The Foundation
We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, weโre committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.
The TeamThe Gender Equality Divisionโs mission it to ensure women and girls in Africa and South Asia can enjoy good health, make their own choices, earn their own money, and be leaders in their societies. When women and girls have an equal chance to thrive and lead, everyone benefits.
This role is a part of the Gender Equality Divisionโs Family Planning (FP) team, which works to bring access to high-quality contraceptive information, services, and supplies to women and girls in the worldโs poorest countries. The FP teamโs work spans the spectrum from innovation, advocacy, and data, to supporting delivery and scale in localized and global contexts.
*This is a 12-month limited-term role reporting to the Director, Family Planning. Relocation will not be provided.
*The application deadline for this role is November 24, 2025, at 11:59pm Pacific Time.
Your Role:
As Deputy Director, Strategy, Planning and Management (DDSPM) on the Family Planning (FP) team, you are responsible for supporting strategic and operational aspects for the FP portfolio, including oversight of 2026 Strategy Review and Annual Planning deliverables, ongoing pipeline and portfolio management, progress tracking via FP Dashboard, an investment portfolio on building the landscape on cost-efficiency of FP delivery, and ad hoc cross-cutting strategy/strategy implementation projects. You are responsible for developing a 10+ year vision and strategy for the Family Planning team and aligning it with foundation leadership and the FP team. You are the leader of the Business Team and manage the Strategy Team within it. You play a critical Chief of Staff / strategic advisor role to the Director of the team.
What Youโll Do
Portfolio Definition
Work with portfolio Directors and team to define and clearly articulate the program and policy and advocacy strategies, Bodies of Work (BoW), and investment priorities. Ensure that these are supported by team and strategy structures.
Partner with Division Directors and Deputy Directors to develop sub-initiative strategies, execution plans and ensure effective strategy prioritization and refinement.
Ensure overall prioritization of activities needed to plan, implement and achieve the strategic plan are aligned and additive.
Lead or co-lead complex strategic projects that are cross-functional in nature.
Develop strong, cross-functional relationships across the foundation to ensure appropriate engagement, expertise, sharing of information, and co-development of joint opportunities for impact
Strategy Implementation and Operations
Drive alignment of portfolio work to strategy and implementation plans; including the development of processes and/or instruments to ensure alignment of activities with strategy results.
Lead the annual strategy review process and articulation of strategic priorities; including the process to define and assess portfolio bodies of work. Partner with Directors and teams to ensure that strategy review materials effectively portray and support the continuation and/or refinement of the GE Division and strategy.
Develop and execute a portfolio management approach that fosters effective stewardship, strategic planning, and resource allocation. Cultivate insights to communicate portfolio allocation and progress.
Responsible for framing portfolio progress including working with the relevant functional partners to define strategy metrics, progress metrics, and setting of targets and goals for each portfolio. Continuously refine data, metrics and models.
Accountable for strategy hierarchy; including developing and implementing process improvements and other efforts.
Oversee overall rhythm of business across the teams; including cross-team communication.
Provide overall alignment of grantee partner engagement with program priorities. Ensure that partner feedback and learning supports the teamโs grant development process. Provide feedback and advisory support to initiative teams on development and administration of major grants.
Advise Director and program team on business-related decisions; including the identification and assessment of key portfolio risks and the development and management of mitigation and/or contingency plans at the portfolio level.
Planning and management of co-chair meetings, defining meeting objectives, content development, stakeholder engagement, and after-action review to track and institutionalize learning.
Develop and execute approaches for ensuring joint opportunity identification and shared accountability of results in a matrixed environment
Business & Enablement Team Management
Partner with support functions (including Human Resources) and program team management to lead, recruit, develop, and train staff.
Lead a team of fellow Strategy, Planning, and Management resources by communicating performance expectations, creating goal alignment, integrating project and organizational change, giving and seeking feedback, providing coaching, measuring progress and holding people accountable, supporting employee development, and recognizing achievement and lessons learned.
Promote culture, values, and team effectiveness, including regular team health checks. Collaborate with the business teams to facilitate retreats and cross-organization collaboration.
Support Division Directors with workforce planning in partnership with HR business partners.
Guide the cross-Division business team to support the activities needed to plan, implement, and achieve our strategic plan. This will include ensuring effective onboarding, communicating clear performance expectations, creating goal alignment, integrating project and change management activities, giving and seeking feedback, providing coaching, measuring progress and holding people accountable, supporting employee development, and recognizing achievement and lessons learned.
