Context: The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3.5 million members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the public health, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. Sierra Club is comprised of a national entity and a network of local chapters that support our grassroots engagement. We are also proud to be a unionized employer - with two labor unions representing approximately half of our 800 employees, who are located in offices across the country. For more, visitwww.sierraclub.org. Sierra Club is seeking a Deputy Executive Director to work in close partnership with the Executive Director and leaders across the organization, overseeing people-related operations and organizational development, with a special focus on Human Resources, Equity, and volunteer engagement and accountability. This is a full-time, exempt position based in either our Oakland, California headquarters or Washington, D.C. office. The Deputy Executive Director will lead a team of three direct reports with a total headcount of up to 30 staff and budget portfolio oversight ranging from $5-10MM, with potential for significant portfolio expansion over time.
Scope: The Deputy Executive Director (Deputy ED) role offers a unique opportunity for a passionate, effective, and skilled leader to play a key role in supporting and advancing the Sierra Club’s mission and work by ensuring that the organization’s most important assets: the people -- both staff and volunteer -- who make its work possible, are supported, informed, and empowered. The Deputy Executive Director leads efforts on organizational effectiveness, fostering an equitable and thriving culture, and integrates these values across chapter and national offices. This role reports directly to the Executive Director and is a part of the Sierra Club’s Executive Leadership Team. The Deputy ED must be an exceptional manager, leader, and communicator who is capable of setting effective strategies, implementing actionable plans to achieve them, and bring a diverse range of stakeholders into the process at every step of the way.
The Deputy ED’s essential duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Manage the effectiveness of internal people-related functions and overseeing, fostering and deepening staff and volunteer relations:
- Facilitate practices and implement policies that reflect and support the ED’s cultural vision for the organization, which is focused on equity, respect, kindness, and inclusivity.
- Support and extend the ED’s role in shaping organizational culture by providing executive leadership to navigate incidents with cultural implications and leveraging their own influence to achieve cultural change goals.
- Serve as a key leader in successful implementation of change management processes within Deputy ED’s portfolio (outlined below) and more broadly across the organization as needed.
- Serve as an ambassador of our Equity work, ensuring that our Equity values and principles are reflected in employee relations.
- Serve as a senior executive manager, creating departmental goals, reviewing the performance of senior staff, and overseeing the budgets for the following departments and functions:
- Human Resources Department, which is responsible for operation of HR Systems as well as managing both employee and labor relations across the organization.
- Equity, Inclusion and Justice Department, which is responsible for managing the adoption and integration of the organizational Multi-Year Equity Plan. Responsibilities include tracking equity implementation and success measures including retaining staff of color, creating a thriving, positive workplace culture, and championing the Jemez Principles and equity values across the organization.
- Volunteer Accountability, which ensures that Sierra Club values are upheld and enforced throughout staff-volunteer relations across the organization, that volunteers are fully and appropriately engaged across the organization, and strengthens integration and collaborative efforts between our national and chapter-based initiatives.
- Identify organizational gaps and areas of improvement both large and small and develop and implement collaborative strategies to address these issues to make the Sierra Club more effective.
- Serve as an extension of the Executive Office, including attending meetings in lieu of the Executive Director, fundraising, and working with the Communications Director to draft and internal communications related to the work of the Executive Office and/or organizational change processes, and developing strategies to bring more transparency to staff about priorities, decision-making, and organizational structure and enhance feedback loops within the organization.
- Champion a data-informed approach to strategy and management throughout the organization, including establishing organizational dashboards, measuring progress, and making data-informed decisions across the organization.
The ideal candidate will have the following professional skills, qualities, and competencies:
- Exemplary track record of 10-15 years’ experience in organizational and personnel management in complex institutions that are diverse by race, gender, and sexual orientation.
- Proven ability to translate strategic thinking about complex challenges and organizational gaps into executable plans to deliver on strategic imperatives and solve problems large and small, and measure progress towards goals.
- Demonstrated experience in significant change management processes that required building buy-in and leading across a wide range of stakeholders.
- Strong justice, equity, and racial analyses and commitments as well as experience successfully leading the integration of justice and equity throughout organizational policies, practices, management, and culture.
- Experience working in a fast-paced environment, exercising effective judgment in challenging situations and remaining calm under pressure.
- Experience working in a complex environment, across geographies, and with different types of volunteer and staff structures. Ability to work across all departments and across chapter networks to achieve complex goals.
- Highly skilled communicator, written and verbal - both individually and in large audience or public communications.
- Understanding of and commitment to progressive environmental politics, social justice, and the Sierra Club’s mission.
- An emotionally intelligent, values and results-driven leader who can inspire staff and volunteers at all levels, collaborate across departments, and provide feedback and coaching to support the achievement of our complex goals.
- Ability to build and maintain trust with Executive Team and leaders across the organization.
- Have or be able to develop the stature and credibility required to represent the Executive Director to internal and external constituents.
- Experience working with internal unions a plus, but not required.
Strong candidates will bring the following personal characteristics:
- Demonstrated ability to exercise leadership in a way that supports the Executive Director to represent all voices within the organization and conveys respect for all staff and volunteers.
- Flexibility and resilience, the ability to adapt to change, delays or unexpected events
- Exceptional communications skills, including excellent listening skills.
- A positive energy and good humor that engenders enthusiasm and collaboration.
- A passion for the Sierra Club’s commitment to environmental and social justice.
- Ability to travel 30% of the time.
The Sierra Club offers competitive salary package commensurate with skills and experience plus excellent benefits that include medical, dental, and vision coverage, and a retirement savings 401(k) plan.