The Deputy Director (DD), Strategy helps lead and manage the foundation’s central strategy team and is a member of the four-person Strategy, Innovation, and Impact leadership team. In addition to team leadership responsibilities, the DD typically leads 2-4 projects at any given time. Typical projects include strategy development and execution planning for existing programmatic priorities, strategy development for new programmatic areas, and cross-foundational corporate strategy topics. In this context, the DD provides strategic thought partnership, project management, and analytical support to clients across the foundation.
- Manage and lead, alongside another DD, an 8-12 person team that provides strategic support across the foundation. Ensure team incorporates and responds to client feedback. Develop and retain talent within the team. Drive culture of high performance.
- Support CSO and Executive Leadership Team on critical foundation strategy issues. Act as thought partner to the Director and other foundation leadership.
- Help develop and execute on a foundation-wide portfolio management approach that champions greater stewardship, planning, and resource allocation in line with thoughtful annual planning processes.
- Develop and improve upon approaches that enable the foundation to more effectively measure the performance of our existing strategies.
- Actively identify cross-cutting foundation needs and strategic initiatives.
- Lead on special initiatives like identifying innovative white space adjacencies.
- Lead ongoing evolution and improvement of the Strategy team operating model especially around performance assessment, portfolio management and strategic planning.
Duties of direct reports:
- Strategy design and development: Provide oversight to ensure projects aimed at answering key strategic issues for global program are analytically and logically sound.
- Execution and performance management: Provide support to team to ensure successful execution of strategies.
- Project Management: Lead and monitor overall performance of projects and resources.
- Client relationship management: Assure effective relationship with key partners, especially Directors and Deputy Directors, to ensure that right decisions are made. Provide thought partnership and advice to Directors across a breadth of issues, including those unrelated to the strategy project itself.
Representative Project Examples
- End-to-end support in scoping, developing, and launching new foundation strategies. Past examples include Global Education and Gender Equality.
- End-to-end support to programmatic Directors and their leadership teams as they revise foundation strategies (“strategy refreshes”). Past examples include Malaria, Family Planning, Maternal Newborn and Child Health, Nutrition, Philanthropic Partnerships, K-12 Education, and others.
- Spearheading cross-cutting foundation strategy initiatives sponsored by the foundation’s Executive Leadership Team. Examples include:
- Developing a strategy taxonomy to enable consistent development and articulation of strategy across program teams
- Facilitating cross-team exploration of new technological tools (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning) on development topics
We are a close-knit team that places a significant emphasis on maintaining and growing our positive, humble, and intellectually curious culture. We believe that small teams groups of deeply committed team members can do extraordinary things. We encourage debate and discussion of tough issues and are committed to the results of our clients. We invest actively in each other’s personal and professional growth and look for candidates who are similarly intentional about developing themselves and those around them.
Core Knowledge and Skills
- We are looking for team members who enjoy working on complex problems and collaboratively crafting strategies that have the potential to transform the lives of people around the world. Candidates must be excellent team players who are excited to work across a diverse set of disciplines and issue areas.
Education and Experience
- A minimum of 10 years of experience in senior strategic planning functions preferably at a top tier strategy consulting firm coupled with a minimum of five years in team management function.