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, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

In June 2020, the foundation hired a Chief Communications Officer and established a new Communications Division to lead all aspects of the foundation’s global communications strategy. The division brings together internal and external communications to advance our mission of a more equitable world. The Global Communications team is responsible for crafting internal and external use of foundation voice to advance and protect the foundation’s reputation and advance its priority advocacy and program objectives and ensure that employees are meaningfully connected to the foundation’s mission and community. The team is responsible for comprehensive voice planning for foundation leadership and key spokespeople as well as driving engagement with earned media.

Goalkeepers is a foundation-led initiative started in 2017 to support the Sustainable Development Goals. Using powerful stories, data, and partnerships, Goalkeepers highlights progress achieved, holds governments accountable, and brings together a new generation of leaders to address the world’s major challenges. It features an annual data report co-authored by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, which tracks progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (or Global Goals); a yearly awards program and event during the UN General Assembly in New York City; and a community of leaders committed to achieving the Global Goals

The Global Content and Campaigns team is responsible for engaging priority audiences with compelling content and campaigns to help advance the foundation’s advocacy and programmatic goals and support its brand. The team’s responsibility also includes the development and implementation of integrated marketing campaigns and managing foundation channels (e.g., gatesfoundation.org, The Optimist newsletter, social media for foundation and leadership, etc.) and platforms (e.g., Goalkeepers, the Discovery Center, Make Me Care About podcast, etc.).

Application Deadline: Friday, March 1, 2024

Your Role

The Deputy Director, Goalkeepers will be a key member of the External Communications leadership team within the foundation’s Global Policy & Advocacy division. Based in Seattle, the Deputy Director, Goalkeepers will work collaboratively with colleagues across the foundation’s global offices to lead the Goalkeepers campaign, including the annual data report, events, and digital campaign. This key hire will be responsible for designing and leading all aspects of the Goalkeepers initiative, including the overall campaign and event strategy.

The Deputy Director will work closely with internal and external partners to build sophisticated audience insights and understanding, specifically around “influencers” in the global health and development space in both donor and developing countries. The focus will be on eight key geographies: Nigeria, Kenya, India, China, France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

What You’ll Do

Strategy development and implementation

• Lead the execution of the Goalkeepers strategy and annual campaign in a manner that aligns with the organization's mission and builds trust and credibility with key audiences.

• Provide strategic thought leadership to develop and implement an overarching Goalkeepers strategy.

• Navigate the ecosystem in which matrixed organizations operate through organizational agility.

• Anticipate trends and future consequences with broad knowledge and perspective; articulate vision, possibilities, and likelihoods; build breakthrough strategies and plans; and quickly adjust plans as needed based on external and internal changes.

• Develop, implement, and evolve creative direction in alignment with audience, data, and insights.

• Define the brand and creative direction of Goalkeepers in alignment with the brand strategy and work with our program, advocacy, and regional communications functions.

Team management and inclusive leadership

• Lead a Goalkeepers Extended Team and manage seven full-time employees and contractors, including being responsible for budgets and resources for the team and ensuring effective use of resources and efficient operations.

• Develop and manage the Goalkeepers annual budget, ensuring budget allocation alignment with team goals and priorities, and track workstream spending and financial reporting to the Goalkeeper’s lead.

• Oversee the team’s vendor contracts, working closely with workstream leads and contract business partners on the contracts processes, and ensuring vendor selection processes support the diversity, equity, and inclusion goals of the foundation.

• Support an inclusive work environment that promotes creative and diverse approaches, and demonstrate strong management capacity to cultivate an impactful, collaborative team culture.

• Develop the talent needed to achieve our goals, including ensuring successful employee onboarding.

• Communicate performance expectations by creating goal alignment, giving and seeking feedback, providing coaching, measuring progress, and supporting employee development.

• Play an active role as a contributing member of the Communications Leadership Team and the Global Content & Campaigns Leadership Team.

• Contribute to leadership voice planning for the foundation, collaborating with programmatic and regional communications and advocacy leads and private offices.

Cross-functional leadership

• Attend cross-foundational initiatives and additional forums as needed.

• Establish and cultivate relationships with peers in these forums. Lead and/or participate in cross-functional issues as they arise.

• Lead the global Goalkeepers community and audience engagement to help accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals and, specifically, the foundation’s focus areas within them.

Stakeholder engagement and management

• Engage frequently with senior collaborators, including board of directors, co-chairs, and partner organization executives.

• Lead internal and external stakeholder engagement for all Goalkeepers workstreams, including acting as a Goalkeepers point of contact and spokesperson with key partners, the broader Goalkeepers community, foundation colleagues, and senior leadership.

• Lead all aspects of developing measurement frameworks and apply insights to improve approaches.

• Engage partners to ensure that internal voices, community voices, and other key stakeholder voices are included, heard, and incorporated into our work.

Your Experience

• Advanced degree with significant years of progressive experience in a similar leadership role in communications, journalism, public policy, or a related field.

• Experience leading impactful teams; developing communications strategies; coordinating events; and working closely with campaigns, digital, and print media on behalf of large, complex, global organizations.

• Extensive collaborative experience with a wide range of internal and external partners

• Ability to bring together and inspire team members with a diverse set of backgrounds, approaches, and beliefs to pursue a coherent long-term direction, and collaborate with the team on how to achieve it.

• Ability to thoughtfully plan, organize, and prioritize your own work and that of others in a fast-paced environment with multiple and competing demands; ability to see the critical path, measure and mitigate risk, and make trade-offs.

• Capacity to hold people accountable for their commitments, providing clarity and assisting when barriers arise; ability to maintain the team’s focus on results, integrity, and impact.

• Ability to establish practices that reinforce independent and open communication among team members and other groups within the Postsecondary team and broader foundation that contribute to the team’s work.

• Sharp, strategic, creative, and encouraging leadership qualities.

• A strong knowledge of large-scale global campaign development and leadership, including an understanding of global political and media landscapes.

• Understanding of the global health and development policy environment.

• International experience and proven cultural competency preferred.

• Demonstrated excellent written and oral communication skills in positions requiring communication with a broad and diverse audience on a range of complex and technical issues.

• Ability to offer creative solutions to complex problems and translate options into implementable solutions.

• Experience working in nonprofit/public health, government, communications agency, or private-sector organization is strongly preferred.

*Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

The salary range for this role is $204,600 to $317,100 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences where our offices are located, in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Boston (Cambridge). The range for this role in these locations is $222,900 to $345,500 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission and new hires are typically brought into the organization at a salary between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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 — of voices, ideas, and approaches — 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.