Senior Vice President, Programs

About the State Innovation Exchange

The State Innovation Exchange (SiX) is fighting for a governance system that reimagines how elected officials, their constituents and civil society leaders build, shape and sustain shared power in service of racial, gender, social and economic justice within a multi-racial society.

The State Innovation Exchange (SiX) makes collaborative governance the norm among values-aligned state legislators in their partnership with issue advocates and grassroots leaders. Through this practice, we commit to centering the people most impacted by systemic and structural oppression to transform the conditions of power at the state level. When we do this, we will secure and sustain meaningful racial, gender, social and economic justice outcomes that are fully realized in the lived experience of these communities. 

Collaborative governance is a governing model and practice in which the people most impacted by governing decisions have real agency, through collaboration with their elected decision makers, to pursue racial, gender, social, and economic justice by shaping the rules, processes, and structures that govern their lives.

About this Position

The Senior Vice President, Programs oversees SiX’s programmatic strategy and operations. This position supervises SiX’s senior program leaders, leading people management processes for direct reports as well as providing programmatic thought partnership and coaching in support of these leaders. This position is a principal leader of SiX, serving on the organization’s Executive Team and providing overall organizational leadership in partnership with the Co-Executive Directors; the Senior Vice President, Operations; and other senior leaders. This position serves as a thought partner to the Co-Executive Directors and other senior leaders on strategy, programming and organizational management; is a visible and credible face of the organization to external stakeholders; provides senior external movement leadership; and is a key partner to the Co-Executive Directors and other senior leaders in mobilizing the right financial resources to power SiX’s strategy. This position also chairs SiX’s Operating Committee (the organization’s senior management team), which brings the organization’s programmatic and administrative departmental leaders together to collaboratively govern the organization. This position also manages and grows key national partnerships and helps to center the state legislator experience in SiX’s programming and strategy. As the organization completes its strategic plan in early 2025, this leader will help to steward cultural, programmatic and operational change management processes to ensure SiX lives into its highest potential. This position reports to the Co-Executive Directors.

At SiX, we commit to equal pay for equal work. To counter pay inequality and uphold internal parity, we use a nonnegotiable starting salary system, while benchmarking our pay to highly competitive markets in the nonprofit sector. The starting salary for this position is $190,000. In addition, SiX offers competitive benefits including generous healthcare coverage options for you and your family, life insurance, a retirement match, a flexible schedule, and generous leave including August and December breaks and holiday schedules. This is a full-time exempt salary role. The position is remote and open to anyone living in the continental United States, within one hour of a major airport. The position will require travel, 2 to 6 times per quarter. 

Role Responsibilities 

All positions at SiX have unique role responsibilities – the outcomes and impacts you are expected to deliver as part of your unique role within the organization. As the Senior Vice President, Programs, you will report to the Co-Executive Directors and be responsible for delivering on the following responsibilities in your day-to-day work: 

Change Management

• In close partnership with the Executive Team and Operating Committee, implement critical components of the updated strategic plan, including changes to program team structure, evolution in program objectives/success criteria, and associated evolution in program strategy and design.
• Build management capacity among senior program leaders to adapt their mindsets, norms, and behaviors to organizational transformations in culture, operations, and financial procedures; and to help steward these changes among their team members.

Strong candidates will thrive amidst uncertainty and have the ability to shift hearts and minds as they lead people through organizational change.

Strategic Leadership  

• In close partnership with both the Co-EDs and program leaders, help to translate the strategic vision and roadmap for SiX’s programming into concrete and practical direction for program teams, including via annual goal-setting; budgeting; proposals and program design; and coaching and performance management.
• Provide programmatic thought partnership and coaching to support program leaders in navigating organizational change and pursuing programmatic impact as outlined in program portfolio goals and SiX’s strategic plan.
• Oversee the execution of program team special projects and initiatives that fall outside of the normal hierarchy, as necessary.  
• Oversee management of organizational programmatic partnerships, ensuring internal coordination across departments for partnerships that have multiple touchpoints. 
• Provide high-level strategic counsel as a member of the Executive Management Team, helping to shape organizational development, including long-term strategy and growth, leveraging opportunities to advance SiX’s mission and activate its theory of change.  

