Director, Accelerator, Global Health

Gates Foundation; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 423,000 - 677,000; Full time

Job summary

The Gates Foundation seeks a Director for the Accelerator to shape bold, innovative platform bets in global health. You will steer the Activator as a venture engine, funding seedling concepts and guiding decision-making across a dynamic portfolio.

You will lead a multidisciplinary team, cultivate relationships with biotech, pharma, academia, and investors, and report progress to senior leadership. This role demands deep science fluency and transformative risk tolerance.

Qualifications

• MD/PhD or equivalent demonstrated in life sciences.
• Serial entrepreneur or venture-builder experience.
• Ability to make high-conviction calls under uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Set the strategic bets and portfolio direction for the Accelerator.
• Run the Activator like a venture engine with funding and milestones.
• Build and lead a high-performing, entrepreneurial team.
• Activate the external ecosystem through partnerships and investors.
• Steward governance and communicate progress to leadership.

Skills

Venture leadership

Strategic judgment

Biotech/health tech knowledge

Team leadership

Partnership development

Education

MD/PhD or equivalent in life sciences

Job description

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 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 Global Health division harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on diseases that carry a heavy burden but receive too little attention or funding — including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases, enteric and diarrheal diseases, and pneumonia. Where proven tools exist, we invest in getting them to the people who need them; where they don't, we fund the R&D to create them.

The Accelerator's goal is to conceive, design, test, and prepare the ecosystem for fundamentally novel platform technologies with breakthrough potential in service of the foundation's global health mission. Through its Activator unit, the team explores and funds “seedling” efforts across a wide variety of topics for proof-of-concept, and works to activate private-sector entities—biotech companies, pharma, and venture investors—to carry promising technologies the rest of the way. The team's current frontiers span curative, gene-based interventions for diseases like HIV and sickle cell disease, AI-enabled approaches to drug discovery, and the strategic partnerships and portfolio practices that keep the whole engine disciplined and connected to the broader global health ecosystem.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Most of the breakthroughs that eventually save millions of lives start out looking like long shots: an unproven platform, a scientist with a wild idea, a technology nobody in the field has bet on yet. The Accelerator is the Gates Foundation's technology innovation team — the place where those early bets get made, tested, and either killed quickly or carried far enough that the rest of the world can take them the rest of the way.

Director, Accelerator

The Accelerator is the Gates Foundation's technology innovation team — the place where those early bets get made, tested, and either killed quickly or carried far enough that the rest of the world can take them the rest of the way. The Director, Accelerator leads that team. This is a role for someone who has done this before as an operator, not just as an observer of the field: a founder or serial entrepreneur who has built biotech or health-technology companies from a scientific hunch into something real, and who knows firsthand what it takes to pick the right science, back the right people, and know when to walk away. You'll bring that judgment to a portfolio of foundation-scale bets on the platforms most likely to change the trajectory of global health.

What You’ll Do

Set the strategic bets

• Survey the scientific and technological innovation landscape and decide, with conviction, which fundamentally novel platforms are worth the foundation's time and capital.
• Conceptualize and articulate the Accelerator's strategy, and serve as the ultimate owner of its portfolio-level decisions and direction.
• Actively pursue synergies across foundation programs, affiliates, and external partner efforts that advance the same platform bets from multiple angles.

Run the Activator like a venture engine

• Lead the Activator unit's sourcing, funding, and staged, milestone-driven support of early-stage “seedling” concepts, from first hypothesis through proof-of-concept.
• Apply hands-on, founder-level judgment to evaluate scientific risk, technical feasibility, and execution risk simultaneously — and make the call on what to fund, what to scale, and what to kill.
• Design and enforce robust portfolio practices — quality technical execution, balanced risk-taking, and effective annual planning — across a portfolio of high-uncertainty bets.

Build and lead a high-performing, entrepreneurial team

• Lead the Accelerator's team of program officers and frontier-team leads, building a culture that can hold both scientific rigor and startup-style speed.
• Identify, hire, and mentor high performers; build a culture of inclusion and collaboration; delegate responsibility and empower others to own their bets.
• Be accountable for inclusive team culture and for driving progress against the foundation's DEI goals and commitments.

Activate the external ecosystem

• Cultivate and maintain strong relationships with the biotech, pharma, academic, and venture capital leaders who can carry Accelerator technologies from proof-of-concept into products.
• Source, sustain, and accelerate innovative partnerships in diverse forms — from RFP-style platforms and technology sentinel programs to direct, targeted investments in specific technologies, investigators, and companies.
• Represent the foundation externally on the Accelerator's strategic and execution priorities, including with prospective co-investors and portfolio companies.

Steward governance and communicate to leadership

• Lead quarterly reviews of the Accelerator's bets, reflecting progress and refinements in strategic direction.
• Communicate with division and program staff about opportunities and progress; develop reports, reviews, and summaries for the division President, CEO, and Co-chair.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with senior foundation leadership to ensure the Accelerator's bets stay connected to the foundation's broader global health strategy.

Your Experience

• An M.D., Ph.D., or equivalent demonstrated experience in a relevant life sciences or biomedical discipline.
• A track record as a serial entrepreneur or venture builder — having founded, co-founded, or served as the founding operating leader of multiple biotech or health-technology companies, taking novel science from concept through proof-of-concept, financing, or clinical validation.
• Direct experience evaluating early-stage science and technology as an investor, technical diligence lead, or venture partner, comfortable making high-conviction calls on people and science under real uncertainty.
• Deep, current technical fluency in one or more breakthrough platform areas relevant to global health (e.g., gene-based or curative therapeutics, synthetic biology, AI-enabled drug discovery, novel diagnostics, or biologics platforms).
• Experience building and leading high-performing, multidisciplinary technical teams, including senior scientists and program leaders.
• A demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with global leaders across biotech, pharma, academia, and the venture community, and to translate those relationships into partnerships that carry technology into the world.
• Excellent judgment and communication skills, with the ability to make the case for a bold, uncertain bet to senior, non-technical audiences, including foundation leadership and Co-chairs.

Additional Experience

• Prior experience within a foundation, global health, or other mission-driven organization, translating venture-style practices into a philanthropic context.
• Board experience with early-stage biotech or health-technology companies.
• Experience designing or running an accelerator, venture studio, or innovation ecosystem program.
• Familiarity with the health delivery contexts and constraints of low- and middle-income countries.
• An existing network of scientific founders, technologists, and investors willing to engage on global health problems.

The salary range for this role is $423,200 to $677,000 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 $465,500 to $744,700 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

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 [e-mail] with the position number and a brief description of your accommodation needs. Requests will be handled confidentially.

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.