Director, Strategic Operations & Analysis

How You’ll Contribute

The Director of Strategic Operations and Analysis plays a pivotal role collaborating across the society to define, design, and optimize business and operational strategies. This role entails producing clear conceptual frameworks and distilling business and operational requirements. The ideal candidate should be able to provide insightful analysis, and serve as a thought partner to the business units and leadership teams across the National Geographic Society. They are a strategic thinker who excels in operational analysis, business design and effective communication.

Your Impact

Responsibilities Include

Supporting Business Leads and Senior Leadership: 25%

• Partner closely with business unit leaders to comprehend and define effective operational strategies aligned with organizational goals and priorities.

• Act as a liaison between different departments to ensure operational coherence, build organization-wide efficiencies, and facilitate cross-functional communication.

• Advise senior leadership leveraging insights, analyses, and recommendations based on operational, financial, and programmatic data and trends.

• Partner in strategic decision-making processes by offering valuable operational perspectives and innovative solutions.

• Work with business owners and the Strategic Insights & Initiatives team to understand measures of success, metrics, and key performance indicators across business units and projects. 

Operational and Service Design: 25%

• Develop, design, and optimize operational processes and service delivery models to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

• Create comprehensive service design frameworks and operational workflows through identification and alignment of business objectives and customer needs.

Conceptual Documentation: 25%

• Generate clear and concise conceptual documentation outlining operational strategies, business definitions, and frameworks for senior leadership review and implementation.

• Translate strategic visions into actionable operational plans and conceptual designs.

Requirements and Adoption: 25%

• Elicit, document, and communicate clear business and operational requirements.

• Partner with technology and business teams to ensure clear definition of business value; aligning business and operational requirements with technical capabilities.

• Facilitate large change management initiatives to support the adoption of new operational strategies, processes, and systems across the organization.

What You’ll Bring

Educational Background

Bachelor's degree, Master’s degree or equivalent experience preferred.

Minimum Years and Type of Experience   

10+ years of professional experience in strategic operations, business analysis, or a related field.

Necessary Knowledge and Skills

• The ability to drive impact through strong communication and collaboration skills, effectively partnering with diverse teams and decision-makers.

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate vision and strategy, motivating and inspiring team members, stakeholders, and various contributors to a project’s success.

• Experience building definition and alignment by leveraging a variety of visualization and facilitation practices.

• Proven track record in producing clear, actionable documentation of business and operational requirements and concepts.

• Exceptional analytical, problem-solving, and conceptual thinking abilities.

• Strong understanding of the core components of data analytics and metrics definition including data management, information architecture, domain modeling, data catalogs, and data governance. 

• Experience with a variety of principles and techniques for eliciting and clarifying requirements such as journey mapping, empathy mapping, service design blueprinting, use case specifications, user story development, jobs to be done, or others. 

• Familiarity with UML diagramming including use case diagrams, activity diagrams, object diagrams, and state diagrams.

• Demonstrated ability to work autonomously, taking ownership of milestones and planning.

Desired Qualifications

• Ability to engage and influence stakeholders at various levels within the organization.

• Certifications in relevant sectors including business analysis, operational design, change management, or facilitation. 

• Familiarity with a variety of project and work management frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban, and Waterfall.  

• Demonstrated ability of working across multiple operational strategies and business models including but not limited to grantmaking, events, attractions, media, and fundraising. 

• A genuine passion for National Geographic Society’s mission, and the work of Explorers, Storytellers, and Educators.

Supervision 

No Direct Reports

Salary Information

The National Geographic Society offers a competitive and holistic total rewards package. Our compensation structure and transparent pay philosophy are based on industry-specific market data for similar-sized nonprofit organizations.

The salary range for this position accounts for a wide range of factors including but not limited to organizational need; specific skill sets; experience and training; certifications; and more. At the National Geographic Society, individuals are typically hired at or near the starting point of the salary range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.

The salary range for this position is $128,250.00 - $135,000.00.

In addition, the National Geographic Society offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits package that includes, but is not limited to, medical, dental, and vision insurance; engaging and comprehensive wellness program; 401(k) retirement savings plan with matching contributions after 6 months of employment; flexible paid time off benefits with up to 22 days of paid annual leave per calendar year (15 days for new hires in their first year, prorated based on the number of pay periods remaining in the year) and 10 days of sick leave; 12 paid holidays and a paid winter break between December 25 and 31 (May not apply to all roles that are required to work during high volume seasons or essential workers. Please check with the hiring manager for confirmation.); paid parental leave, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility benefits; learning and development opportunities; Lifestyle Spending Account; pet adoption assistance and insurance; pre-tax transportation benefits with a generous employer subsidy; employer-paid life insurance and disability benefit; and a variety of National Geographic discounts and perks.

Job Designation

Remote - Our Remote designation includes staff who must work in another location in the U.S. or abroad, such as our regional leads for our Education and International teams or regional fundraisers in Advancement. Staff may also be designated as Remote by their supervisors (with approval by the Senior Team lead) because of their job duties, and are afforded this status when it is beneficial to NGS, their respective team, and the employee.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match with the position. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.