Senior Program Coordinator, Communications

Gates Foundation•Seattle, WA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Program Coordinator (SPC) will be part of the Strategy Planning and Management (SPM) team and will support the Communications Division by developing and managing of a set of communications-related investments. The SPC serves as the primary point of contact for the Strategic Communications & Insights, Internal Communications, and Office of the Chief Communications Officer portfolios. As an embedded operational and portfolio partner, the SPC translates team priorities into investments, budgets, timelines, and action plans. The Communications portfolios contain a high volume of investments in varying levels of complexity, with primary focus on contracts. The role is responsible for coordinating, developing, and managing portfolios with an emphasis on processes and systems, investment due diligence and timeline management. In support of strategic communication projects and initiatives, this role will support budget oversight and planning, financial analysis and reporting, and process management for the portfolio of investments, which will include primarily programmatic and operational contracts, and small number of dedicated grants. The SPC will support and manage operational projects and processes as needed. The SPC will work in close partnership with SPM officers, SPCs, the DDSPM, and FP&A, and collaborate closely with other business partners across the foundation. The SPC will develop and nurture very strong relationships with investment-owners and agency partners. This position is a limited-term position for 18 months and located in our Seattle, Washington office. Relocation will not be provided. Applications will be accepted until 5:00pm PT on July 31, 2026

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of five years’ work experience, or equivalent experience.
Minimum 2 years of experience excelling in a Program Coordinator role at the foundation.
Demonstrated ability to handle higher volume or complex portfolios.
Able to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in a fast-paced, challenging environment.
Open to rapid change and able to learn new things quickly.
Able to distill what is needed next, even without expertise in programmatic content.
Strong track record of facilitating both investment and portfolio level decision making.
Organized and highly detail orientated with demonstrated ability to act as liaison across matrixed teams and organizations.
Understanding of basic investment rules, regulations, policies, processes and practices and can advise when they are applicable.
Ability to communicate with internal and external stakeholders at all levels about technical and operational details, effectively adjusting approach to meet varying needs and level of understanding.
Able to develop and nurture strong relationships with internal and external partners.
Fast learner and proactive problem-solver skilled in leading partners toward creative and flexible solutions.
Eager to learn and apply new technologies, AI tools, automation, and digital workflows, while following responsible-use and data-governance practices.
Demonstrates effectiveness influencing individuals and teams without explicit authority.
Recognizes complexity and assesses risks and alternatives in light of competing requirements and incomplete knowledge.
Experience working across investment, finance, reporting, and collaboration systems (e.g., INVEST/Salesforce, Power BI, Excel, SharePoint, Teams, and similar platforms).
Basic SharePoint site administration skills, including metadata tagging, document view creation, archiving, and creating and maintaining confidential files.
Commitment to fostering a positive and supportive work environment amongst all team members, a healthy sense of humor encouraged.
Demonstrates DEI approach in understanding and valuing differences in others and seeking input from the values and uniqueness of people of different groups and cultures.
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

Contract experience highly desirable.

Responsibilities

Investment Management: Works closely with investment makers to develop, manage, and maintain a portfolio of investments, including a high proportion of contracts. This may include advising on investment structure, ensuring compliance with foundation processes, maintaining internal systems, initial investment due diligence, and timeline management. Increasingly, this includes supporting investments and contracts involving data access, analytics, AI-enabled workflows, and related data governance considerations. Responsibilities also include contract scoping, renewals, and amendments; vendor relationship management; and participation in budget discussions and contract strategy.
Financial and Portfolio Management: Collects portfolio data and partners closely with internal finance and operations teams to ensure accurate budget tracking and forecasting. Provides budget oversight and planning, financial analysis and reporting, and portfolio management to ensure ongoing alignment to goals and priorities. Maintains portfolio tracking tools, supports forecasting cycles, monitors portfolio health, and produces leadership-ready reporting to support financial decision-making.
Relationship Management: Collaborates with internal and external business partners, agencies, and vendors throughout the investment lifecycle to lead investments from planning to execution. Responsible for building and nurturing trusting advisory relationships at a cross-team, divisional and foundational level, and liaising with peers to inform and improve internal systems and processes. Serves as a trusted operational advisor, proactively identifying issues and helping teams navigate investment and portfolio decisions.
Cross-Functional Coordination: Coordinates across Legal, GCS, FP&A, IT, investment owners, and vendors to move investments from planning through execution.
Training and Onboarding: Acts as subject matter expert on investment-related processes, tools, systems, and templates and provides training, ongoing coaching and process change support to Communications team and external partners to ensure successful adoption and sustained use.
Operational Support: Working in alignment with the SPM team, support the Comms Leadership Team (CLT) in decision making on investments, pipeline, prioritization, annual pipeline planning, and other areas as needed.
Project Management and Coordination: Work on critical projects, as needed - programmatic, operational, organizational -- cutting across the team or across the foundation. Identify areas for process improvement, generate recommendations, and implement solutions. Contribute to the ongoing health and culture of the team. This includes developing and maintaining scalable tools, templates, dashboards, and reporting resources used across the division.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI): Advise on opportunities to center DEI in our investments, investment portfolios, partner engagement and relationship building. Participate in shaping and implementing divisional practices, tools, and accountability.