Actively manage extended Business Team relationships across the foundation with business partners (e.g., with Finance, Grants & Contracts, and Legal).
Team Enablement & Effectiveness
Serve as an active listener across the division to keep pulse on team health and effectiveness
Partner with business team members to develop an approach to division continuous learning and improvement, find opportunities to build division cohesion and camaraderie, plan virtual and in-person learning and team building moments
Promote efficiency and productivity on the team by providing leadership and support in process development, implementation, and improvement of tools, analysis, reporting and change management
Responsible for knowledge management and documentation of division institutional knowledge
Navigate a wide range of operational issues with solid experience and understanding of core business and organizational fields (e.g. strategy, operations, legal, IT, HR, marketing, finance, planning, and budgeting) in order to counsel the team on high leverage engagement opportunities
Trusted Advisor to GE Divisionโs Directors and GE Leadership Team
Serve as an advisor and thought partner to portfolio Directors โ including overseeing co-chair and other leadership communication.
Given the matrixed nature of our work, develop a rhythm of business and associated modalities that enable clarity in communication, collaboration and synergies across foundation
Play a leadership role in the design of the GE Divisionโs organization structure, promotion of culture and values, and facilitation of team retreats and cross-organization collaboration. Monitor and manage succession planning, team performance and development.
Cross-Division and Foundation Continuous Improvement
Actively engage with the foundation DDSPM community and support continuous improvement and change management initiatives.
Participate, where appropriate, on foundation-wide projects representing the GE Division perspective.
Cultivate innovation and support simplification of processes.
Your Experience:
We are looking for someone who enjoys the opportunity of working on complex problems and building solutions that have the potential for transformational change in the lives of low-income women and girls around the world. We seek a creative, dedicated professional who has an outstanding portfolio of accomplishments in roles of increasing responsibility and leadership. Additionally, youโll bring:
Advanced degree and a minimum of 10+ yearsโ experience in international development, international business strategy, business development; including experience with negotiations with collaborators. Experience in and/or familiarity with our focus geographies helpful.
Knowledge and experience in gender equality program and strategy design preferred.
Deep knowledge of strategy development and implementation, design of performance management systems of goals, targets, and monitoring process. Familiarity with development economics, demonstrated experience of moving evidence to action, comfort with emerging tools/levers to drive income generation for women, and exposure to working in the field is a huge plus.
Demonstrated strength in systems thinking, structured problem solving and strategic business planning, with the ability to synthesize disparate information and critically analyze development challenges.
Experience in designing and driving complex, multi-stakeholder change management initiatives
Skilled at growing teams through maturity stages (e.g., start-up to establishment). Excellent people management and team building skills including a โcoachโ mentality with demonstrated ability to indirectly leverage human resources and to guide teams to effectively achieve clear, yet complex goals and objectives.
Skilled in group problem solving and collaboration to resolve problems with complex concepts in a dynamic setting; strong facilitation and mediation capabilities
Adept at project management, including critical path thinking, detail orientation, setting priorities and planning.; particularly in a resource-constrained setting. Ability not only to establish priorities but also to adhere to priorities in a thoughtful way.
Excellent communicator, always seeking information pertinent to the issues being dealt with in the program, on the team, and/or across the foundation.
Proficiency in working effectively with decision makers as it pertains to strategy development and operations.
Strong analytic, technical and financial knowledge; including the ability to communicate data and results to inform sound strategic and tactical decisions. Experience developing, evaluating, managing, and monitoring business plans, budgets and financial reports.
Deep financial knowledge, including the ability to use or create complex financial models and effectively communicate data and results to inform sound strategic and tactical decisions.
Ability to fluidly switch from strategic to tactical tasks.
A highly-cultivated sense of resilience. Ability to accept and recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and drive forward in the face of adversity.
A hands-on, team-oriented leadership style with the ability to be flexible and adjust to changing circumstances.
Intellectual quickness, curiosity, discipline, resourcefulness and resilience.
High level of cultural competence.
Ability to travel domestically and internationally (when able to do so).
Commitment to the foundationโs core values, mission and programs with an approach that is consistent with the foundationโs guiding principles while holding oneself to the highest ethical standards.
Ability to travel up to 20% domestic and internationally
*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.
The salary range for this role is $233,600 to $362,200 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $254,700 to $394,700 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidateโs job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.
Hiring Requirements
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Candidate Accommodations
If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.
Inclusion Statement
We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion โ of voices, ideas, and approaches โ and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.
All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.