Senior Director, Program Operations (San Francisco)

Any EF office or Remote within United States

ABOUT U.S. ENERGY FOUNDATION

U.S. Energy Foundations (EF) mission is to secure a clean and equitable energy future to tackle the climate crisis. We envision a healthy, safe, equitable economy powered by clean energy. We believe a thriving clean energy economy can create sustainable opportunities, spur innovation, and protect our climatefor today and future generations.

EF supports education and analysis to promote nonpartisan policy solutions that advance renewable energy and energy efficiency, while opening doors to greater innovation and productivitygrowing the economy with dramatically less pollution. For more than 30 years, EF has supported grantees to help educate policymakers and the general public about the benefits of a clean energy economy. Our grantees include business, health, environmental, labor, equity, community, faith, and consumer groups, as well as policy experts, think tanks, universities, and more.

We are working daily to create equitable systems that support people to flourish. We aim to bring humility, transparency, respect, and an appreciation for others lived experiences to our interactions with colleagues, grantees, and partners.

As EFs primary clients and partners are our funders and grantees, EF commits to acting as a strategic thought leader for our current and prospective funding partners and the field by:

• Collaboratingand cocreating, where feasible and desiredon strategy development, including hosting and/or managing funder collaboratives
• Highlighting the opportunity for climate philanthropy to maximize benefits to disadvantaged communities and those most impacted by climate change
• Offering excellent, responsive service by providing proactive, compelling, and timely updates and information

POSITION SUMMARY

At a time when the country is facing everincreasing urgency to tackle the climate crisis, EF is operating on the frontlines of this fight. As the organization has scaled to meet the challenge of transitioning to a clean energy economy, the need for effective program operations has emerged as a top priority. EF is seeking a Senior Director, Program Operations (SD)an experienced operations leader and strong people manager who will play a key leadership role in managing a complex budget and in building internal relationships and systems that foster clarity and inspire confidence in a highly matrixed organization with evolving needs. The SD serves as a leader within EFs Program team, which, in addition to the Program Operations team, comprises the National Policy team, focused on developing and implementing national strategy; the States and Regions team, which deploys placebased campaigns at the local, state, and regional levels; and the Strategic Communications team.

Using strong organizational, analytical, and communication skills, the SD supports work across the Program team. Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Programs, the SDs primary responsibilities include overseeing the programmatic grantmaking budget; ensuring systems are in place to establish accuracy and transparency; managing the threeperson Program Operations team; ensuring clear lines of communication and streamlined efforts across all areas of program operations; serving as the main liaison with other departments (e.g., Finance, People and Culture, IT, Grants Management, Strategic Partnerships); spearheading projects to improve our grantmaking and increase efficiency in our operations; developing and finetuning systems and processes to improve internal collaboration and alignment; and troubleshooting problems in interdepartmental alignment or budgeting.

This is a rare opportunity for someone who is highly organized and thrives in complex environments that allow highlevel thought partnership and execution across multiple and varied workstreamsall while working to solve the most profound challenge of our time.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Budget Management. The SD manages the organizations approximately $200million programmatic grantmaking budget, including managing allocations across EFs programs, tracking incoming revenue, and ensuring the organizations overall fiscal health. This includes the ability to communicate the Program teams budget and fiscal health to staff and to the Board of Directors, as well as a transition to budget management in Salesforce. The SD leads the annual budget development process, ensuring effective allocation, reconciliation, and implementation of budgets.

Impact Tracking and Communications. The SD tracks progress against our institutional and programmatic strategies via our key performance indicators (KPI), which are reported to our funders, staff, and Board of Directors. This includes working with staff and consultants to oversee the development of data collection systems and ways to communicate our progress, as well as oversight of the organizations Program Dashboard, which provides regular impact updates to our donors.

Development Support and Reporting. The SD supports our Strategic Partnerships team by ensuring the Program team accomplishes their components of grant reports and grant deliverables. This includes supporting a Senior Manager in developing and managing content for reporting tools and EFs Program Dashboard, as well as frequently fielding and responding directly to funder inquiries, including providing Salesforce data about our grantmaking. The SD manages the organizational calendar to communicate and maintain clear deadlines with the Strategic Partnerships team and other relevant colleagues to meet and communicate our deliverables.

Annual Strategic Planning and Meeting Planning. The SD manages EFs annual planning processes, including overseeing consulting resources and staff time to develop clear systems to track organizational priorities, deadlines, and new opportunities that emerge throughout the year, as well as packaging and communicating this information to EFs Board of Directors and key internal audiences. The SD also designs and facilitates monthly Program team meetings; a biannual, inperson team conference; and other crossteam leadership meetings, as necessary.

CrossTeam Collaboration. The SD serves as the lead point of contact between the Program team and other EF operations departmentsFinance, Grants, IT, People and Culture, and Strategic Partnershipsensuring that priorities, decisions, and timelines are clearly communicated and understood. This role translates complex information across technical, operational, and strategic audiences to promote clarity and shared understanding, while anticipating communication gaps and proactively developing processes that strengthen collaboration and accountability across teams. Specifically, the SD supports the Senior Vice President, Programs in managing the daily activities of the Program team and key consultants, a team of approximately 100 people. This includes integrating EF processes, systems, and strategies to streamline this workload and champion best practices. The SD develops and manages a centralized approach to meetings, strategy, and budget development that supports this integration. The SD coordinates with the Strategic Partnerships team to collect information and track progress for strategy evaluation and funder reporting, and with the Grants Management team to develop, manage, and update effective grantmaking processes and tracking, program policies, impact metrics, and best practices to ensure consistency. The SD provides Program team feedback on the grants management system and contributes to decisions about systems updates.

Team Management: Supervise a team of three fulltime employees and consultants, when needed, to oversee all aspects of Program Operations, supporting team members career growth and professional development. Serve as an organizational leader who embodies values of transparency, equity, accountability, and transformational impact.

Special Projects. EF is a dynamic and evolving organization. The SD leads various special projects, though support from consultants and colleagues is regularly available. This role manages delegation of these opportunities, as appropriate.

Organizational Culture and Inclusion. The SD partners with EFs Programs and Equity team to advance EFs mission, vision, and values through program strategy, particularly in managing the integration of inclusion into the annual planning process and developing, tracking, and reporting inclusionary metrics.

QUALIFICATIONS

The Senior Director, Program Operations brings expertise in operations, with an aptitude for streamlining and improving business processes and systems. The successful candidate is a detailoriented doer who is skilled at leading a team to deliver on organizational priorities. With an ability and desire to move between strategy and implementation, the ideal candidate will be a seasoned leader who understands how to build effective internal partnerships, foster clarity and transparency crossfunctionally, and consistently drive toward greater efficiency. A successful candidate also will bring the humility and emotional intelligence to form trusting relationships that allow for the cocreation of impactful and equitable processes that support organizational strategy and programming.

While climate experience is not required, candidates must display a genuine passion for, and belief in, the mission and values of the organization. Those who understand the balance between operational efficiency, mission, and impact are strongly preferred. Experience in similarly sized organizations and with budgets akin to that of EFs is also highly desirable.

• Budget and Resource Management. As the primary budget]]>