The Team
The foundation's U.S. Program works with partners to help ensure that people navigating U.S. education systems and job markets can develop the knowledge, skills, and agency they need to thrive in their communities. As the division advances its long-term ambitions, strong strategy, planning, portfolio management, and cross-team coordination are essential to translating priorities into impact.
Strategy, Planning and Management serves as a critical capability across U.S. Program, helping teams translate strategy into execution, strengthen portfolio and investment decision-making, connect work across organizational boundaries, and create the planning, governance, and operating practices needed to deliver results.
Your Role
We are hiring for multiple Senior Strategy Officer opportunities aligned with this role profile across several teams within the U.S. Program. The core capabilities and qualifications are consistent, while the specific portfolio, partners, and areas of emphasis will vary by team.
As a Senior Strategy Officer, you will serve as a strategic and operational thought partner to senior leaders and colleagues, helping shape and refine strategy, translate priorities into coordinated action, and strengthen execution. They bring together strategy, planning, analysis, portfolio management, and stakeholder coordination to help teams make high-quality decisions and deliver against their goals. Working across organizational boundaries, Senior Strategy Officers synthesize complex information, identify connections and tradeoffs, and develop the plans, processes, analyses, and decision-support tools that enable leaders and teams to move from strategy to results.
Depending on team placement, you may lead discrete strategy projects, structure complex and ambiguous problems, develop evidence-based recommendations, and guide strategy development and execution planning.
The three teams hiring Senior Strategy Officers are:
- Advocacy & System Improvement: The role of this team is to enable systems to adopt and sustain effective practices, and to change how systems operate so those practices become standard, scalable, and durable. In this context, the solutions our colleagues develop and deliver are more likely to reach more learners, driving collective progress towards our shared goals.
- Data & AI: Supporting portfolios focused on unlocking the potential of data and artificial intelligence to improve educational and economic outcomes. The work may emphasize portfolio strategy, cross-team and partner coordination, learning, and connecting Data & AI priorities across U.S. Program.
- Office of the President: Supporting division-wide strategy implementation, planning, governance, and organizational coherence. The work emphasizes cross-team synthesis, strategic planning, decision support, equitable investing improvement, and initiatives that span multiple U.S. Program teams.
As part of the interview process, we will assess candidates based on both their interests and the evolving needs of these teams. If you have a strong preference for a particular team or area of work, please indicate it in your cover letter.
These roles are based in Seattle, WA. Relocation assistance can be provided for candidates not currently residing within a commutable distance from Seattle, WA.
Applications accepted until 5 PM Pacific Time on Friday, October 23, 2026.
What You'll Do
- Partner with senior leaders and colleagues to translate strategic priorities into actionable plans, portfolio approaches, operating rhythms, and measurable outputs.
- Develop a deep understanding of assigned strategies, portfolios, and organizational priorities and use that understanding to identify connections, gaps, risks, tradeoffs, and opportunities.
- Lead or support complex strategy projects from problem definition through recommendation and execution planning, structuring complex problems, assessing strategic options, developing evidence-based recommendations and producing the analyses, project plans, meeting materials, and final strategy documents that support leadership decision-making.
- Support and, where appropriate, lead complex planning and strategy processes, including annual planning, strategy and portfolio reviews, governance cycles, leadership forums, and cross-team initiatives.
- Coordinate across program and functional teams and, where relevant, external partners and co-funders to manage interdependencies, strengthen alignment, and drive follow-through on shared priorities.
- Synthesize information across teams, portfolios, partners, and workstreams to develop clear insights, recommendations, and decision-support materials for senior leadership.
- Design and conduct analytical work to support strategy development and decision-making, developing methodologies and analyzing data and evidence from research and public data sources.
- Build and maintain tools, dashboards, core strategy and portfolio artifacts, tracking mechanisms, and knowledge-management practices that enable effective decision-making and coordinated execution.
- Prepare and facilitate leadership engagements, planning sessions, portfolio discussions, and other forums, ensuring leaders have the context and analysis needed to make sound and timely decisions.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen processes, workflows, and ways of working, including thoughtful use of AI and digital tools to improve efficiency, quality, and collaboration.
- Identify, design, and manage a network and portfolio of external strategy resources and consulting partnerships to meet planned and surge needs and strengthen team strategies.
- Contribute to cross-team priorities and special initiatives that require structured problem-solving, strong project leadership, and the ability to navigate ambiguity and competing priorities.
- Support an inclusive culture by modeling equitable and collaborative behaviors, building trust across diverse perspectives, and addressing issues in a thoughtful and timely way.
- Possibly provide portfolio and investment management support, including pipeline tracking, financial analysis, forecasting, progress monitoring, and analyses that inform prioritization and resource allocation.
- This position requires domestic travel up to 10%.
Your Experience
- Advanced degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.
- Significant experience in strategy development, strategy execution, portfolio management, management consulting, strategic planning, or a related role, including leading complex and ambiguous initiatives that require structured problem-solving. Demonstrated ability to translate strategic priorities into actionable plans, processes, workstreams, and decision-making structures.
- Conduct and synthesize quantitative and qualitative analysis, research, and evidence to assess strategic options, test assumptions, and inform decision-making. Demonstrated ability to frame complex problems, develop and assess strategic options, synthesize evidence, and translate analysis into clear recommendations for senior decision-makers.
- Demonstrated experience managing cross-team coordination and partner relationships, including driving alignment across organizational boundaries.
- Experience with portfolio management practices such as pipeline management, financial analysis, forecasting, resource planning, progress monitoring, or investment decision support.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate complex information clearly and concisely and to develop high-quality, leadership-ready written materials, analyses, presentations, and recommendations.
- Significant experience building trusted relationships and working effectively across teams, functions, and stakeholder groups in a complex or matrixed organization.
- Ability to quickly build deep working knowledge of unfamiliar strategies, portfolios, and subject areas and connect work across different contexts.
- Strong project and process management skills, including the ability to manage multiple priorities, work through ambiguity, anticipate risks, and drive work to completion.
- Experience working in or with U.S. education, workforce development, public policy, philanthropy, or related systems is preferred but not required for each of the three roles. Candidates with demonstrated ability to rapidly build relevant domain expertise are also encouraged to apply.
- Demonstrated commitment to inclusive collaboration and to incorporating diverse perspectives into strategy, planning, and decision-making.
*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.).
The salary range for this role is $190,100 to $294,700 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle, WA and Washington D.C., where our US offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $209,100 to $324,100 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hire salaries are typically between the salary range minimum and midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.
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Hiring Requirements
As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Candidate Accommodations
We’re committed to providing an inclusive and accessible hiring experience for all candidates. If you have a disability or medical condition and need an accommodation at any stage of the application or interview process—such as an ASL interpreter, alternative interview format, or physical accessibility support—we’re happy to help. Please contact HR@gatesfoundation.org with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.
