The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Pacific Northwest (PNW) strategy is rooted in the belief that race, gender and income should not be the determinants of success in life. The work of the Pacific Northwest team covers four distinct but related strategic emphases, including Early Learning, Pre-K through 5th grade, Charter Schools, and Family Homelessness.
The Senior Portfolio Officer plays a crucial leadership role, connecting operational and financial processes to strategy decisions. This person will lead the team through budgeting and strategic planning processes in a way that supports strong strategy execution. The Senior Portfolio Officer oversees the team’s grant-making processes and is responsible for ensuring these processes lead to strategically aligned investments. This role will lead and influence the team towards working with rigor and in service of equity.
- Lead processes to develop and oversee portfolio strategic planning, investment, financial and operational processes which may include the full investment development process, annual planning, budget management and forecasting. Provides critical support to program leadership in translating strategy goals into coherent portfolio level theory of action and investment plans.
- Guide program officers to ensure that portfolio investments are strategically aligned, and outcomes are defined that will lead to impact on key strategy goals. May consult with program officers on the early stage development of program investments.
- Monitor grant and contract pipeline to produce accurate forecasts vs. budget reporting and performance against key milestones and outcomes to facilitate management decision-making.
- Maintain understanding of and alignment with cross-foundation operational initiatives and integrate PNW team members and processes to maximize impact on team performance and strategic success.
- Consult/strategize with program leadership across the US Program to maximize impact of investment and financial processes and ensure optimal learning, decision making, and collaboration.
- Expertly facilitate process definition and improvement efforts in support of staff productivity. Work with program staff to identify process gaps and inefficiencies that impede effectiveness. Promote efficiency and productivity on the team by providing leadership and support in process development and improvement, implementation and improvement of tools, analysis, reporting and change management.
- Manage a team of direct reports and hold responsibility for hiring the talent needed to achieve our goals, ensuring successful employee onboarding, communicating performance expectations, creating goal alignment, integrating project and change management, giving and seeking feedback, providing coaching, measuring progress and holding people accountable, supporting employee development, and recognizing achievement and lessons learned.
We are looking for people who enjoy the opportunity of working on complex problems and collectively creating solutions that have the potential for transformative change. You must be prepared to work with flexibility, efficiency and diplomacy in an exciting, challenging and environment. Additionally, we seek:
- Demonstrated leadership skills, specifically in roles that lead through influence rather than direct authority.
- Demonstrated complex project management skills and a successful track record of leading or managing multiple projects at a time.
- Program management of complex strategy development, execution planning and business process redesign projects.
- A preference for rigor, purpose driven measurement and cost-effective use of resources.
- Ability to build structures and develop frameworks to increase clarity and openness of decisions, trade-offs and impact on financial and organizational resources.
- Ability to build relationships and navigate complex organizational and reporting structures within multiple programs and initiatives that may have contending priorities.
- Ability to prioritize issues and effectively alternate between thinking strategically and executing at high quality.
- Financial acumen plus budget development, financial analysis and operational management skills.
- Strong people management skills.
- Ability to act independently to determine methods and procedures on assignments.
- Ability to negotiate and mediate in ways that build transparency and trust.