Managing Director

The Starfish Institute is a nonprofit advisory that partners with visionary organizations tackling complex social challenges. We are focused on two of the most critical and urgent issues of our time: education and climate change. These thorny issues are too interconnected to be solved by any one organization alone. Collaboration can also be hard, messy work. We exist to bring together diverse players, remove the barriers to collaboration, and fuel coordinated action for the benefit of people and planet.

The Starfish Institute is the nonprofit advisory arm of Beyond100K (formerly 100Kin10), a national network of diverse organizations collaboratively working to end the STEM teacher shortage by 2043, especially for those most excluded from STEM opportunities. Beyond100K prepared over 100,000 STEM teachers in its first decade by developing three mutually reinforcing strategies: (1) enlisting leading organizations to make public, audacious commitments to the network’s shared goal, (2) identifying where to focus energy and resources for the greatest impact, and (3) developing tools for knowledge exchange and collaborative problem-solving.

The Starfish Institute was created as a nonprofit advisory to apply Beyond100K’s proven approach to other persistent social challenges. While we are primarily focused on education and climate change, we also consider other projects aligned with our approach on a case-by-case basis.

To date, Starfish has been managed by Beyond100K leadership, working with clients such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Johnson & Johnson, and more. The Starfish Institute is ready to expand its impact, partly through focusing its efforts in the education and climate sectors and is seeking a full-time Managing Director to lead this period of growth.

About the Role: Managing Director, Starfish Institute

We’re looking for an entrepreneurially-minded Managing Director, with a strong background in client services and climate, to take over the day-to-day leadership of The Starfish Institute. In this role you will be responsible for the overall success of the Institute, including the rapid expansion of our pipeline, the oversight of our consultancy engagements, and the onboarding of future team members.

This position reports to the Executive Director of Beyond100K, Talia Milgrom-Elcott, and is responsible for the overall success of Starfish. Specific responsibilities will require a broad range of skills including business development, impact consulting, project management, multi-stakeholder coordination, and relationship management. The right candidate will be excited at the opportunity to work with the existing team and the strategic vision of our ED while building the future of the consultancy.

Our Managing Director will be the kind of person who seeks out opportunities to build new initiatives, relationships, approaches, and processes. Characteristics that lead to success in this role include comfort with ambiguity, resourcefulness, curiosity, self-motivation, and reliable follow-through.

Your Responsibilities will Include:

Executive Leadership & Strategy

• Lead and expand Starfish’s consultancy and advisory services, as well as the operations, marketing, and financial systems that support those services
• Further develop Starfish’s strategy for tackling complex social challenges
• Build, lead, and manage the team to achieve agreed budgets and targets
• Represent Starfish Institute (and by extension, Beyond100K) in relevant forums and meetings

Client Delivery & Operations

• Manage and support the project teams to ensure quality deliverables and client experience
• Set up systems to ensure smooth operational flow for multiple projects and teams operating at one time
• Prioritize needs, timelines, and projects as appropriate
• Directly deliver client work as appropriate (approximately 25% time to start)
• Recruit, manage and develop Starfish Institute’s pool of freelance consultants so that there is a balanced skills portfolio to service current and predicted future demand.
• Develop and manage of implementation plans, timelines, staffing plans, and budgets for the project portfolio
• Maintain strong relationships with clients and potential clients
• Develop client feedback mechanisms for learning purposes

Business Development & Marketing

• Develop an ongoing pipeline of impactful projects and services, in line with Starfish’s mission, from a diverse portfolio of clients and donors. Grow the current portfolio of four projects annually to 11+ over three years.
• Proactively contact and develop relationships with potential and existing clients in order to promote the work and services of Starfish Institute and grow the level of demand for Starfish Institute’s consultancy and research services.
• Provide leadership on bid proposals, contract negotiation and management of a pipeline of work
• Develop ongoing relationships with clients and seek regular feedback from clients in the period after assignments have been completed in order to improve the quality of existing work and improve the quality and relevance of future work offered to clients.

Your Experience

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 12 years of related professional experience, including in the following areas:

• Experience in the climate sector including in-depth knowledge of climate issues, policies, and solutions.
• Impact and/or management consulting
• Building new initiatives, including the processes to sustain them
• Business development and relationship management
• Systemic change and addressing complex social challenges

Skills

• Business Development: You are not afraid of building an ambitious pipeline, and have successfully secured clients previously. You understand how to build strong relationships and convert them into client relationships.
• Project Leadership: You have a proven track record of successfully navigating and leading teams to perform complex projects, demonstrating adaptability and strong problem-solving skills. Your meticulous approach and ability to coordinate diverse teams ensure timely and effective project delivery.
• Strategic and Analytical: You excel at understanding and framing complex problems, and applying various frameworks and tools to develop solutions.
• Operations: You are adept at designing and implementing the operational systems that enable a team to hit organizational goals.
• Strategic Communicator & Facilitator: You skillfully guide dynamic conversations on complex topics, fostering collaboration and generating actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making.
• People Leader: You excel at managing and developing individuals and fostering strong team dynamics

Mindsets

• Entrepreneurial: You see solutions where others see challenges. You enjoy building from scratch, and investigating new ideas and approaches when they present themselves.
• Passion for Social Change: The drive and desire to contribute to making change in our society with interest in social change theories and putting those theories into practice. You believe deeply in the power and potential of collective change.
• Adaptability: The ability to thrive in an ambiguous environment where you have autonomy to drive your work
• Racial Justice and DEI Leadership: The ability to lead in a way that is centered on racial justice and DEI
• Continuous Improvement: You are someone who is continually striving to improve. You collect data and determine opportunities to improve to better meet the needs of partners and the Network
• Growth Mindset: The ability to identify new areas for learning; regularly create and take advantage of learning opportunities; use newly gained knowledge and skill on the job and learning through their application
• Self-motivation: The drive to proactively take the initiative, identifying problems and opportunities across your portfolio, developing recommendations, and taking action on those recommendations

Benefits

People who thrive at the Starfish Institute at Beyond100K are team-oriented, open-minded, creative, and flexible and possess a strong desire to learn and grow in a feedback-rich environment. Our culture embraces colleagues with genuine warmth, a curiosity to learn, a drive toward excellence, the ability to laugh at themselves, an eagerness for feedback to spur growth and impact, and an interest in co-workers as colleagues and as human beings.

We believe in community. We believe that diverse perspectives and backgrounds create a rich work environment that is essential to our work. We are committed to building an organization with raised consciousness in order to impact how we collaborate with our partners, support our network, and work together as a team. We aim to build each other up, empower each other, and give each other what we need to grow and thrive. We hope you will join us as we continue to build a diverse organization that fosters a work environment where people from all backgrounds are welcomed, valued, and supported.

The Managing Director role offers a competitive compensation package with a full salary range of $160,000 – $190,000 annually. Starting salary will be determined based on experience and qualifications, typically falling within the range of $160,000 – $180,000. Benefits are highly competitive including four weeks of paid time off, twelve paid holidays, a week of paid time off at the end of the calendar year, 5% match for retirement contribution, and highly competitive health benefits.