Strong candidates will deeply understand the state governance and legislative processes and ecosystems and will share our conviction that more people-centered, collaborative governance is needed.

Team Development 

• Lead people management processes (e.g., hiring, coaching/mentoring/performance management, supporting professional development and growth) for program team leads (e.g., Reproductive Rights, Sustainable Ag and Food Systems, Economic Justice, Legislative Affairs, Research) and other administrative staff in your management portfolio.
• Ensure program teams are collaborating across the organization, as necessary.
• Coach and support direct reports to make meaningful progress on their individual racial equity learning journeys, improve how their programming is designed to combat anti-Blackness and systemic identity-based oppression broadly, and in turn coach and support their staff to do the same.
• Steward cultural evolution within program teams, leaving behind cultural products of individualism, competition, and urgency to collaboratively build a culture based in trust, shared power, and collaboration.  
• Manage across identity and difference in ways that are supportive and affirming. 
• Chair weekly meeting of Senior Staff (known as the Operating Committee) and monthly All Staff calls

Strong candidates will have the ability to guide and support senior program leaders to innovate and grow bold, collaborative/integrated, and strategically aligned programming, and they will be eager and able to take an active role in guiding and supporting staff to advance their own racial equity learning and reflect it in their programming.

Fundraising & External Relations  

• Guide and oversee the successful growth and development of SiX’s programs, according to the organization’s strategic vision and roadmap.  
• In coordination with development leadership, coach and mentor program team leaders to build strategic fundraising capability.
• In collaboration with development staff, oversee the development of proposal design and writing for programs in your management portfolio, ensuring compliance with organizational and funder requirements.
• Represent the organization externally as a key principal of SiX, including in place of the Co-EDs as appropriate, including:
• Represent the organization and serve as a spokesperson and thought leader with the public and members of the press.  
• Advance the organization’s reputation, profile, and brand with key stakeholders.  
• Cultivate existing donor relationships and develop new funder relationships.  
• Establish, cultivate, and maintain relationships with key legislators, partners, and coalitions.  
• Represent the organization in key tables, coalitions, and meetings with national and state-based partners and funders.  

Strong candidates will have the ability to tell compelling stories about organizational strategy and impact, as well as the ability to engage at a senior level with external organizational stakeholders.

Operational Oversight  

• Champion and support processes that contribute to deepen an inclusive, equitable culture.  
• Guide and oversee the necessary systems, processes, and tools to track, evaluate, and synthesize strategy, outputs, outcomes and impact for SiX’s programs.  
• Guide and oversee processes for internal communications among the program teams, and between the program teams and the executive team.  
• Partner with department leaders and SiX’s finance and compliance staff to ensure budgeting aligns with SiX’s integrated financial model and that activities and financial management complies with SiX’s processes and state and federal regulations.

Strong candidates will be familiar with key aspects of nonprofit management, including compliance, measurement, and financial management.

Core Competencies

All staff roles at SiX are grounded in a set of core competencies that are standardized across the organization based on the type of role you hold. As the Senior Vice President, Programs, you will be expected to demonstrate the following core competencies in your day-to day work:

