President, U.S. Program

Gates Foundation; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 800,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health benefits

Paid time off and family leave

Foundation retirement contribution

Job summary

Gates Foundation, based in Seattle, seeks the President of the U.S. Program to lead the division’s strategy and execution, advancing education as a pathway to upward mobility. You will shape policies, investments, and partnerships across K-12, postsecondary learning, data infrastructure, and advocacy, while guiding a high‑performing leadership team.

The role demands deep expertise in U.S. education systems, equity, and AI-enabled innovation, with responsibility for measurable outcomes and

Qualifications

• Extensive executive experience leading complex, multi-disciplinary teams.
• Proven ability to translate long-term ambition into strategy and measurable outcomes.
• Strong understanding of U.S. education, workforce, and economic mobility systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the U.S. Program strategy to advance equitable upward mobility in education.
• Oversee a multi‑divisional portfolio spanning K-12 to postsecondary learning and navigation.
• Guide AI and data infrastructure investments responsibly and at scale.
• Develop and maintain a high-trust leadership team and partnerships with external stakeholders.

Skills

Executive leadership

Strategic planning

People management

Change management

Portfolio management

Policy and advocacy

Stakeholder relationship building

Data and AI literacy

Public speaking / representation

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

AI/Data infrastructure

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 U.S. Program

The U.S. Program (USP) is advancing a recently updated division-wide strategy to accelerate equitable upward mobility through educational attainment. Guided by the belief that every person should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential, the division works to ensure that education is a true engine of opportunity and economic mobility in the United States.

To realize this vision, the U.S. Program is focused on doubling the growth rate of credential attainment among 18-34-year-olds, resulting in 10 million more learners attaining credentials that reflect their skills and knowledge and deliver sustained economic value. Delivering on this vision requires a step-change in how the division makes decisions, allocates resources, and translates evidence into action across a complex, interdependent portfolio.

The U.S. Program advances this goal through an integrated strategy spanning K-12 Teaching and Learning, Postsecondary Learning and Navigation, Data and AI Infrastructure, and Advocacy and System Improvement. Working with educators, institutions, students, families, policymakers, employers, researchers, technology leaders, community organizations, and other partners, the division identifies, develops, and scales evidence-based solutions that improve outcomes and reduce inequities across the education-to-workforce continuum.

Your Role

The President, U.S. Program, leads the foundation’s U.S. education strategy and the division’s long-term effort to make education a true engine of upward mobility. This role sets and stewards the division’s vision, strategy, operating model, culture, talent, partnerships, investments, and impact in the field.

The President leads a complex, multi-disciplinary division through a period of significant strategic and organizational evolution, moving from strategy design to disciplined implementation and execution. Success in this role requires exceptional people leadership, including the ability to build trust, develop leaders, foster accountability, and guide a high-performing organization through significant change and transformation. The President builds and empowers a strong leadership team, creating the clarity, ownership, and decision-making authority needed for leaders to drive the division’s work forward. The President is responsible for ensuring that the U.S. Program’s structure, capabilities, decision-making, resources, and partner ecosystem are aligned to the division’s long-term ambition and near-term 2030 milestones. These include learning acceleration, gateway course completion, postsecondary enrollment, credential completion, learning mobility, AI and data infrastructure, public goods, state policy, funding, communications, and engagement.

The President brings deep knowledge of U.S. education, workforce and economic mobility, philanthropy, public systems, policy and advocacy, product development, and AI-enabled innovation. They combine strong programmatic judgment with enterprise leadership, public credibility, disciplined management, and the ability to lead through ambiguity, complexity, and change. The President represents the foundation externally, serves as a strategic partner to the CEO and Chair/Board, and as an active member of the Executive Leadership Team, contributes to the leadership and direction of the foundation. The President ensures the U.S. Program advances measurable impact while modeling the foundation’s values.

What You’ll Do

Drive the U.S. Program Strategy

• Lead the U.S. Program’s strategy to make education a true engine of upward mobility in the United States.
• Translate the division’s long-term ambition into clear strategies, investment and resourcing priorities, operating plans, decision rights, metrics, and accountabilities.
• Remain actively engaged in the division’s programmatic and investment work, including reviewing and approving grants over $5 million, to maintain a strong connection between strategy, execution, partner realities, and intended impact.
• Make disciplined tradeoffs across competing priorities, emerging opportunities, legacy commitments, and enterprise constraints.
• Ensure strategies are grounded in evidence, equity, learner and community experience, external context, and a clear view of where the foundation can have distinctive impact.
• Maintain focus on reducing opportunity and outcome gaps for historically underserved populations while expanding opportunity at scale.

Advance System-Level Impact Across the Education-to-Workforce Continuum

• Lead an integrated portfolio spanning K-12 teaching and learning, postsecondary learning and navigation, data and AI infrastructure, advocacy and system improvement.
• Ensure the division develops and scales solutions that improve learning, navigation, persistence, completion, and mobility for millions of learners.
• Guide strategies that strengthen enabling conditions for impact, including policy, advocacy, funding, communications, field-building, data infrastructure, and partner capacity.
• Oversee thoughtful transition, wind-down, or integration of legacy bodies of work as the division aligns around a unified strategy.

