BMGF Senior Portfolio Officer in Seattle 99 views

Role Title: Senior Portfolio Officer

Division: US Program

Group: Office of the President

Location: Seattle

Travel Requirements: Minimal

Posting End Date: May 22, 2020

Division Summary

The vision of the foundation’s U.S. Program (USP) is to ensure that everyone in the US has access to life-changing opportunities so that race, ethnicity, and income are no longer predictors of educational and economic outcomes. In education, our primary focus is ensuring that all students – especially Black, Latinx, and low-income students – have an opportunity to earn a degree or credential that prepares them for a successful career and life. We also support efforts to increase the number of actors working together to understand and advance economic mobility. The U.S. Program works on five key drivers toward our goal:

• Ensure early childhood learning systems provide high-quality learning experiences for young children.
• Support schools in the K-12 system to improve student outcomes.
• Transform colleges and universities to increase student success and eliminate attainment gaps.
• Partner with stakeholders to ensure more people have the information and resources to tackle barriers to opportunity and to develop economic mobility strategies.
• In our home state of Washington, improve the tools and practices of teachers, parents, and providers to ensure that all students have fair and equitable opportunities to reach their potential.

Group Summary

The USP Office of the President (OOP) endeavors to promote collective ownership and integration of our work, transparency, leadership, intellectual dialogue, and continuous learning and improvement. Our mission is to:

• Ensure optimal impact of division programs and operations, and high standards of stewardship through performance management and the strategic allocation of resources.
• Deliver division-wide supports to program teams to bolster capacity and drive the implementation and associated change management of programmatic and operational initiatives.
• Partner with program teams to ensure alignment of strategic priorities (programmatic and operational) and actively establish understanding of USP progress and learning across USP and foundation leadership.

Within USP OOP, a centralized Strategy, Planning, and Management team operates to provide strategy, business, and operations support to multiple USP program strategy teams and cross-cutting functions.

Role Summary

A key member of the OOP Strategy, Planning & Management (SPM) team, the Senior Portfolio Officer plays a crucial role to connect operational and financial processes to strategy decisions. The Senior Portfolio Officer oversees teams’ investment-making processes to ensure these processes lead to strategically-aligned investments and leads implementation of critical processes to drive the rhythm and impact of teams. The Officer must engage effectively at all levels of the organization; collaborate productively with peers, partners, leaders, staff, and consultants while exercising good judgment. This role will lead and influence the team towards working with rigor and in service of equity. The position will primarily support the above processes related to the USP Pathways function and Early Learning strategy.

Core Responsibilities

• 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.
• Provide 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 and budget reporting. May set up processes to monitor performance against key milestones and outcomes to facilitate management decision-making.
• Maintain understanding of and alignment with cross-foundation operational initiatives and integrate program team members and processes to maximize impact. Responsible for being the primary liaison between the program and Operations, including Financial Planning & Analysis, Grants & Contracts Services, and Legal—regarding business processes, financial reporting, forecasting, and related systems and tools required for business and operational success.
• Expertly facilitate process definition and improvement efforts in support of staff productivity. Work with program staff and SPM OOP to improve business processes and 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 program coordinator, including undertaking 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. May be responsible for hiring talent needed to achieve our goals.
• Provide DDSPM and program strategy team leadership with critical, transparent, challenging thought partnership. Consult/strategize with program leadership to maximize impact of investment and financial processes and ensure optimal learning, decision making, and collaboration.
• As needed, drive priority projects, in support of programmatic investments and/or portfolios.

Core Knowledge and Capabilities

We are looking for individuals 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 and challenging environment. Additional qualifications include:

• Strong portfolio and people/team management skills. Demonstrated complex project management skills, particularly for strategy development, execution planning, and business process redesign projects, and a successful track record of leading or managing multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills to effectively engage multiple partners inside and outside the team, including strong presentation skills and facility with PowerPoint.
• Ability to act independently to determine methods and procedures on assignments, to prioritize in a dynamic and complex environment, and to alternate between thinking strategically and executing at high quality
• Strong consultative and advisory skills. Demonstrated ability to build trust and execute collaboratively and transparently.
• Ability to build structures and develop frameworks to increase clarity and transparency 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 competing priorities.
• Financial acumen plus budget development, financial analysis and operational management skills.
• A preference for rigor, purpose-driven measurement and cost-effective use of resources.
• Excellent judgement; seeks support and asks questions when confronted with an obstacle.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s or other advanced degree with 7+ years of experience, or equivalent experience.
• MBA or equivalent advanced degree in public administration, public health, economics, or other relevant master’s degree preferred.

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We’re committed to creating a workplace where employees thrive both personally and professionally. We also believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve—in race, gender, age, cultures and beliefs—and we support this diversity through all of our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve the mission of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 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

* Prior Protected Activity