Chief Strategy Officer

City of New York • New York City, NY

17h • Onsite

About The Position

The Department of Social Services (DSS) comprises the administrative units of the New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) and the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). HRA focuses on fighting poverty and inequality by providing essential benefits, while DHS addresses homelessness through innovative strategies to help individuals and families exit shelter and achieve self-sufficiency. The NYC Public Engagement Unit (PEU) delivers government services and benefits through direct outreach, including door-knocking, street canvassing, text banking, and phone calling, to connect hard-to-reach New Yorkers with city services. The Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) will analyze outreach campaign results to identify successes and areas for improvement, setting future goals to enhance the effectiveness of outreach teams in connecting New Yorkers to city services. This role is crucial for continuous learning and improvement within PEU. The CSO will be a key member of PEU’s Executive Team and a vital thought partner to the Executive Director, requiring strong analytical and interpersonal skills. Daily tasks involve extensive meetings with leaders of PEU’s outreach teams and collaboration with external partners such as City Hall, the Office of Mass Engagement, and various city agencies (DSS, HPD, DOF, NYCPS, OTI). Success in this role demands flexibility and a deep understanding of person-to-person outreach methods (door-knocking, phone banking, texting, canvassing, events), gained from experience in political campaigns, government outreach, community engagement, or direct sales. The CSO must have experience with the operational and strategic aspects of outreach, focusing on staff efficiency, learning from results, and understanding PEU's overall work structure. Experience in complex environments like city government or large bureaucracies is advantageous. The ideal candidate can manage meetings effectively, assess group dynamics, build strong relationships with diverse stakeholders, and synthesize staff input with data to develop effective outreach strategies. PEU is seeking one (1) Director of Management Planning M1 to serve as a Chief Strategy Officer, aligning with Mayor Mamdani's emphasis on public excellence. This role will focus on increasing the reach and efficiency of PEU's outreach efforts, collaborating with programmatic leaders to set and achieve goals, implementing continuous improvement processes, capturing outcome data for enhanced effectiveness, and managing key partnerships with City Hall and other agencies on critical issues such as housing stability, pre-K access, and transit affordability.

Requirements

• A baccalaureate degree in business administration, public administration, social science or similar course of study and four (4) years of responsible full-time experience in one or more of the fields of management, methods analysis, operations research, systems analysis, financial administration, cost effectiveness, or fiscal, economic program or policy research, design or evaluation, of which at least one (1) year shall have been in a responsible administrative or managerial capacity.
• Education and/or experience equivalent to the above.
• All candidates must have one (1) year of specialized experience as described above.
• High interpersonal skills.
• Highly flexible.
• Deep understanding of person-to-person outreach campaigns – door-knocking, phone banking, peer-to-peer texting, street canvassing, tabling, events, etc.
• Experience with the operations and strategy side of outreach: how to get outreach staff to efficiently reach their targets, learn from the results, and zoom out to the big picture of how PEU structures its work.
• Ability to run a tight meeting.
• Ability to read the room.
• Ability to build strong relationships with a very diverse group of stakeholders.
• Ability to synthesize input from staff with hard data to create viable outreach strategies.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in a complex environment like city government or other large bureaucracies.

Responsibilities

• Help PEU's outreach teams reach more people, more efficiently, and deliver more city services.
• Collaborate with PEU’s programmatic leaders to set goals, socialize those goals, and motivate the program teams to achieve those goals.
• Create and implement continuous improvement loops.
• Capture outcome data so that PEU can see what’s working and improve its effectiveness and efficiency.
• Manage partnerships with City Hall and other agencies in high-priority areas like keeping NYC tenants in their homes, connecting families to pre-K seats, and helping New Yorkers afford transit costs.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director