Lead Responsible Innovation in AI, Data, and Infrastructure

• Ensure AI and data infrastructure are central to the U.S. Program’s strategy and operating model.
• Support investments that use AI and data to accelerate learning, improve advising and navigation, strengthen system feedback loops, reduce friction for learners, and support responsible scale.
• Ensure AI-enabled strategies are designed responsibly, ethically, and with attention to learner needs, educator practice, equity, privacy, and public trust.

Build and Mobilize the Partner Ecosystem

• Cultivate trusted relationships with senior leaders across education, workforce, philanthropy, government, advocacy, research, technology, business, and community organizations.
• Represent the foundation externally with credibility, humility, and sound judgment in complex and sometimes polarized U.S. education and policy environments.
• Ensure grantee and partner strategies are aligned to the division’s goals, grounded in field insight, and capable of supporting durable systems change.
• Mobilize coalitions, champions, and partner networks that can advance shared outcomes beyond what the foundation can achieve alone.
• Partner closely with Communications, Global Policy & Advocacy, Legal, and other divisions to align external engagement, policy priorities, public positioning, and reputational risk management.

Lead and Evolve the U.S. Program Division

• Lead the division through continued organizational evolution, aligning structure, talent, culture, and resources in ways of advancing the division’s updated strategy.
• Build and lead USP leadership team as a high-performing team and shared decision-making body, with collective accountability for the success of the U.S. Program. Establish the trust, operating norms, decision discipline, and enterprise mindset required for leaders to make consequential decisions together, navigate disagreement productively, and hold one another accountable for division-wide outcomes.
• Foster a strong divisional culture, balancing central support with deep local expertise across program teams, strategy planning and management, measurement, learning and evaluation, and AI/data infrastructure.
• Strengthen talent management, succession planning, performance partnership, inclusive leadership, and employee engagement across the division.
• Ensure strong governance, risk management, financial stewardship, grantmaking discipline, and operational execution.

Serve as an Enterprise Leader

• Serve as an active member of the Executive Leadership Team, contributing to foundation-wide strategy, culture, decisions, tradeoffs, and institutional priorities.
• Partner with the CEO, Chair, Board, ELT colleagues, and other senior leaders on issues that affect the foundation’s mission, reputation, operations, and long-term impact.
• Bring a U.S. Program perspective to enterprise decisions while leading beyond the division and prioritizing the foundation’s collective success.
• Partner across divisions and enterprise functions to simplify processes, strengthen decision-making, improve infrastructure, and steward resources effectively.
• Model the foundation’s values of optimism, collaboration, rigor, innovation, and inclusion.

Your Experience

• Deep and demonstrated executive judgment, with a track record of advancing ambitious institutional priorities in complex environments.
• Extensive experience leading large, complex, multi-disciplinary teams and portfolios through strategic evolution, organizational change, and disciplined execution.
• Strong understanding of U.S. education and economic mobility systems, including the roles of policy, practice, institutions, markets, funding, data, technology, community voice, and public narrative.
• Demonstrated ability to translate long-term ambition into coherent strategy and organizational performance, with a track record of improving complex organizations through significant change or redesign, empowered and delegated leadership, clear accountability, disciplined investment priorities, and measurable outcomes.
• Experience leading system-level changes across public, private, nonprofit, philanthropic, research, policy, technology, or community contexts.
• Proven ability to build and sustain high-trust relationships with senior external stakeholders, including institutional leaders, policymakers, advocates, researchers, philanthropies, technology leaders, employers, and community partners.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity, public scrutiny, political sensitivity, and organizational transition with integrity, resilience, humility, and sound judgment.
• Exceptional leadership skills, including a track record of building, developing, and leading senior leadership teams; creating high-performance cultures; navigating organizational change; and fostering trust, accountability, inclusion, and resilience.
• Strong commitment to equity and inclusion, with demonstrated ability to embed equity into strategy, management practices, partner engagement, measurement, and organizational culture.
• Demonstrated ability to use data, evidence, measurement, learning, and evaluation to inform strategy, improve outcomes, and make portfolio decisions.
• Familiarity with the opportunities, risks, and governance questions associated with AI, data infrastructure, digital learning, advising, tutoring, assessment, and technology-enabled systems change.
• Experience managing significant budgets, grants, contracts, reputational risks, partner relationships, and organizational tradeoffs.
• Exceptional communication and relationship‑building skills, with the ability to synthesize complexity into strategic action and communicate with clarity, credibility, and appropriate nuance.
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent demonstrated experience; advanced degree preferred but not required.

The salary range for this role is $800,000 to $1,100,000 USD. As a mission driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job‑related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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.).

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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 [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.