Deputy Director, Flourishing and Future of Education

OVERVIEW

The Deputy Director is the senior strategic and operational partner to the Chief Learning Officer (CLO) for the Flourishing and Future of Education portfolio within the Global Institute for Shaping a Better Future, with a dual mandate: to lead the team’s operating model and cross-cutting execution, and to partner on its most important programmatic work.

As the senior operational leader for the Flourishing and Future of Education team and a key strategic thought partner to the CLO, you will translate priorities into action, build the systems and conditions for strong execution, and keep important work moving. You will also help advance the team’s major inquiries and initiatives, bringing structured support on high-priority initiatives, connecting work across the portfolio, and helping turn learning into impact at scale.

You are a highly proactive leader with strong programmatic knowledge, senior-level judgment, and exceptional operational skill. You bring structure to complex work, drive progress across multiple priorities, and know how to engage and mobilize others to move work forward.

Launched in 2025, the Global Institute for Shaping a Better Future is a center for global learning, leadership development, and evidence generation for people working to transform classrooms, schools, and systems so that all students can develop holistically. Within the Institute, the Flourishing and Future of Education team explores how education must evolve so that young people can flourish and help shape a more peaceful, just, and sustainable future. We focus on the human capacities this requires — including purpose, agency, awareness, connectedness, and wellbeing — and learn from pioneering leaders, schools, and systems already showing what a different future of education can look like.

You will help advance work that brings together students, educators, school leaders, and other system leaders who are working to reshape education around the world. Key initiatives include:

• The BOLD Fellowship, bringing together leaders from some of the world’s most transformational schools and learning environments.
• Collaborative learning inquiries on some of the biggest questions shaping education today, including human flourishing, educating for peace, and the future of education in an age of AI — bringing together educators, system leaders, researchers, and other experts to learn together and make progress on these questions.
• Leadership development experiences and workshops that support leaders’ personal growth and strengthen their ability to lead collectively and drive systems change.

This is a fast-moving, global portfolio spanning time zones and evolving priorities. The Deputy Director will bring strong executive judgment and operational excellence to turn ambitious ideas into action, helping the CLO and team extend the reach and impact of their work.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Lead the team’s operating model and drive execution (50%)

You will lead the team’s cross-cutting operations and execution and serve as the CLO’s senior strategic and operational partner—translating priorities into action, creating the systems and conditions for the team to perform at its best, anticipating what is needed next, and ensuring important work moves forward with pace and quality.

• Own the team’s operating model and execution, including planning, systems, budgets, resourcing, operating rhythms, cross-team coordination, and execution across priorities; partner with the CLO to maintain strategic clarity and build a high-performing team culture.
• Build and manage the team’s capacity by drawing on support across the wider Global Institute team, managing the Program and Operations Manager to ensure strong day-to-day operations, and proactively identifying and addressing capacity gaps.
• Provide strategic and operational leverage to the CLO, taking ownership of key cross-cutting priorities, strategic projects, and partnerships
• Support the CLO on key meetings and external engagements, from assessing and scoping opportunities to strong meeting preparation and follow-through
• Develop clear, compelling presentations and materials that communicate priorities and emerging insights for internal and external audiences
• Advance the team’s funding strategy, partnering with the Global Development team to cultivate prospective supporters, translate priorities into compelling proposals and reports, and strengthen impact measurement behind them

Strengthen and advance major strategic inquiries and initiatives (50%)

You will partner with the CLO and Global Leadership Directors to strengthen the quality, coherence, and execution of major programmatic work — providing strategic, research, and operational leverage on key initiatives, and leading on cross-cutting efforts to scale impact.

• Serve as a strategic and operational partner on priority initiatives, sometimes taking an emerging idea through to execution, and at other times working with initiative leads to drive strong impact - developing clear plans and milestones, mobilizing resources, evaluating impact, and ensuring execution stays on track.
• Lead targeted research and synthesis on priority learning questions, drawing on evidence and practice to generate emerging insights and strong examples.
• Strengthen cross-cutting work across the portfolio, connecting learning across initiatives and identifying opportunities to increase coherence and impact.
• Extend the reach and impact of the team’s learning, helping define how insights can be scaled, turning learning into compelling knowledge products, and expanding their reach through the Better Future Hub and external channels.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 10–15 years of experience, including significant experience managing complex portfolios across functions or geographies and/or leading teams; could have previously held a senior leadership role, served as a COO or chief of staff, or worked as a strategic consultant.