Executive Director

Are you passionate about leading change within a grassroots organisation dedicated to health equity? Do you see yourself as someone who can make a genuine difference through your vision, drive, and commitment to social impact?

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is hiring an Executive Director who will be in charge of taking the organisation forward in its exciting new chapter. Whether you’re a seasoned leader with experience or someone with a strong commitment of driving impact, this could be the opportunity for you to make a significant difference.

**Job Details**:

- **Location**:Berlin, Germany (remote work possible upon further discussion)
- **Contract length**: 12 months, renewable upon availability of funds.
- **Working Hours**:32 hours a week.
- **Salary**: 44-47,000 €/ year (depending on experience)
- **Flexibility**: Working remotely and 4 day working week possible.
- **Annual Leave**:20 days annual leave (for a 4 day working week), plus public holidays for Berlin.
- **‘Shutdown’ at Christmas**: Seasonal time off through this period without deducting from their annual leave.
- **Additional Leave**:Paid educational leave and extra time off during key holiday periods, e.g. summer, and parental leave as required.
- **Time Off In Lieu**:You would be granted time off in lieu if you ever were required to travel for work on weekends or work overtime.
- **Global Exposure**:You will be working with teams and organisations from other countries in Europe, North America and Latin America to share your knowledge beyond your regional desk.

This role is an excellent opportunity to develop leadership and management skills and to lead strategic initiatives across UAEM. You will be at the heart of the student-led community, driving change and shaping the future of global health equity.

You will lead on transformational change, providing programme leadership with various stakeholders and a broad portfolio spanning several themes and countries.

This role will enable you to advance your leadership and global health skills, including project and grants management, monitoring, finance, new business development, and training.

**About UAEM**:
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines Europe (UAEM) is an international nonprofit organisation dedicated to mobilising student advocacy for global access to affordable medicines. With hundreds of passionate students across a dozen European countries, from diverse fields—including medicine, law, and public health. UAEM works to change the norms and practices around university patenting and licensing to ensure that medical research meets the needs of populations worldwide.

Our origin story began 20 years ago at Yale University, where students mobilised as part of a demand to lower the prices of HIV/AIDS medication, resulting in a 95% price drop for key medicines and impacting hundreds of thousands of lives. Today, access to essential medicines remains a critical challenge, as many people around the world cannot pay their arbitrarily high prices. We believe that medicines are a right, not a privilege, and should be created for people not profit. UAEM members are committed to:

- promote access to medicines and medical innovations where barriers exist primarily by changing norms and practices around academic patenting and licensing, supported by our own independent research,
- ensure that university medical research meets the needs of people worldwide and actively supports the creation of new needs-based approaches to R&D and
- empower students to respond to the biomedical access and innovation crisis by advocating for the most promising global biomedical R&D system that works for all.

UAEM's ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all. We aim to create, nurture, and sustain an inclusive culture where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our organisation and wider communities. We do this by celebrating and protecting differences, removing barriers, and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

**Key Responsibilities**:
UAEM is seeking a new Executive Director to lead the organisation forward into its next chapter. This will include developing and implementing our new strategic plan, being a leader and galvanising our membership in their activities, in addition to securing funding to ensure the organisation can continue to advocate for essential access to medicines.

The Executive Director will be working as part of a global network of international NGOs and UAEM representatives, including close collaboration with other UAEM regions to ensure a cohesive strategy. UAEM Europe is transitioning into an exciting new phase; with the reboot of UAEM’s advocacy following the pandemic, and inception of novel technical research projects and campaigns at a local, national and regional level. The new Executive Director will play a key role in supporting current initiatives, whilst expanding the organisation’s scope an