President, Global Policy and Advocacy

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation•Washington, DC

About The Position

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 Global Policy and Advocacy (GPA) serves as the external affairs division of the Gates Foundation. The mission of GPA is to understand and shape the public policy debates affecting the foundation's work, build support for its major program and policy objectives, and develop partnerships and alliances that can advance the foundation's objectives nationally and globally. Because the foundation's resources alone are not enough to solve the challenges ahead, GPA also supports advocacy efforts to engage diverse stakeholders and promote innovative solutions that advance our program goals. GPA includes our North America; Europe, Middle East & East Asia; China Country Office; Development Policy & Finance; Philanthropic Partnerships; and Program Advocacy program teams as well as oversight for government relations globally. We work in close partnership with grantees, our colleagues in the Global Health, Global Development, Global Growth & Opportunity, Africa & India, U.S. and Gender Equality programs and Foundation Communications to build the environment in which all people have the opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives. The Gates Foundation is a nonpartisan institution. When we engage with governments on policy and legislative matters, we do so in compliance with applicable U.S. regulations, providing nonpartisan research, analysis, and technical assistance consistent with our status as a private foundation. Application Instructions: The Gates Foundation is partnering with Russell Reynolds Associates to support the search for this role. Applying through the Russell Reynolds platform is the primary way to be considered for this position. Interested candidates are invited to apply via the Russell Reynolds Engage platform, accessible through this link: https://engage.russellreynolds.com/#/job/2604-021NA. Candidates will first be asked to register and create a profile. From the home page, navigate to “Job Post”, “Apply for a Position”, then enter the following career code: 2604-021NA to submit a resume and cover letter for consideration. Application Deadline: This role will be open for applications until May 1st, 2026. Your Role The President, Global Policy and Advocacy serves as the foundation’s senior government relations leader and chief advisor to the CEO and Governing Board on global political and geopolitical affairs. This role sets and drives the foundation’s global advocacy, government relations, financing and philanthropic partnership strategies to advance its global health and development priorities, as well as key U.S. domestic priorities. The President represents the foundation in critical policy environments worldwide and cultivates durable relationships across national governments, regional and multilateral institutions, and a diverse set of global and local partners to ensure strategies are grounded in political realism and institutional insight. This leader brings a deep and sophisticated understanding of domestic US political dynamics, paired with a strong global perspective shaped by knowledge and engagement across both the global north and the global south, especially the Middle East, Africa and Asia. They possess the ability to build coalitions across governments, multilateral institutions and philanthropic partnerships, and navigate complex geopolitical environments with credibility, discretion and sound judgement. The President leads the GPA division to integrate government relations strategies with programmatic ambition, aligned with the foundation’s priorities and partnerships.

Requirements

Deep and demonstrated judgment, with a track record of advancing institutional priorities in complex political environments.
Demonstrated senior-level political acumen and strategic judgment across diverse global contexts, including the United States, major donor markets, and low- and middle-income countries, with the ability to navigate complex dynamics, institutions, and stakeholder environments to advance mission outcomes.
Proven ability to operate globally, with experience engaging across multiple geographies and political systems and the ability to fluidly shift perspective between countries and regions.
Experience advising senior leaders or boards on politically sensitive issues, with credibility and presence at the highest levels.
Demonstrated success leading large, complex, and globally distributed teams within highly matrixed organizations, with experience leading teams through strategic evolution and organizational change.
Ability to build clarity, alignment, and high-performance during periods of transition while modeling the foundation’s core values of collaboration, rigor, innovation, and optimism.
Demonstrated success building and sustaining high-trust relationships and coalitions across diverse political and institutional contexts, both externally and within large, complex organizations.
Experience representing an organization publicly in high-stakes environments.
Exposure and/or experience with global health or development policy and financing, including donor funding or multilateral institutions.
Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to synthesize complexity into strategic action.

Nice To Haves

Preferred exposure to grantmaking and/or managing investment portfolios.
Preferred exposure in strategic communications, public positioning, or philanthropic partnerships.

