Deputy Director, Strategy Implementation & Management - Nutrition

Deputy Director, Strategy Implementation & Management - Nutrition

Gates Foundation

Seattle, United States

Your Role

We are seeking a Deputy Director, Strategy, Planning and Management (DDSPM) to support the Large Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) strategy team. As a DDSPM you will be responsible for leading the strategic, financial, and operational aspects of this teams; serving as an advisor to the Director and Leadership team and providing the link between the teams’ strategy and business operations. This is an exciting role – working on a key priority at the foundation, with a team with ambitious leadership, that is both pursuing on-the-ground impact and identifying opportunities for growth!

We are looking for an individual who enjoys the opportunity to work on complex problems and collaboratively create solutions that have the potential for transformational change in the lives of people around the world. The DDSPM will bring senior strategy, management, and global development expertise to guide portfolio-, initiative-, and investment-level decision making.

You will lead a team of business and operations professionals, ensuring excellence in strategy execution. This includes identification and implementation of process improvements, policies, and procedures that support the strengthening of team effectiveness, communications, and culture development, and leading our annual planning and reporting cycle processes, including material development, for the team. Additionally, providing framing and analysis on issues and investments central to strategy and execution, oversight of strategy planning and reporting, budgeting, and ongoing pipeline, and portfolio management.

Responsibilities include leading strategy-level coordination with peers – both within the GGO division, and across other divisions. You will also be part of a community of practice linked to the Foundation Strategy Office and will be responsible for supporting and implementing foundation-wide strategic plans.

This role will be based out of the Seattle, Washington headquarters.

*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

What You’ll Do

Strategy development, refinement, management

• Work closely with the team to define and articulate strategy and investment priorities.
• Serve as a core member of the leadership team – leading cross-cutting strategic questions and advising data-driven investment decisions.
• Support tracking performance against results framework, identifying risks and partnering with leadership to ensure outcomes are delivered
• Lead content development for chair and CEO strategy meetings, learning sessions, and other materials – work collaboratively with the Director and program staff to define an overall storyline, and oversee development of materials.
• Lead annual strategy review and/or annual planning process, including articulation of strategic priorities, trade offs, and development of execution plans as required.

Strategy execution and operations

• Partner with program managers and broader business teams on annual planning processes, defining priorities, lessons-learned, trade-offs, and forward-looking budget allocation.
• Partner with program managers and colleagues from financial planning & analysis (FP&A) team to manage overall pipeline of investments – tracking against both teams’ annual budget.
• Manage the investment idea generation process to ensure that investments alight with the strategy and partnering with program officers to provide information required by Directors to make decisions
• Advise development of major grants, and other major cross-cutting programmatic work.
• Navigate a wide range of operational issues with solid experience and understanding of core business and organizational fields (e.g., legal, financial planning, human resources).
• Develop and manage strong partnerships and relationships inside and outside the organization, manage conflicts, and build consensus.

Serving as a trusted advisor to the Director

• Act as a ‘sounding board’ and thought partner to the Director on a broad range of topics – including overall iterative refinement of overall strategic direction and priorities, co-chair engagement, team management and morale, cross-foundation partnership
• Support relationship management with peer DDSPMs in other teams, with the foundation strategy office, and with the co-chairs’ advisors (where appropriate).

Team development and people management

• Lead the business teams of Strategy, Planning, and Management staff.
• Partner with HR and leadership teams to lead, recruit, develop, and train staff as needed
• Promote culture, values, and team effectiveness, including regular team health checks.
• Support Director with workforce planning.

Cross foundation/cross-division improvement initiatives

• Support development and coordination of a ‘one foundation approach to nutrition’, ensuring that the LSFF-focused Nutrition team aligns with other teams.
• Actively engage with the foundation’s DDSPM community, and contribute to the design and execution of processes, policies, and strategic projects to improve efficiency and impact of foundation activities.
• Represent the team in foundation-wide continuous improvement efforts, supporting design, implementation, and change management associated with evolving how we work.

Your Experience

The DDSPM must be a creative, passionate professional who has an outstanding portfolio of accomplishments in roles of increasing responsibility and leadership. You must be prepared to work across a diverse set of subject areas, bridging a wide range of expertise all the while being an excellent teammate, with a demonstrated ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

We seek a senior professional with a minimum of 10+ years’ experience in international business strategy, business development and/or general management; likely experience will have been gained within top tier management/strategy consulting firms, or as a general manager or in-house strategy professional within a large, international organizations. You will have deep knowledge of strategy development and implementation and the design of performance management system(s) of goals, targets, and monitoring processes.

• Proven strength in systems thinking, structured problem solving, and strategic business planning, with the ability to easily identify and communicate frameworks to analyze issues.
• Experienced people manager and coach with demonstrated ability to manage teams to effectively achieve clear, yet complex goals and objectives.
• Ability to create structures and develop frameworks to increase clarity and transparency of decisions, trade-offs, and impact on financial and organizational resources.
• Experience in developing and managing strong partnerships and relationships inside and outside the organization, managing multiple perspectives, and building consensus and alignment.
• Ability to effectively alternate between thinking strategically and performing at high quality.
• Action and solution oriented; ability to plan and implement, even when limited information is available; comfortable taking charge of a situation.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively in a multicultural environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to effectively articulate implications for strategy, priorities, and team evolution.
• Familiarity working in LMICs and with experience in nutrition, food systems, and/or food fortification is preferred but not required.

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