Director, Pathways to Capital

MILKEN INSTITUTE•New York, NY

7d•$120,000 - $150,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Reporting to the Director of 10,000 Communities, this position will support community-building and the cultivation of projects seeking support on the 10,000 Communities’ CIC. The Director will be passionate about helping fill America's infrastructure gap and knowledgeable about a variety of assets and activities, such as renewable energy, battery storage, building decarbonization, broadband, commercial corridors, and water, with an interest in learning the ins and outs of delivering community-scale infrastructure projects and building the capital stacks. The successful candidate thrives in rooms with people (planners, city staff, community leaders, and funders) and builds relationships both digitally and in person. The Director is accountable for supporting communities and projects, and for ensuring that CIC's forums and convenings produce not only discussion but also project pipeline, productive partnerships, and progress on research that helps the field move forward. The Director will also collaborate with the broader Pathways to Capital team and will have the opportunity to support the advancement of priorities across the Pathways to Capital portfolio of programs.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required, Minimum 8 years experience in a relevant field.
Experience as a former or current “planner” with a generalist's knowledge of infrastructure, including energy, housing, broadband, water, and related asset classes. Deep expertise in every single type of project is not required, but the successful candidate will be comfortable navigating community development, planning, or place-based real estate development in urban, suburban, and rural communities.
Capable of bringing valuable national relationships from community lending, national banking, infrastructure development, or community development sectors.
Organized and process-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple relationships and pipeline stages at once. Ideally, the candidate has familiarity with project management and customer relationship management tools (e.g., Salesforce).
Personable and relationship-driven, with boots-on-the-ground experience working in communities that require technical assistance to deliver complex infrastructure projects.
Analytical, creative, and rigorous thinkers: We are seeking a detail-oriented and flexible problem solver who can synthesize diverse streams of information and switch comfortably between academic and real-world thinking.
Roll-up-your-sleeves executers and adaptive thinkers: MI leaders are comfortable engaging in ambitious projects and with refinement and adaptation along the way to reach key metrics.
Team players: MI leaders collaborate well with multidisciplinary teams across the Institute, comfortably taking leadership when necessary as well as following directions.

Responsibilities

Bring and build relationships across community development and infrastructure development markets in order to expand CIC’s network and impact; identify and triage potential projects, capital providers, and technical assistance providers; and identify opportunities for warm handoffs and connections between communities, funders, and partner organizations.
Build, improve, and manage case management tracking systems at CIC.
Work in collaboration with the existing tech team to refine and build out existing technology and AI tools to efficiently track projects in the pipeline; tracking pipeline progress against CIC's targets and flagging where projects are stalling, so the team can intervene and provide assistance.
Develop and manage CIC's collaborative forums.
Grow and manage the working groups and forums that CIC has cultivated, including place-based regional efforts as well as thematic efforts (e.g., “community solar and storage” and “commercial corridors”); keeping forums active and productive by preparing materials for periodic meetings, hosting and facilitating biweekly and monthly calls, and sharing and posting relevant information, tools, and updates for forums that have an online web channel component; and actively growing forum membership by sharing opportunities to join with project owners in the pipeline and other stakeholders in the markets CIC touches.
Support place-based engagements.
Serve as CIC's on-the-ground presence at events in priority markets and representing the organization in local and regional conversations, spending significant time in the field building and sustaining relationships in the communities CIC serves.
Inform tool development and community-informed tech innovation. Help translate what is learned in the field into inputs for the technology and tools the team is building, so those tools reflect what communities need.
Support market development through convening.
Represent CIC at national convenings, positioning the organization as a collaborative partner and connector rather than a competitor to existing players.
Cement CIC as a “big tent” network that connects disparate actors to advance community projects.
Duties as assigned.