The Associate Program Officer will provide critical support to the Chief of Staff/Director, Strategy, Planning and Management (CoS/DSPM) in the office of the Executive Director (ED) of Global Growth and Opportunity (GGO), with particular emphasis on the external engagement strategy and plan for the ED. This includes: project management, communications and external relations, ensuring follow-through, prioritization, and effective coordination of all engagements and work products. This role will occasionally be tasked with leading special projects on behalf of the CoS/DSPM and ED, such as tracking, researching and analyzing major external trends and events that could impact GGO strategies.
This role will report to the COS/DSPM, and will be based in Seattle.
- Working with CoS, manage a process to strategically utilize the voice and time of the ED to advance GGO priorities through external engagement, including travel and partner engagement.
- Working with GGO program teams, PAC counterparts, and regional office partners, solicit requests for ED trips and external engagements, develop a yearly calendar to best utilize ED’s time, and manage schedule changes and new requests.
- Lead development of trip charters, project manage trips, oversee briefing materials to prepare ED for trips.
- From time to time, staff ED on trips and assist with on-the-ground logistics, including ensuring proper meeting capture and follow-up.
- Serve as GGO counterpart in cross-foundation trip planning and development (e.g. WEF, UNGA).
- Work with communications counterparts to identify potential external communications opportunities as part of engagement cadence.
- As needed and time permitting, conduct research, analysis and synthesis of internal and external information for the CoS and ED, on topics that impact the external environment for GGO strategies. Such topics might include programmatic developments at major GGO partners, country developments in areas of GGO work.
- Help identify, plan, project manage and conduct research for learning opportunities and knowledge management for the ED.
The APO role requires knowledge and experience in the international development environment, ideally within one or more countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Experience working or living in sub-Saharan Africa is a plus. Additionally, the successful candidate will have/be:
- Experience in a fast-paced environment with demonstrated ability to juggle multiple and competing demands and establish priorities with minimal direction.
- Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
- Highly organized and efficient.
- Creative problem solver with a rigorous approach and an aptitude for quantitative analysis.
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively and sensitively across barriers such as language, culture, and distance.
- Demonstrated capacity and initiative to solve problems with energy, resilience and positive attitude, amidst at times a high degree of ambiguity.
- Commitment to Foundation core values, mission and programs.