President, U.S. Program

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation•Seattle, WA

5d•$800,000 - $1,100,000•Onsite

About The Position

The U.S. Program (USP) is advancing a recently updated division-wide strategy to accelerate equitable upward mobility through educational attainment. Guided by the belief that every person should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential, the division works to ensure that education is a true engine of opportunity and economic mobility in the United States. To realize this vision, the U.S. Program is focused on doubling the growth rate of credential attainment among 18–34-year-olds, resulting in 10 million more learners attaining credentials that reflect their skills and knowledge and deliver sustained economic value. Delivering on this vision requires a step-change in how the division makes decisions, allocates resources, and translates evidence into action across a complex, interdependent portfolio. The U.S. Program advances this goal through an integrated strategy spanning K-12 Teaching and Learning, Postsecondary Learning and Navigation, Data and AI Infrastructure, and Advocacy and System Improvement. Working with educators, institutions, students, families, policymakers, employers, researchers, technology leaders, community organizations, and other partners, the division identifies, develops, and scales evidence-based solutions that improve outcomes and reduce inequities across the education-to-workforce continuum.

Requirements

Deep and demonstrated executive judgment, with a track record of advancing ambitious institutional priorities in complex environments.
Extensive experience leading large, complex, multi-disciplinary teams and portfolios through strategic evolution, organizational change, and disciplined execution.
Strong understanding of U.S. education and economic mobility systems, including the roles of policy, practice, institutions, markets, funding, data, technology, community voice, and public narrative.
Demonstrated ability to translate long-term ambition into coherent strategy and organizational performance, with a track record of improving complex organizations through significant change or redesign, empowered and delegated leadership, clear accountability, disciplined investment priorities, and measurable outcomes.
Experience leading system-level changes across public, private, nonprofit, philanthropic, research, policy, technology, or community contexts.
Proven ability to build and sustain high-trust relationships with senior external stakeholders, including institutional leaders, policymakers, advocates, researchers, philanthropies, technology leaders, employers, and community partners.
Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity, public scrutiny, political sensitivity, and organizational transition with integrity, resilience, humility, and sound judgment.
Exceptional leadership skills, including a track record of building, developing, and leading senior leadership teams; creating high-performance cultures; navigating organizational change; and fostering trust, accountability, inclusion, and resilience.
Strong commitment to equity and inclusion, with demonstrated ability to embed equity into strategy, management practices, partner engagement, measurement, and organizational culture.
Demonstrated ability to use data, evidence, measurement, learning, and evaluation to inform strategy, improve outcomes, and make portfolio decisions.
Familiarity with the opportunities, risks, and governance questions associated with AI, data infrastructure, digital learning, advising, tutoring, assessment, and technology-enabled systems change.
Experience managing significant budgets, grants, contracts, reputational risks, partner relationships, and organizational tradeoffs.
Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to synthesize complexity into strategic action and communicate with clarity, credibility, and appropriate nuance.
A bachelor’s degree or equivalent demonstrated experience; advanced degree preferred but not required.
Must have unrestricted work authorization in the country where this position is located. The Foundation does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. This includes direct company sponsorship and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (eg: H-1B, O-1, L-1, E, OPT, STEM-OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.).
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree preferred but not required.

Responsibilities

Lead the U.S. Program’s strategy to make education a true engine of upward mobility in the United States.
Translate the division’s long-term ambition into clear strategies, investment and resourcing priorities, operating plans, decision rights, metrics, and accountabilities.
Remain actively engaged in the division’s programmatic and investment work, including reviewing and approving grants over $5 million, to maintain a strong connection between strategy, execution, partner realities, and intended impact.
Make disciplined tradeoffs across competing priorities, emerging opportunities, legacy commitments, and enterprise constraints.
Ensure strategies are grounded in evidence, equity, learner and community experience, external context, and a clear view of where the foundation can have distinctive impact.
Maintain focus on reducing opportunity and outcome gaps for historically underserved populations while expanding opportunity at scale.
Lead an integrated portfolio spanning K-12 teaching and learning, postsecondary learning and navigation, data and AI infrastructure, advocacy and system improvement.
Ensure the division develops and scales solutions that improve learning, navigation, persistence, completion, and mobility for millions of learners.
Guide strategies that strengthen enabling conditions for impact, including policy, advocacy, funding, communications, field-building, data infrastructure, and partner capacity.
Oversee thoughtful transition, wind-down, or integration of legacy bodies of work as the division aligns around a unified strategy.
Ensure AI and data infrastructure are central to the U.S. Program’s strategy and operating model.
Support investments that use AI and data to accelerate learning, improve advising and navigation, strengthen system feedback loops, reduce friction for learners, and support responsible scale.
Ensure AI-enabled strategies are designed responsibly, ethically, and with attention to learner needs, educator practice, equity, privacy, and public trust.
Cultivate trusted relationships with senior leaders across education, workforce, philanthropy, government, advocacy, research, technology, business, and community organizations.
Represent the foundation externally with credibility, humility, and sound judgment in complex and sometimes polarized U.S. education and policy environments.
Ensure grantee and partner strategies are aligned to the division’s goals, grounded in field insight, and capable of supporting durable systems change.
Mobilize coalitions, champions, and partner networks that can advance shared outcomes beyond what the foundation can achieve alone.
Partner closely with Communications, Global Policy & Advocacy, Legal, and other divisions to align external engagement, policy priorities, public positioning, and reputational risk management.
Lead the division through continued organizational evolution, aligning structure, talent, culture, and resources in ways of advancing the division’s updated strategy.
Build and lead USP leadership team as a high-performing team and shared decision-making body, with collective accountability for the success of the U.S. Program. Establish the trust, operating norms, decision discipline, and enterprise mindset required for leaders to make consequential decisions together, navigate disagreement productively, and hold one another accountable for division-wide outcomes.
Foster a strong divisional culture, balancing central support with deep local expertise across program teams, strategy planning and management, measurement, learning and evaluation, and AI/data infrastructure.
Strengthen talent management, succession planning, performance partnership, inclusive leadership, and employee engagement across the division.
Ensure strong governance, risk management, financial stewardship, grantmaking discipline, and operational execution.
Serve as an active member of the Executive Leadership Team, contributing to foundation-wide strategy, culture, decisions, tradeoffs, and institutional priorities.
Partner with the CEO, Chair, Board, ELT colleagues, and other senior leaders on issues that affect the foundation’s mission, reputation, operations, and long-term impact.
Bring a U.S. Program perspective to enterprise decisions while leading beyond the division and prioritizing the foundation’s collective success.
Partner across divisions and enterprise functions to simplify processes, strengthen decision-making, improve infrastructure, and steward resources effectively.
Model the foundation’s values of optimism, collaboration, rigor, innovation, and inclusion.