I have over a decade of experience creating positive change in the international development sector. I accomplished this through a focus on research, innovation, and inspiring others to not see what their ecosystem is, but what it could be.  I strive in all my work to understand the incentives, barriers and levers for change rather than relying on assumptions or conventional wisdom.  I can see no better place to use these skills than CMHC where I would contribute to rethinking affordable and adequate housing to directly improve the lives of Canadians. I would like to work at CMHC because it has everything I'm looking for in an employer: a big hairy audacious goal, a leadership committed to innovation, and trust in its workforce to get results.

On my first day at the Start Network, our CEO said to me "Welcome aboard. Prepare to unlearn". From that day on, my role was to motivate a diverse set of actors from around the globe to disrupt humanitarian action for the better. To do this, I used the innovation cycle to design, scale and iterate solutions to the sectors most complex challenges. Starting with research and analysis to identify the exact problems we were seeking to solve, and facilitating ideation sessions and design sprints, we implemented big and small agile projects to reach our goals. Using this approach, I successfully increased the effectiveness of one of the fastest humanitarian funds in the world to release funding in less than 72 hours, developed new systems to bring on more community based organisations, and made governance and decision making more consistent across the Network.

One problem the Network wanted to address is the fact that community based organisations only access 3% of global humanitarian financing.  A large focus in the sector was on building the capacity of organisations, however, after a research and design phase with users in 2017, I proposed to focus on the heavy compliance culture of the humanitarian sector. As a result, I led the prototyping of a new way of conducting due diligence for the sector, bringing in a technology partner (TechSoup). This lead to donor governments changing their compliance requirements for community based organisations, allowing us to provide 30% more community based organisations with access to the Network's funding. 

I am a trained partnership broker and currently act as a coach to 40+ staff on how to create diverse collaborations for problem solving. In my current role, I developed the Network’s engagement strategy to improve global membership participation, including a guide to user centred design with members. This involved setting milestones, engagement indicators, collaboration principles, tactics and tools to leverage our non-profit network and partners globally. In 2017, I used this method to lead a global process for network members to define shared purpose for the Network and co-design its long term strategy based on current and future humanitarian trends. I was able to engage a diverse audience in 27 countries to contribute to the process. The 5-10 year strategy was then ratified by all 42 member organisations, paving the way for a vision to create a better humanitarian system. Since this time, I was promoted to lead a department to enact a similar process to develop humanitarian hubs to create longer term system change. 

I believe these experiences and skills would make me an effective leader of innovation processes within CHMC. I am certain to be an asset in helping solve Canada's housing problems. 

Please note that although I am currently in the UK, I am planning on moving to Calgary in the summer of 2020. I am also keen to improve my French to excel in the role through training. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email or call. I look forward to learning more about how I can contribute to CHMC's goals. 

Best regards, 

Melba Mcmahon