Senior Program Officer, Research & Measurement, Digital Connectivity

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

The Gender Equality division (GE) is focused on accelerating the trajectory that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are already on when it comes to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals that disproportionately affect women and girls - such as ending poverty and improving health. Women and girls are not a monolith: A woman's experience and the barriers she faces are different depending on factors like where she lives, how old she is, and how much money her family has - alongside other factors including her race, caste, and education level. For some, the primary barrier is access to basic health services or the ability to make choices about their bodies and futures. For others, it is a lack of leadership opportunity or the ability to control and invest money as they choose.

We seek to address these compounding barriers through deep partnership with our grantees. As a philanthropy, our role is to listen to and learn from these experts. We take risks in new areas, prove concepts, and bring these ideas to governments, partner organizations, and private sector companies to scale. And we build off our existing strengths as a foundation in areas like global health, digital tools, and data.

Application deadline: Wednesday, July 10 (11:59 PM PDT)

Your Role

The GE Gender Impact Accelerators team has launched a Digital Connectivity initiative with a central mission: accelerate gender equality through sustained closure of the gender digital divide. Launched in 2022, the Gender Equality division's Digital Connectivity learning agenda (GEDC) focuses on investments in research, innovative tools and partnerships, and advocacy, in order to answer a central question: how might we best advance meaningful digital connectivity that improves the lives and livelihoods of women and girls in the geographies and contexts where we work?

Multiple foundation teams are working on the development and deployment of digital tools and services with a desire to advance their sector-specific outcomes. There is growing recognition of the importance of digital access in enabling sectoral outcomes for women and girls and persistent gender digital divides in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa despite cost and coverage improvements. The GE division launched the GEDC learning agenda as an effort to expand data, evidence, and experimentation to address barriers to meaningful digital connectivity of women and girls, such as affordability, accessibility, literacy, relevance of content, safety and security, and norms.

Working closely with GE leadership and directly with Deputy Director, Digital Connectivity, we are looking for a Senior Program Officer to join our uniquely positioned, dynamic team to help drive forward the implementation of the GEDC learning agenda. As the Senior Program Officer, you will lead the design and execution of a strategic portfolio of foundation investments (grants and contracts) in high quality action-oriented data collection, research, and analysis. Specifically, you will work with key internal and external partners and collaborators to generate data and evidence on strategic barriers and opportunities to advance high-impact, meaningful digital connectivity of women and girls. You will provide project briefings and updates to foundation leadership and represent the foundation in meetings with internal and external partners, as well as at conferences and workshops. You will also contribute to activities related to portfolio management, launch, execution, and enablement of an effective portfolio.

This position reports to the Deputy Director, Digital Connectivity, Gender Impact Accelerators.

What You Will Do

• Support the development and execution of a narrative and investment strategy to advance research, evaluation, and measurement of gender-intentional digital inclusion, participation, growth, and resilience.

• Shape a catalytic and collaboration-forward portfolio of learning agenda investments from a two-pronged partnership strategy both internal (e.g., teams across health, economic opportunity, livelihoods, etc.) and external (e.g., multilateral institutions, Big Tech companies, tech advocacy institutions, academic consortia) to the Gates Foundation, and ensure that investments achieve their outcomes, making course corrections and adjustments to ensure success.

• Construct, lead, and conduct analysis to support portfolio management, learning and evaluation of the foundation's approach to gender intentional digital investment-making, and influence and shape the work of partners.

• Draw insights and learnings from the data and evidence partnerships, to inform both the team's strategy and programmatic priorities in collaboration with our programmatic colleagues as well as to promote evidence-informed decision-making in the public and private sectors.

• Establish and maintain relationships with internal colleagues and partners on high impact opportunities to integrate learning agenda questions and digital connectivity innovations into programmatic investments, strategies, and partnerships.

• Creatively capture and synthesize findings of the learning agenda to evaluate progress against the digital connectivity learning agenda, and communicate data, insights, and strategic analysis regularly to leadership, the team, partners, and stakeholders, including the creation of global public goods (e.g. reports, briefs, decks) that benefit the GE division, other Foundation teams, and external stakeholders and policymakers.

• Manage interdependencies, communicate program requirements, track progress, make decisions, identify, and mitigate risks.

• Partner with the Gender Equality program Policy Advocacy and Communications team to turn programming insights into advocacy and communications opportunities.

• Represent the foundation, the GE division, and the Digital Connectivity team in public events, meetings, and other fora across a variety of audiences.

• Support the implementation of creative solutions to guide inclusive processes (e.g., crafting and facilitating matrixed conversation, handling conflict, encouraging alignment).

• Balance competing priorities and be an engine to keep the collective work of a dispersed team moving forward.

Your Experience

We are looking for a team member who enjoys working on complex problems and has a passion for using data and evidence to transform the lives of people around the world. You are capable of structuring quantitative and qualitative inputs across a variety of sources to generate custom analytics to inform and influence decision-makers toward more and better-allocated resources to close the gender-digital gap. You are a sophisticated relationship manager, able to know when and how to support and influence partners. You have demonstrated an ability to navigate matrixed organizations, see opportunity in ambiguity, and communicate effectively with tact. You are prepared to work across a diverse set of subject areas, bridging a wide range of expertise all the while being a great teammate, with an ability to work with flexibility, efficiency, and diplomacy in an exciting, challenging environment.

Additionally, we seek:

• Advanced degree coupled with a minimum of eight plus years of work experience in analytically driven gender-equal digital inclusion or relevant equivalent experience.

• Field-based or delivery experience understanding the practical challenges of implementing research, evaluation, and other learning activities. Preferred experience on leading or commissioning empirical research and evaluation in women's digital inclusion and connectivity is desirable.

• Exposure to evidence-based grantmaking, with a preference for direct experience making and managing a portfolio of investments

• Preference for knowledge about the potential for digital tools to advance health outcomes

• Demonstrated capacity to analyze and use data and evidence as a driving tool for problem solving.

• Comfort with ambiguity and working in start-up mode on a small and agile team.

• Ability to work in a self-guided manner, balance multiple priorities and to self-manage demanding timelines.

• Excellent organizational, facilitation, oral, and written communication skills.

• Understanding of how to bring intersectional problem-solving approaches to strategies.

• Ability to work on complex, challenging problems and collectively create solutions working across partners from a diverse set of disciplines and geographies, bridging a wide range of expertise.

• Excellent partnership building and relationship management skills and judgment. Ability to define connections across different teams and parlay those into key measures of progress.

• Knowledge of strategy development and implementation, and accountability mechanisms.

• Ability to define a plan and implement against established goals; results-oriented with an ability to prioritize and focus and get things done within a complex organizational structure.

• A commitment to and orientation towards a diversity, equity, and inclusion mentality and application, including adept cross-cultural communication and relationship development skills

• Demonstrated initiative to solve unstructured problems with creativity, high energy, and a positive outlook.

• A highly cultivated sense of resilience. Can accept and recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and drive forward in the face of adversity.

• A sense of humor and a penchant for fun.

• Commitment to the foundation's core values, mission, and programs with an approach that is consistent with the foundation's guiding principles while holding oneself to the highest ethical standards.

• Application deadline: Wednesday, July 10 (11:59 PM PDT)

• Travel requirement: 30% domestic and international travel

• Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

• The salary range for this role is $166,300 to $249,500 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $181,200 to $271,800 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate's job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion - of voices, ideas, and approaches - and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.