Director of SIVIC

Being named a director is little more than a formality. This person, whoever they are, will have been leading the organization long before some external force requires their name. And oftentimes, the person you know as director is not, in fact, the actual director.

— Security briefing

The selection process is a little more formal and a lot less shadowy and last minute, but that is actually the gist of it. SIVIC doesn't always have a director, and when they do, they don't usually let anyone know until it's absolutely necessary. Someone has to be at the top of the food chain, after all, making the tough decisions when it has to come down to one person.

SIVIC makes such broad decisions that most of their leadership is spread out across the various cells, with authority as decentralized as is possible for an international organization. The things they've taken authority over move too quickly and too specifically to trust too many major decisions to some distant leader, and they're all accustomed to taking charge as needed.
However, the treaties and charters involved in the creation of SIVIC require one overarching leader, someone with the authority to operate up against other world leaders.

The Selection Process

The short version of this is that there isn't a process. At least, not one singular method. There is some selecting going on, and it's usually the other directors doing the ultimate selecting, but as to what exactly they're looking for and who they choose, it varies from era to era.
One very small point I can give in their favor is that the directors very rarely choose from one of their own number. They're generally quite happy where they are, with their teams and areas of expertise and authority, and there are relatively few instances of someone getting greedy and wanting to take over for the sake of having more power. Even fewer who actually succeed at such.
The majority of handovers occur when something happens to the old director, someone nearby takes over in an interim measure (and there's a fairly rigid hierarchy of who can do that based on years of service and level of clearance), and then the directors decide that person is just going to keep on doing that.

Current Holders

• Juliette Jardine