Strategic Stakeholder Engagement Lead

DRT Strategies, Inc; Silver Spring (MD); On-site; USD 90,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

DRT Strategies, Inc. seeks a Stakeholder Engagement Specialist to support a phased Mission and Organizational Support engagement.

You will plan interviews, workshops, leadership sessions, and cross-organizational engagements, synthesize input into themes, and help build trust and alignment during sensitive assessments. The role transitions from Section I to Section II, carrying stakeholder knowledge and lessons learned to inform engagement activities and deliverables for FDA-related work and

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years of relevant experience in management analysis, stakeholder engagement, organizational change, communications, facilitation, or program/project support.
• Experience supporting U.S. Federal Government clients or similarly complex, highly regulated organizations with multiple stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrated experience planning or supporting interviews, workshops, focus groups, working sessions, stakeholder meetings, or other facilitated engagements.
• Strong qualitative analysis skills, including the ability to synthesize stakeholder input into concise themes, findings, summaries, and actionable follow-up items.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, diplomacy, and judgment when working with senior leaders, staff, and stakeholders who may have differing perspectives or concerns about organizational change.
• Strong writing and presentation skills, including preparation of meeting materials, discussion guides, summaries, briefing content, talking points, trackers, and other stakeholder-facing products.
• Ability to organize and track multiple engagements, deadlines, action items, and follow-up commitments in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated discretion in handling sensitive organizational, workforce, and stakeholder information and an understanding that contractor recommendations are advisory to federal leadership.

Responsibilities

• Plan, coordinate, and support structured interviews, focus groups, surveys, leadership sessions, working sessions, and other stakeholder engagement activities across both project phases.
• Develop stakeholder maps and engagement plans that identify key audiences, interests, concerns, influence, dependencies, communication needs, and appropriate engagement approaches.
• Conduct or support interviews with federal leaders and staff using neutral, well-structured questions; capture perspectives accurately while maintaining discretion, confidentiality, and trust.
• Support leadership retreats, cross-collaborative sessions, and roles-and-responsibilities clarity engagements by developing agendas, discussion guides, read-ahead materials, facilitation aids, and follow-up products.
• Synthesize interview notes, survey results, meeting input, and other qualitative evidence into themes, findings, stakeholder considerations, decision points, and recommended follow-up actions.
• Support functional mapping and R&R clarification by documenting stakeholder perspectives on responsibilities, coordination needs, handoffs, decision points, escalation paths, and areas of ambiguity or overlap.
• Support development of stakeholder communications and mission-positioning products, including audience-specific messages, talking points, one-pagers, briefing decks, and engagement summaries.
• Prepare accurate session summaries, action-item trackers, decision logs, issue/risk inputs, and stakeholder follow-up materials within required timeframes.
• Monitor engagement commitments and emerging stakeholder concerns; identify areas of resistance, disagreement, or misalignment and elevate them to project leadership for resolution.
• Coordinate closely with organizational development, research/analysis, communications, and program management team members to ensure stakeholder input is reflected consistently in assessment findings and deliverables.

Skills

Stakeholder engagement

Federal government experience

Organizational change

Communications

Facilitation

Qualitative analysis

Interpersonal skills

Writing

Presentation

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

DRT Strategies, Inc. seeks a Stakeholder Engagement Specialist to support a phased Mission and Organizational Support engagement.

You will plan interviews, workshops, leadership sessions, and cross-organizational engagements, synthesize input into themes, and help build trust and alignment during sensitive assessments. The role transitions from Section I to Section II, carrying stakeholder knowledge and lessons learned to inform engagement activities and deliverables for FDA-related work and