Responsibilities

Provide Enterprise Political Leadership and Strategic Counsel
Serve as the foundation’s chief advisor and strategist to the CEO, Trustee, Governing Board, and Executive Leadership Team on complex domestic, geopolitical, and multilateral dynamics affecting the foundation’s mission.
Provide forward-looking analysis and judgment on policy and political issues to inform enterprise strategy, investment decisions, risk management, and institutional positioning.
Demonstrate balanced, bipartisan, and globally credible acumen across diverse political systems and perspectives.
Partner closely with regional leaders and program strategy teams (PSTs), providing geopolitical insight and developing strategic guidance that strengthens country-level positioning and execution across diverse geopolitical contexts.
Shape and Align Global Government and Financing Strategy
Set the overarching strategic direction for global government relations and partnership with multilateral finance institutions.
Guide the development and execution of global financing and policy strategies, including donor funding, domestic resource mobilization, and multilateral development bank engagement, making disciplined tradeoffs across competing institutional priorities.
Ensure alignment across regional and market strategies while empowering senior leaders to drive execution within their respective contexts.
Partner closely with Program Presidents and division leaders to ensure government relations, policy, and financing strategies directly advance programmatic priorities and measurable outcomes.
Mobilize and Strengthen Global Coalitions and Partnerships
Set the enterprise direction for coalition and partnership strategies that sustain and expand government and financial support to advance the foundation’s three long-term goals: ensuring no mother, child, or baby dies of a preventable cause; eliminating deadly infectious diseases for the next generation; and enabling hundreds of millions of people to break free from poverty.
Lead and continuously evolve politically relevant coalition and engagement strategies across key donor markets, including North America and other priority geographies, to expand and strengthen durable support for global health and development.
Build and maintain trusted, senior-level relationships across diverse stakeholders, including government leaders, civil society, faith communities, think tanks, philanthropic peers, and private-sector partners, ensuring broad-based and sustained institutional credibility.
Oversee a dynamic philanthropic partnerships strategy seeking to expand strategic giving in the US and globally to the foundation’s priority areas
Mobilize influential champions and cross-sector partners to amplify policies, increase issue salience, and reinforce sustained government and financial support for foundation priorities.
Steward the foundation’s most senior and strategically consequential relationships with government leaders, multilateral finance institutions, philanthropic peers, and global influencers.
Empower regional and market leaders to design and execute context-specific coalition and engagement strategies aligned to enterprise priorities.
Foster cross-market learning and alignment to ensure coalition efforts reinforce one another and advance shared institutional goals.
Represent the Foundation with Credibility and Influence
Represent the foundation publicly at the highest levels in bilateral, multilateral, and global policy forums.
Operate effectively in high-visibility and high-pressure contexts, including in close partnership with the CEO and engagement with the Trustee, demonstrating sound judgment, discretion, and a confident but non-ideological approach when the foundation’s work intersects with sensitive political dynamics.
Guide and oversee strategic recommendations for Trustee external engagements, ensuring alignment with enterprise strategy, institutional priorities, and long-term mission objectives.
Personally steward relationships and engagements where presidential-level presence advances institutional influence and credibility.
Partner closely with the Communications division to ensure strategy and public positioning on political issues are aligned, disciplined, and globally coherent.
Lead and Evolve the GPA Division
Lead a globally distributed division through continued organizational evolution, clarifying enterprise priorities and aligning structure, capabilities, and leadership, and resources to long-term strategy.
Manage a portfolio of program and market-facing teams, ensuring each has a clear and rigorous strategy, delivers measurable programmatic outcomes, and builds strong internal and external partnerships.
Oversee long-term portfolio planning and resource allocation, making disciplined tradeoffs to evolve investments, capabilities, and geographic focus over time.
Build and sustain a high-performing senior leadership team with the appropriate capabilities, judgment, and bench strength to deliver on enterprise priorities.
Mobilize and align the full GPA division, including government engagement, development policy and finance, advocacy, communications partnership, philanthropic engagement, and key country platforms, to deliver cohesive, market-informed strategies in support of the foundation’s goals.
Steward the foundation’s reputation, relationships, and institutional positioning with governments and global partners across all engagement efforts.
Provide credible technical expertise in public policy, development finance, and economics to internal and external stakeholders, reinforcing the division’s authority and influence.
Ensure strong governance, risk management, compliance, and ethical standards across all engagement and advocacy efforts.
Sustain morale, resilience, and performance through periods of geopolitical uncertainty and institutional change.

Benefits

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

Stand Out From the Crowd

Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.

Upload and Match Resume