeholders across External Relations, Finance and programme teams. Identify where AI tools such as Agentforce can add real value, safely and in line with IRC’s data protection and AI governance requirements. Shape the team structure, ways of working and partner model the platform needs for its next phase. Major Responsibilities: Platform strategy and product ownership Act as global product and platform owner for IRC’s Salesforce ecosystem, setting its direction and making the case for investment. Develop and maintain a prioritised CRM roadmap aligned with IRC’s fundraising, supporter engagement, finance and programme objectives, and run a fair, transparent process for managing demand. Lead IRC’s evaluation of Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud, including the business case, options appraisal and, if approved, the migration strategy and plan. Lead the responsible evaluation and adoption of AI within the CRM ecosystem, including Agentforce and integrations with external AI models, identifying worthwhile use cases while meeting IRC’s data protection, security, ethical AI and governance requirements. Assess AppExchange and other third-party products and recommend what IRC should adopt, keep or retire. Architecture and technical leadership Own the solution architecture of the platform: data model, automation, security model, integrations and managed packages, including NPSP, Account Engagement (Pardot), Outlook integration, Blackthorn and Apsona. Set design and build standards for declarative and programmatic development (Flow, Apex, Lightning Web Components, APIs), and review the work of the team and partners against them. Reduce technical debt in a heavily customised org, and make sure new work is simpler to support and ready for future platform changes. Oversee integrations with donation platforms, finance systems, the data warehouse and reporting tools, so that data flows are reliable and well documented. Stay hands-on: prototype, configure and build when that is the fastest way to unblock the team or prove an approach. Team and partner leadership Lead, coach and develop a team of Salesforce administrators, developers and a business analyst, including recruitment, performance management, career development and workload planning. Build a team culture of good engineering practice, clear documentation and service to the people who use the platform. Manage contractors, implementation partners and suppliers, holding them to account for quality, cost and delivery, and contribute to procurement, licensing and budgeting. Governance, security and operations Own platform governance: access management, security, audit controls, data quality, business continuity, and compliance with GDPR and other data protection requirements across countries. Oversee incident, problem, change and release management, including readiness for Salesforce’s three annual releases and managed-package updates. Oversee user support, testing a