Director of Operations, Youth AI Safety Institute
About The Position
The Director of Operations is the Executive Director’s closest operational partner at Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute. This senior leader ensures the Institute operates with integrity, efficiency, and strategic foresight across governance, fiduciary oversight, compliance, partnerships, contracting, and organizational coordination. The role is responsible for anticipating and addressing legal, ethical, logistical, and reputational risks, building the systems and relationships needed to support the Institute’s work, and enabling the Executive Director to focus on leading the organization. The Director serves as the operational anchor for the Institute’s leadership team and oversees its operating model, workflows, decision-making frameworks, accountability systems, and Operations team. The role has ultimate responsibility for governance infrastructure and funder compliance; oversees complaints, methodological challenges, and legal inquiries in coordination with legal counsel; and cultivates domestic and global partnerships with academic, nonprofit, industry, philanthropic, and international organizations. The position also oversees significant contract negotiations and sets contracting standards, approval frameworks, and spending authority policies. As the primary operational liaison to Common Sense Media’s shared services, the Director coordinates with finance, legal, HR, communications, development, product and engineering, and marketing. The Director builds internal communication and coordination practices and represents the Institute in high-stakes external conversations and Common Sense Media leadership forums.
Requirements
- At least 7 years of professional experience in senior operations, strategy, legal affairs, or institutional leadership, including overseeing teams and cross-organizational relationships.
- Demonstrated experience operating at the intersection of strategy and execution in a mission-driven, research, or standards-setting context.
- Track record of building and managing complex, multi-stakeholder partnerships, including negotiating and structuring significant contracts and agreements.
- Experience overseeing governance and compliance functions, including conflict-of-interest management, grant compliance, or regulatory adherence in a nonprofit or research institution.
- Passion for online safety and thoughtful consideration of AI’s role in society.
- Exceptional judgment, including the ability to identify risk early, make sound decisions under uncertainty, and determine when to escalate.
- Senior-level written and verbal communication skills and the ability to represent the Institute credibly in high-stakes conversations with funders, government officials, international partners, and industry leaders.
Nice To Haves
- Experience in AI policy, technology safety, digital rights, or adjacent fields, with sufficient technical fluency to engage credibly with frontier AI companies and standards experts.
- Background in international organizations, global multi-stakeholder initiatives, or cross-jurisdictional policy work.
- Experience supporting a founding executive director or CEO of a startup, institute, or new program at scale.
- Familiarity with standards-setting bodies, benchmarking organizations, or independent research institutes.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the operational anchor for the Institute’s leadership team, ensuring research, standards, evaluations, and public engagement functions have the support they need.
- Identify and resolve legal, ethical, logistical, and reputational risks, and establish escalation protocols for issues requiring Executive Director or Board attention.
- Build and improve the Institute’s operating model, including processes, cross-functional workflows, decision-making frameworks, and accountability systems.
- Oversee the Operations team, set direction, remove blockers, and coordinate work across organizational functions.
- Maintain the Institute’s governance infrastructure, including charters, policies, conflict-of-interest procedures, independence safeguards, and decision-making firewalls.
- Oversee compliance with philanthropic and industry funder obligations, reporting requirements, and restricted-use conditions in coordination with the development team.
- Oversee responses to formal complaints, methodological challenges, and legal inquiries with Common Sense Media’s legal counsel.
- Cultivate senior-level domestic and global partnerships with academic institutions, nonprofits, standards bodies, international agencies, and related organizations.
- Identify future partnership needs and develop relationships in anticipation of changes in standards, global evaluations, and the AI landscape.
- Represent the Institute in high-stakes partnership conversations and negotiations with frontier AI companies, global standards bodies, and international youth safety organizations.
- Support the Executive Director in developing relationships with philanthropic and industry funders and coalition partners.
- Oversee significant contract negotiations with evaluation partners, academic collaborators, technology vendors, and international organizations.
- Set contracting standards, approval frameworks, and spending authority policies, and ensure they are applied consistently.
- Identify contractual and legal risks, including intellectual property, liability, data use, and publication rights, and work with legal counsel to address them.
- Serve as the primary operational liaison between the Institute and Common Sense Media’s shared services, including finance, legal, HR, communications, development, product and engineering, and marketing.
- Promote understanding of the Institute’s work across Common Sense Media and represent its operational interests in leadership forums and planning processes.
- Build internal culture and communication rhythms, including team meetings, cross-functional syncs, project tracking, and reporting cadences.
Benefits
- Competitive nonprofit compensation and comprehensive benefits.
- Collaborative, flexible work environment.
- Meaningful access to the Institute’s leadership and the broader Common Sense Media organization.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
No Education Listed