1. Equity and Inclusion. You have a sophisticated understanding of how racial, gender, economic, and social inequity impacts supervisory relationships, organizational culture, partnerships, and campaigns and coalition work, and successfully intervene in problematic dynamics to deepen a justice approach within your team and with partners. 
2. National Strategy and Oversight. You are able to design the strategy, impact, and resource deployment for at least one of the organization’s core program/issue areas.  
3. Staff Management. You are able to hire, support, and cultivate the leadership of staff in your program/issue area. You effectively engage in and resolve conflict and you are able to adeptly manage across lines of power and difference within a multi-racial organization.  
4. External Partner Management and Movement Building. You are able to identify, cultivate, and maintain successful partnerships with external stakeholders in the implementation and impact of your program/issue area. You possess the ability to identify, recruit, hire, delegate, and manage contractors and/or vendors to implement components of the work on an as needed basis 
5. External Communications and Brand Management. You are able to represent the organization and serve as a spokesperson and thought leader with legislators, the public, and members of the press. You advance the organization’s reputation, profile, and brand with key stakeholders. You ensure departmental participation in national conferences and events, as needed. You possess excellent written and verbal communication skills.  
6. Knowledge Management. You are able to design and manage systems, processes, and tools to better support the facilitation, collection, and sharing of knowledge that is generated by your portfolio. You ensure consistent data collection and analysis on key project outcomes. You work collaboratively with the Executive Team and senior management to integrate cross-program activities and functions. 
7. Financial Oversight. You are able to drive financial decision-making and resource allocation for your program/issue area. You are able to design and manage your program/issue area budget and synthesize financial information for organizational use. 
8. Fund Development. You are able to drive the fund development strategy for your program/issue area. You are able to effectively design funding requests and communicate those ideas, both in writing and in-person, to targeted audiences. 
9. Compliance. You are able to ensure that all activities within your program/issue area, as well as the staff you manage, comply with relevant nonprofit laws and adhere to internal policies, practices, and protocols.
10. Organizational Culture and Values. You are able to ensure that you, and all members of your team, practice and uphold the organization’s values in your day-to-day and long term work. You steward and exemplify an organizational culture that is productive, collaborative, and equitable. 

Organizational Values

All staff at SiX are responsible for upholding our organizational values, which were developed collaboratively by all staff. These describe the way we strive to do our work together and the kind of organizational culture we want to build. As the Senior Vice President, Programs you will be responsible for demonstrating the following behaviors in carrying out your day-to-day work:

1. Equity and Inclusion. Actively practice our commitment to racial, gender, economic, and social justice. Demonstrate an openness to cultivating progressive, inclusive leadership and welcoming different learning and leadership styles. Seek and accept feedback about ways to strengthen your awareness and understanding of how to create more inclusiveness in your speech and behavior. Practice humility and continuous learning. Commit to repairing relationships with your speech or behavior has promoted inequity or exclusion.
2. Collaboration. Proactively build relationships with your colleagues and partners. Demonstrate respectful speech and behavior. Be honest, kind, and direct in instances of conflict. Adopt a stance of “having each other’s back.” Resist habits of individualism and competition in favor of turning toward and building with one another.
3. Accountability. Demonstrate the ability to own and achieve your responsibilities at work. Attend to both the results and the process by which you achieve your results. Pay attention to details, anticipate roadblocks, offer solutions, drive work forward, include relevant stakeholders when making decisions, follow through with delivering high-quality work on time.
4. Integrity and Trust. Do not withhold information but democratize knowledge. Acknowledge both your successes and your mistakes. Practice forthrightness, “saying the thing,” graciously giving and receiving feedback, and building your own skills and capacity as well as that of your colleagues.
5. Initiative and Tenacity. Take responsibility for your success and the success of your teammates. Demonstrate the ability to manage and successfully execute on the work in the context of a remote organization. Offer and seek answers and options proactively, in consultation with your supervisor, colleagues, and partners. Challenge implicit assumptions and create explicit agreements.
6. Flexibility. Embody a “getting to yes” attitude and a propensity for working through roadblocks, building consensus, and course correcting when necessary. Engage in continuous learning and reflection. Seek feedback. Apply your learnings to subsequent projects and responsibilities. Welcome change and seek ways to adapt to new information, people, and circumstances.
7. Innovation. Commit to learning and growing the organization’s work. Stay open to possibility. Greet new opportunities with curiosity and a sense of possibility and openness. Contribute to a culture that lets us grow, try new things, succeed (or fail), and learn from our efforts.

How to Apply

Interested applicants should submit a compelling cover letter and resume to jobs@stateinnovation.org. Please indicate you are applying for “Senior Vice President, Programs” in the subject line of the email. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Priority will be given to candidates who apply by September 27, 2024.

The State Innovation Exchange is an equal-opportunity employer. We encourage people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, and immigrants to apply for open positions. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, age, marital, and/or veteran status, or any other characteristic or activity protected by federal, state, or local law.