PMO, Learning & Enrichment: Strategic Operations Lead

The Wallace Foundation; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

The Wallace Foundation seeks a Project Management Officer to lead the Learning and Enrichment initiative’s operations, ensuring cross-functional alignment among program, communications, and research teams. The PMO will build and maintain systems, schedules, and processes that drive collaborative progress and measurable impact across responsibilities.

Reporting to the Learning and Enrichment Director, the PMO will foster trustful external relationships, manage data-sharing practices, and oversee

Qualifications

• 6–10 years of relevant experience applying exceptional project management skills and proven success with improving, integrating and maintaining complex operational systems across distinct organizational units in an interdisciplinary team and with a wide range of external partners.
• Commitment to a collaborative approach that leads to open communications and shared problem resolution in an interdisciplinary team structure.
• Demonstrated capacity to build internal and external relationships of trust, candor, and transparency.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to anticipate issues before they arise.
• Experience working on complex projects with a large social science research component is helpful.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and integration of the overall framework and supporting systems and processes to operationally integrate the multiple strands of complex work for PSELI.
• Lead the development of a master planning and implementation schedule which incorporates all the deliverables for PSELI. The schedule will reflect the perspectives of grantees and other partners, and sensitivity to “on-the-ground” conditions, particularly in the schools.
• Manage the regular review of the schedule in implementation team meetings, as well as an easy and timely process to update the schedule, and an approach that allows for discussion and resolution of problems as they arise.
• Contribute to strategy and implementation discussions in the interdisciplinary team and unit.
• Recognizing that data collection is a foundational component of PSELI and requires smooth interaction of both program and research teams, manage the relationships with partners to ensure high-quality data collection, including the schedule, guidelines, supporting processes, and communications to facilitate data collection.
• Ensure data-sharing agreements are in place; track and support timely completion and data submission in collaboration with Program Officers.
• Ensure clear communications within the team and with grantees to support them in their work and as learning partners.
• Develop the annual grantee communications calendar which details content for key “milestone” communications to grantees, and incorporate into the overall master schedule.
• Working with the team, lead the process for the development, editorial review and publication of recurring initiative-level communications, such as the PSELI weekly e-newsletter.
• Develop and facilitate a process to solicit timely feedback from grantees about resources that will support them in planning and implementing their Wallace grant. Based on the input from grantees, work with the team to develop tools, templates, protocols, guidelines and associated materials that are responsive to this input.
• Work with the interdisciplinary team to design, implement and manage the process to identify topics/issues/deliverables for discussion. Manage the development of the agenda for implementation team meetings. Prepare and distribute meeting notes to ensure shared understanding and required follow-through. As needed, prepare materials and schedule After Action Reviews (AAR) at various stages of initiative implementation to capture learning to apply going forward.

Skills

Project management

Collaboration

Communication

Budgeting

Analytical thinking

Job description

The Wallace Foundation seeks a Project Management Officer to lead the Learning and Enrichment initiative’s operations, ensuring cross-functional alignment among program, communications, and research teams. The PMO will build and maintain systems, schedules, and processes that drive collaborative progress and measurable impact across responsibilities.

Reporting to the Learning and Enrichment Director, the PMO will foster trustful external relationships, manage data-sharing practices, and oversee