Head of Operations

The AI & Democracy Foundation (AIDF) is working toward a world where democratic capacity can keep pace with AI advances. We accelerate innovation, evaluation, and adoption of deliberative, democratic, human-centered, governance and alignment systems, for and with AI. We are both a non-profit (501c3) funder, and an advisor to philanthropic organizations, AI organizations, civil society, and governments on the design, funding, and adoption of democratic processes. You can see a partial articulation of our vision in this essay.

We are currently in a ramp-up period and are looking for a full-time Head of Operations to own and rapidly execute on all of the critical operational tasks needed for setting up, launching, and managing the organization; and supporting its critical research, grant-making, advocacy, and convening workstreams.

The ideal candidate has deep operational experience including in both for-profits and non-profits and cares deeply about the substance of the work. They can hit the ground running, help drive every part of the organization towards ambitious goals, and keep trains running on time in a very rapidly evolving environment. Former managing directors for technology nonprofits or philanthropic foundations are likely to be an excellent match, as are former founders who prefer to be in a supporting role. For the right person, this role could transition to a managing director or COO role over time.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic operations as we build and grow the organization. You’ll work with the executive team to identify our goals and milestones, create the roadmap to get them done, and make sure we stay on track with what matters most while balancing a complex set of opportunities, challenges, and conversations.
• Lead operational excellence across the company, empowering the team with the collaboration systems, project management tools, and other resources to do their work more easefully and seamlessly.
• Manage the organization’s financial health by developing and overseeing the organization's budget, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities.
• Build our grantmaking arm from the ground up and manage its strategic operations, taking the lead on grant management, disbursement schedules, and compliance reporting.
• Lead our marketing, storytelling, website development, and branding efforts in collaboration with vendors; and build and support our press efforts by maintaining relationships with reporters.
• Support the CEO with the development of fundraising materials and contribute to donor engagement and relations.
• Engage and grow a vibrant ecosystem of thought leaders, allies, fellow funders, and grantees, including projects in collaboration with partner organizations.
• Build and manage a team that is empowered, collaborative, and thriving, which will include managing direct reports, driving our recruiting efforts across AIDF, and creating and setting culture for our entire team.
• Lead the ongoing management of our internal infrastructure: HR, auditing, vendors, legal, and software platforms.

Qualifications

Strong candidates will have a mix of the following:

• At least 7 years of experience as a Head of Operations or Director of Operations, ideally with experience building early-stage organizations from scratch.
• Very strong operations and project management skills. You’ll be building many of our collaboration systems and knowledge management from scratch and keeping the team on track. You are extremely detail-oriented and organized, and excel at bringing order to chaos.
• Experience leading teams and managing direct reports.
• Strong relationship management and communication skills, including the ability to coordinate with high-level stakeholders such as tech company CEOs, ultra-high-net-worth donors, philanthropists, public figures, and policymakers.
• High emotional intelligence: self-awareness, feedback skills, and strong communication skills.
• Experience working in a highly dynamic early-stage startup environment with large amounts of change and new information. You enjoy taking initiative and problem solving in emergent environments without a lot of hand-holding.
• Capacity to run, or participate in, events that may require travel or extended hours, and the occasional crunch time sprint.
• Ambition, motivation, and excitement around our mission, and an interest in developing further expertise in the area.

An ideal candidate might also have:

• A deep understanding of the AI ecosystem, large technology company operations, democratic innovation (including tech/AI-augmented tools, deliberative democracy, etc.), relevant large foundations, grantmaking approaches (including e.g. ARPA-style grantmaking), key governments (e.g. US, EU, UK, China), etc.
• Experience at an organization that was working to impact a much larger system or organization (e.g. an advocacy organization, standards body, funder, etc.).
• Demonstrable success in nonprofit fundraising, and/or an existing network of possible funders in the private or public funding spaces.
• Experience as a managing director or executive director.

Location

This role is remote, with a preference for hires located in the San Francisco, Bay Area to allow for in-person collaboration. Candidates would ideally overlap at least six hours with Pacific Time working hours.

Please apply using the application link provided in the 'Apply' buttons on this post, not by email.