Managing Director, Portfolio Lead, The Studio

Blue Meridian Partners • New York, NY

21h • $417,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Blue Meridian Partners is a pioneering philanthropic model dedicated to finding and funding scalable solutions to address economic mobility limitations and poverty among America's young people and families. The organization employs an innovative investor mindset, backed by a decades-long track record, to pursue upward economic mobility. By pooling resources, Blue Meridian Partners unlocks substantial philanthropic capital for effective and efficient investments. Their approach involves strategic, long-term investments across multiple portfolios, aiming to boost economic mobility from cradle to career through nationwide and place-based strategies. They identify visionary social sector leaders, providing flexible, upfront capital to help them expand their reach, influence, and impact. Blue Meridian is committed to continuous learning and collaboration to create lasting impact at scale.

The Portfolio Lead, Managing Director provides senior leadership for The Studio portfolio, overseeing its strategic direction, near- and long-term goals, people and culture outcomes, and the continuous evolution of its strategy. The Studio portfolio focuses on experimentation and offers flexible resources to help organizations accelerate their readiness for significant scaling. This role is accountable for synthesizing performance and impact across the portfolio, communicating strategy and methodology to investors, and driving strategic and operational change based on portfolio-level insights. Additionally, the Portfolio Lead fulfills core Managing Director responsibilities, including sourcing investments, advising investee CEOs, and stewarding long-term investments in organizations addressing major social problems at scale. This position reports to the Managing Director, Investment and Impact Lead, operating with significant flexibility and autonomy while collaborating closely with other Portfolio Leads, the CEO, and investors to advance Blue Meridian's mission.

Requirements

• Believe in Blue Meridian’s mission and be driven by personal values that align closely with Blue Meridian’s core values.
• At least 15 years of professional experience, with leadership experience in for-profit and/or nonprofit settings and with strategic philanthropy being essential.
• A Bachelor's degree.
• A track record of leading organizations or teams to innovative, measurable results — with demonstrated ability to set strategic direction, navigate complexity and ambiguity, and hold accountability for outcomes across diverse teams and stakeholders.
• Experience serving as a primary strategic voice to investors, funders, or board-level stakeholders — communicating with clarity and confidence on strategy, methodology, and performance.
• Strong skills in developing and managing external and internal relationships and partnerships, working directly with senior executives, boards of directors and investors, leading teams, building and stewarding relationships, networks and agreements, and managing complex business associations.
• Proven experience building and leading high-performing teams, with accountability for people and culture outcomes including talent development, engagement, and inclusive team effectiveness.
• A visible and consistent model of values-aligned leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex performance and impact data across a portfolio of organizations, draw actionable insights, and translate those insights into clear strategic recommendations for senior and external audiences.
• Highly energetic, self-motivated, and entrepreneurial, able to balance a meticulous and highly rigorous professional approach with a flexible and empathetic responsiveness to the needs of others.
• While skilled at thinking and working independently and advocating own point of view, respects and solicits the contributions of others.
• Strategic understanding of AI applications relevant to the role, including experience guiding teams in responsible AI adoption, evaluating AI tool effectiveness, and ensuring appropriate use of AI technologies in professional contexts.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills with a professional and genial demeanor, and the ability to work with and lead people with different backgrounds and experiences.
• Strong computer skills with extensive knowledge of Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and the ability to master new software quickly.
• Willing to travel frequently.

Nice To Haves

• A demonstrated track record of leading at the portfolio or enterprise level — setting strategic direction, driving accountability for outcomes across multiple workstreams or organizations, and operating with significant autonomy in senior leadership environments.
• An advanced degree in business, law, public policy, or a related field.
• Experience with Salesforce CRM and SharePoint.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of Blue Meridian’s Studio portfolio strategy and business plans, and the continuing evolution of its investment practices.
• Stay abreast of trends that affect Blue Meridian and its investments.
• Serve as an external spokesperson/representative of Blue Meridian and assist as needed with fundraising, Partner engagement, and other activities.
• Serve as the primary communicator of Studio portfolio strategy and methodology, clearly articulating the rationale for strategic choices, investment theses, and portfolio-level priorities.
• Capture ongoing learning from investments and broader trends to continuously inform and improve Blue Meridian’s and investee’s strategy and operations.
• Lead the evolution of portfolio strategy, translating Blue Meridian’s broader investment thesis into portfolio-specific approaches and ensuring strategy remains current and responsive to field trends and investee performance.
• Serve as the accountable leader for portfolio-level goals, ensuring that the portfolio is tracking toward its strategic and impact objectives.
• Set clear performance expectations, monitor progress across investees, and take ownership of portfolio-level outcomes.
• Hold ultimate accountability for team people and culture outcomes within the portfolio, including talent development, engagement, team effectiveness, and a healthy, inclusive working environment.
• Model and reinforce Blue Meridian’s Ways of Leading across the portfolio team.
• Oversee and participate in the recruitment, development, and management of top talent to build and sustain a high-performing team.
• Perform other general management duties including recruiting, developing and providing oversight to more junior staff.
• Craft portfolio-level insights by synthesizing investee performance data, impact evidence, and field learning.
• Translate these insights into clear narratives for internal leadership and external stakeholders, and propose strategic or operational changes to maximize portfolio impact.
• Contribute to and participate in Partner and committee meetings.
• Partner with Sourcing team leadership to ensure a robust pipeline of new investment for the Studio that align to the portfolio’s scale-readiness development goals.
• Lead the team to ensure right-sized and rigorous due diligence and selection processes lead to high quality investment opportunities.
• Coach to team to ensure investee leaders and their teams receive excellent relationship management and support from Blue Meridian.
• Earn and maintain the respect of investees and serve as a trusted partner and advisor to their CEOs and boards. This includes representing Blue Meridian Partners with investee boards and advising on strategy, scaling plans, and milestones; evaluation and evidence building; board development; fundraising; organizational design; and human capital and communications.
• Ensure high-quality execution of Studio investee engagements (Impact Labs and other supports) that effectively improve the scale-readiness of participants over time.
• Lead or co-lead one or more innovation initiatives and oversee activities including: Conduct research and engaging in landscaping exercises to determine opportunities in a given field. Develop concepts, strategies and proposals for future areas of potential investment. Plan, manage, and evaluate initiatives. Provide guidance and direction to other team members.

Benefits

• Employer contributions to a retirement savings plan
• Medical, dental and vision coverage with minimal employee contribution
• Life and disability insurance
• Paid time off including vacation/personal days, paid holidays, half-day summer Fridays, and week-long office closures in the summer and winter
• Internal and external professional development opportunities
• Home Office set-up allowance
• Tuition reimbursement
• Hybrid work arrangement

What This Job Offers

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