President

Pisces Foundation; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 500,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

The Pisces Foundation seeks a strategic, values-driven President in San Francisco to partner with the Board of Trustees and lead the organization through its next chapter. You will shape and advance an updated environmental strategy, guide grantmaking, strengthen relationships with grantees, partners, and family offices, and ensure a culture of accountability and impact.

As a senior leader, you will steward operations, finance, and program development, cultivate collaborations across sectors,

Qualifications

• Senior leadership experience managing teams, operations, and budgets.
• Governance experience serving boards or trustees with sound judgment.
• Strategic thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset in growth or change.
• Strong relationship-building across diverse partners and communities.
• Proven ability to communicate publicly and convene stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead and steward the Foundation through its updated strategy and growth.
• Partner with the Board of Trustees and Fisher family ecosystem to shape priorities.
• Advance environmental grantmaking and program strategy in San Francisco.
• Cultivate collaborations with grantees, partners, and other funders.
• Ensure effective operations, financial stewardship, and staff empowerment.

Skills

Senior leadership

Governance

Strategic acumen

Relationship cultivation

External communication

Job description

POSITION DESCRIPTION

PISCES FOUNDATION – PRESIDENT

Reports to Board of Trustees – San Francisco, CA – Full Time

The Pisces Foundation enters its next chapter as a respected philanthropic partner, convener, and catalyst, with a strong reputation, engaged trustees, a talented team, and a distinctive approach to advancing environmental progress and strengthening San Francisco. As the Foundation launches an updated strategy that includes expanded grantmaking in San Francisco, the next President will have the opportunity to help shape its future while preserving the collaborative spirit, entrepreneurial mindset, and commitment to impact that have defined Pisces since its founding.

Working closely with Trustees Randi and Bob Fisher, the President will serve as a trusted advisor, strategic partner, and organizational leader. They will guide the Foundation’s continued evolution, expand its impact to new priorities, and build an impactful role within the philanthropic ecosystem in San Francisco. The President will advance collaboration, identify emerging opportunities, build influential partnerships, and create meaningful pathways for engagement across grantees, partners, and family members.

After more than a decade of effort to contribute to a world in which people and nature thrive together, the President will ensure the success of the Foundation’s updated 2.0 strategy focused on advancing environmental solutions and supporting San Francisco. Both goals are pursued through one coordinated strategy that is grounded in the belief that complex challenges require systemic solutions. The Foundation seeks to catalyze progress by investing in leaders, fostering aligned collaboration, and strengthening fields capable of driving lasting change.

Internally, the President will have the opportunity to lead a talented and mission-driven organization through a period of stability. By fostering trust, continuing to empower staff, and identifying new opportunities, they will help Pisces build on its reputation as an effective, agile, and high-performing organization with a deeply relational culture. They will also model the collaboration across the Foundation and within the broader Fisher family office and philanthropic ecosystem that the Foundation seeks to support in its program initiatives.

As the President joins the Foundation, they will have both significant existing assets to work with and unusual creative opportunity to explore. The President will have the benefits of the Foundation’s reputation as a thought leader and innovative grantmaker, as well as a network of local, national, and global relationships. With the generative opportunity to guide the implementation of a cutting-edge strategy and new initiatives, they will partner with the trustees to explore expanding the Foundation’s platform to support the next chapter of Fisher family philanthropy. Ultimately, this is an opportunity for a values-driven leader to steward a foundation with outsized influence and significant aspirations, meaningfully expand its impact today, and position Pisces to continue to help shape solutions to some of society’s most complex challenges and grow its impact for years to come.

About the Foundation:

The Pisces Foundation strengthens the collaborations and shared capacity that helps people, communities, and nature thrive.

How do we match the accelerating pace and scale of urban, environmental, and climate challenges today? Progress depends not only on strong organizations and effective strategies; unlocking complex challenges requires collaborative action. In turn, those collaborations require a shared vision, alignment, and the dedicated support and shared tools that strengthen changemakers individually and collectively.

The Pisces Foundation supports these key ingredients of durable change, serving as a catalyst for people and organizations who seek to align on priorities and then act at scale. We apply this approach to efforts that improve the environment, stabilize the climate, and help San Francisco, where we are based, thrive. We focus on helping partners move from ideas to action, working together in ways that create momentum and progress that lasts.

The Candidate Profile:

• Senior leadership and management: Experience as a senior leader, with evidenced staff management, operational acumen, financial sophistication, and success in stewarding the growth of programs and initiatives within high-performing organizations; ability to maintain a strong and healthy organizational culture defined and driven by a mission and values.
• Governance experience: Demonstrated success serving as a trusted advisor to principals, boards, or trustees while maintaining organizational clarity and effectiveness; ability to navigate ambiguity, competing perspectives, and evolving priorities with diplomacy, transparency, and sound judgment.
• Strategic acumen and entrepreneurial mindset: Leadership and management experience with cross-sector experience, strong operational acumen, and an entrepreneurial spirit; demonstrated success leading organizations through periods of growth, change, or strategic evolution.
• Relationship cultivation and bridge-building: Considerable social and political savvy, professional maturity, and the ability to establish and maintain genuine relationships across diverse constituents, partners, and peers; warm, humble, approachable, and authentic servant leader, with a curious and collaborative spirit.
• External communication and public engagement: Evidenced ability to represent an organization across philanthropy, nonprofits, business, government, and civic leadership in ways that inspire confidence and engagement; ability to serve as a thought leader and neutral convener for a common cause, building excitement and alignment across partners and peers.