Location

USA. Preference for Greater New York or Los Angeles areas, but this is not a requirement.

Position Summary

As Program Director, you will be instrumental in driving the early success of the Foundation by working closely with key internal and external stakeholders to make sure the right decisions are made, the right resources are deployed and the right actions are taken, from conception to design, development, launch and beyond.

You will work closely with staff from Mentora Institute to gain access to resources to launch Mentora Foundation. You will also work with Mentora’s partners (copywriting, design, and more).Once the Foundation has been successfully launched and in operation for a year, this role will evolve accordingly as the Foundation evolves and grows.

Responsibilities

In this role, you will work closely with two senior Mentora Institute executives to launch Mentora Foundation in Q1 2022 and manage the first year of its operations.

Your areas of responsibility in the first year will include:

• Design and launch Fellowship programs — like the Mentora Youth Changemaker Fellowship and the Executive Changemaker Fellowship. Anticipate and proactively address key risks and challenges in the fellowship programs. Develop and execute pilots to test and validate key elements of program design, communication, production, delivery, and support. Once launched, assess performance, draw learnings and make improvements and adjustments as needed. In each of the areas above, you will work closely with the right internal and external resources to supplement your own expertise.‍
• Build the team — Recruit, lead and manage a core team of 2-3 people who will assist you in managing the various work streams for the Foundation. Facilitate dialogues across different functions and groups within the Foundation and the Mentora Institute to ideate, share information, assess tradeoffs, and align on the plan.‍
• Develop the Foundation’s objectives and strategic plan for Year 1 — Analyze audience needs, organizational and partner capabilities, costs, and best practices to help create a strategic plan for the Foundation’s offerings, financials, design, delivery, communication, and ongoing enhancements.‍
• Update and maintain the Foundation website — Identify types of content, target audience, and tailor content to the audience. Work with writers, designers, and developers to create new content for the website.‍
• Launch a Changemaker podcast/webcast series — Lead design and execution of the series, involving tasks such as topic suggestion, guest list creation, branding for the podcast/webcast, creation of a marketing plan, technology and other requirements for the series, and the final launch of the series.

Core Knowledge and Skills

• Strategic thinking - Being able to place all Mentora Foundation projects in the context of the organization’s mission and strategic priorities and the shifts happening in the world.
• Program management/implementation - Experience establishing organizational systems; implementing activities within tactical plans with a high level of complexity and ambiguity; providing thought partnership on project definition, planning / scoping the work, organizing, and designing appropriate solutions.
• Analytical problem-solving - Bringing a logical, fact-based approach to problem-solving; ability to work systematically with both qualitative and quantitative information to analyze trade-offs, do cost-benefit analyses, and draw robust inferences.
• Results-orientation and accountability - Ability to hold themselves and others accountable to key commitments, milestones, and deadlines through goal-setting, review, expectation-setting, and constructive debates.
• Relationships - Effective at working with a team of diverse backgrounds and roles in a global work environment; ability to draw on others’ expertise and ideas, and to have constructive debates on key issues that lead to the best organization-wide decisions; strong relationship management and collaboration skills in working with external partners; ability to forge trust with new people.
• Agility, curiosity, and multi-tasking - Bringing an innovative and open-minded approach to all aspects of work; functioning in a changing environment; ability to juggle various projects smoothly.
• Written and oral communication - Able to express analyses and recommendations in well-organized and clear language; strong presentation skills.

Education and Experience

• 8-10 yrs of experience in the business, non-profit or public sector with demonstrated excellence in both strategy and operations, developing and running high-performance teams, multi-stakeholder partnerships, thriving in self-starter multi-cultural environments.
• Bachelor's degree and/or Master’s degree from a reputable institution.
• Experience in social impact or education is a plus.

Contact Us

If this position is of interest to you, please write to Judy Calabrese at judy@mentora.institute and share your resume, your background, and why this position interests you.

“Through our scientific and technological genius, we’ve made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment, we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers—or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.