Security Officer to Civil Rights Defenders in Stockholm

About the role

We are now looking for a Security Officer to join our Security Unit at the Security and Innovation Department. The department consists of a team of colleagues focusing on providing security focused and innovative supports to human rights defenders.

The overall responsibility of the role is to contribute to the development and maintenance of the organisational security framework at Civil Rights Defenders; to support the Chief Security Officer (CSO) in increasing the readiness, resilience and overall security of the organisation.

The Security Officer reports to the Chief Security Officer, Head of the Security Unit.

The role offers great variety, including work tasks such as:

• Make sure the organisational security policies are both up-to-date and helpful for colleagues.
• Support Civil Rights Defenders staff members with Information Security  challenges.
• Support Civil Rights Defenders regional department in making risk assessments for staff and operations; including security from both a physical site and personal perspective.
• Tailoring and rolling out risk management processes.
• Incident- and crisis management, including incident investigations.
• Compliance management.
• Teaching, training and presentations.

About you

As a person you show interest, willingness, and ability to help others and strive to deliver solutions. You are open-minded and like to take initiative and generate activity. You collaborate with others and make sure to contribute to reaching common goals and you understand that responsibilities as well as rewards should be shared within the team.

It is fundamental for you to resist undue pressure in decision-making and to communicate key points and ideas with clarity. If you also understand how background, culture and group affiliation affects oneself and others and have the ability to take this into account when making decisions, you will be successful in this role.

We assume that you share our values.

To be suitable for this role you have:

• A Bachelor’s degree in relevant field such as risk management or information security etc.
• At least 3 years of relevant operational working experience in crisis management and risk management, preferably from work in conflict environments.
• Experience in staff travel security arrangements and preparations.
• Experience in security management frameworks.
• Knowledge of security and privacy regulations and legislation.
• Experience from working in an international environment.
• Fluency (orally and written) in English, strong language skills in another language is a merit (Swedish, Spanish or Russian).

Fluency (orally and written) in English, strong language skills in another language is a merit (Swedish, Spanish or Russian).

Together with the CSO and other colleagues in the related roles, you will be tasked with duties directly connected to development and upholding the organizational security policies and procedures.

Civil Rights Defenders is currently undergoing rapid expansion and the Security Officer role will initially be focused on scaling up existing frameworks and routines, as well as developing new organizational systems for Risk management, travel security compliance and information security.

Therefore we expect you to have experience of security related rollouts and confidence-building efforts along with good understanding of the current threat landscape and how to mitigate external risks in an effective manner.

Understanding of the situation of human rights defenders, living and working in repressive environments is a strong merit.

About the employment

This is a permanent employment (with a 6-month probation period). We have collective agreement (between Fremia and Unionen) and apply goal-oriented working hours. As an organisation, we strive for diversity and we see your background, experience and personality as a contribution to the organisation. You will be based in  Stockholm, Sweden.

For more information about the position, please contact Peter Öholm, Head of Security / Chief Security Officer at Civil Rights Defenders: peter.oholm@civilrightsdefenders.org.

Local union representative: joanna.hellstrom@crd.org (Unionen).

Please apply as soon as possible as we recruit on an ongoing basis, but no later than June 11, 2023.

About us

Civil Rights Defenders is a politically and religiously independent international human rights organisation. We defend people’s civil and political rights in some of the world’s most repressive regions. We partner with and support human rights defenders in more than 300 organisations in 50 countries on four continents. Together with our partners, we hold those in power accountable when people’s civil or political rights are violated. We also act as Sweden’s civil rights watchdog.

Civil Rights Defenders has around 100 staff members working in various functions towards our vision – a world of democratic societies in which we all enjoy our civil and political rights. Our headquarter is located in Stockholm, and we have eight branch offices around the world. Learn more about our work at crd.org.

Department: Security and Innovation

Locations: Stockholm

Remote status: Hybrid Remote