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 Global Development Division (GD) works with partners to expand access to life-saving health products and services in communities with limited resources. It supports countries in strengthening health systems and advancing essential services that help women, children, and families stay healthy and thrive.
GD includes teams focused on primary health care and Exemplars in Global Health, immunization, polio eradication, emergency response, and global health agencies and funds. Each year, GD stewards approximately $1.5 billion in grant funding and includes about 185 staff members, working closely with local partners and governments to advance equitable health outcomes.
The Global Development Office of the President (GD OoP) supports the GD president and the entire division by managing key internal processes like strategy development, annual planning, and division-wide projects. The Leadership Engagement team specifically prepares the president for both internal and external engagements, ensuring the president can effectively represent GDโs work across the foundation and with external partners. This includes organizing the presidentโs external engagements to advance foundation goals, overseeing projects that span multiple teams, and managing division communication and engagement with GD staff.
The Special Initiatives team within the Global Development Office of the President (GD OoP) leads cross-cutting projects that advance the divisionโs priorities and strengthen collaboration across the Gates Foundation. Working closely with the Division Director, SPM & Chief of Staff, the team drives time-bound, high-impact efforts that donโt sit neatly within existing program structures but are essential to the divisionโs overall effectiveness.
These initiatives often bridge multiple technical and regional teams, linking health and development goals to improve delivery systems, policy influence, and partner engagement. The team also supports strategic planning and implementation of new approaches, pilots, and external partnerships that expand GDโs reach and impact. By providing agile, focused leadership on complex or emerging priorities, the Special Initiatives team helps ensure the division can respond quickly to new opportunities and challenges in the global development landscape.
Your Role
The Senior Strategy Officer (SSO), Special Initiatives is a 11-month LTE position, providing parental leave coverage to the Special Initiatives team in the Global Development Office of the President. This role will lead our cross-cutting Geospatial Insights body of work, working collaboratively across the foundation to refine the strategic vision and approach of our portfolio of investments focused on geospatial data and location-based analytics. This is a small portfolio of investments, focused at both the global level, as well as on specific country implementation efforts, particularly in Nigeria and DRC. The role will bridge geospatial science, data strategy development & implementation, grant management, and internal & external partner engagement, to ensure location insights accelerate health, economic development and equity outcomes in low-resource settings.
This role will also support high-priority and cross-cutting data and insights related projects that advance the Global Development divisionโs strategic goals. This role helps shape emerging initiatives, provides strategic and analytical support, and ensures alignment between short-term opportunities and long-term impact. Working across teams and regions, the Senior Strategy Officer will help translate ideas into focused plans, coordinates execution, and ensure that learning from special initiatives informs broader strategy.
*This position is a limited-term position for 11 months. Relocation will not be provided
What Youโll Do
Geospatial insights strategy
- In partnership with division leadership, refine the strategic roadmap for the Geospatial Insights body of work, ensuring alignment with overarching Gates foundation impact goals.
- Translate strategic priorities and clearly defined comparative advantages into an actionable portfolio of investments, operating at both a global and country level, and at both long-term and short-term timeframes.
- Ensure that the Geospatial body of work is aligned to priorities of Gates foundation regional- and country- teams, with identified collaboration and co-investment.
- Manage a complex portfolio of grants and contracts โ manage active investments, and shape new investments for 2026.
Partnership & Capacity Building
- Engage with external partners โ NGOs, academic institutions, private sector geospatial firms, and governments (in collaboration with Gates Foundation country offices) โ to forge strategic partnerships and enable shared geospatial insights and infrastructure.
- Act as internal advisor and changeโagent: support program teams to adopt geospatial ways of working, provide training, promote best practices and help overcome technical, operational or organizational barriers.
- Identify and establish opportunities for internal collaboration โ shaping strategies in support of team and country priorities and leveraging internal co-funding in support of geospatial efforts.
Risk Management
- Identify and assess risks and barriers related to geospatial work: data quality and ethics, privacy/security, partner capacity, regulatory environments, and ensure mitigation plans are in place.
Additional Strategy Support
- Partner with division leadership to lead discrete, complex strategy projects related to data and insights. This will include scoping efforts, identifying frameworks, leading project management, leading client engagement, conducting quantitative analyses and insight generation, supporting a collaborative process, and identifying change management next steps.
- Coordinate across programs, functions, and external partners to ensure alignment and momentum.
- Develop clear deliverables, timelines, and performance measures for new or exploratory efforts.
- Capture lessons learned and support the integration of successful pilots into ongoing strategies.
- Prepare strategy briefs, progress updates, and presentations for leadership and key stakeholders.
Other duties as needed. Travel up to 20%
Your Experience
- 8-10+ years of progressive experience, with dual experience in geospatial data, and experience at a leading strategy / consulting advisory firm.
- Postgraduate qualification in Geography, Data Science, Public Health, or a related field or discipline.
- Experience working with geospatial data/analytics in development, health, or related sectors.
- An understanding of data systems in low- and middle-income countries, and data use to drive decision-making.
- Ability to analyze and synthesize complex quantitative and qualitative data โ supporting data-driven decisions and identifying data gaps and needs.
- Proven strengths in structured problem solving and strategic business planning, with the capability to easily develop and communicate frameworks to simplify and analyze core issues.
- Ability to learn new content quickly, identify connections and second-order implications, and demonstrate proficiency with internal/external teams. Strong pattern recognition grounded in relevant global health and/or development knowledge.
- Knowledge of complex end-to-end management skills, including process design, team structure, stakeholder mapping, communication, leadership engagement, and change management.
- Program and stakeholder management skills: ability to coordinate inputs from many people; to track progress against targets and identify barriers to progress; to plan agendas and facilitate meetings; and to organize, evaluate, and communicate information.
- Excellent organizational, facilitation, oral, and written communication skills. Ability to work effectively and with sensitivity across barriers such as language, culture, and distance. Excellent listening skills and compassion.
- Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to rapidly build trusted advisor relationships with senior leaders
- Experience living and working in low- and middle- income countries preferred.
- Ability to work with diverse organizations and stakeholders, with a strong spirit of diplomacy and collaboration.
- Ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and enthusiasm in a fast-paced environment, as a member of an integrated team.
*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.
The salary range for this role is $169,700 to $254,500 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 $185,000 to $277,400 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.
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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.
- Identify and assess risks and barriers related to geospatial work: data quality and ethics, privacy/security, partner capacity, regulatory environments, and ensure mitigation plans are in place.