President, Global Policy and Advocacy

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofitfighting 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 were committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

Application Instructions:

The Gates Foundation is partnering with Russell Reynolds Associates to support the search for this role. Applying through the Russell Reynolds platform is the primary way to be considered for this position.

Interested candidates are invited to apply via the Russell Reynolds Engage platform accessible through this link: Candidates will first be asked to register and create a profile. From the home page navigate to Job Post Apply for a Position then enter the following career code: 2604-021NA to submit a resume and cover letter for consideration.

Application Deadline: This role will be open for applications until May 1st 2026.

Your Role

The President Global Policy and Advocacy serves as the foundations senior government relations leader and chief advisor to the CEO and Governing Board on global political and geopolitical affairs. This role sets and drives the foundations global advocacy government relations financing and philanthropic partnership strategies to advance its global health and development priorities as well as key U.S. domestic priorities. The President represents the foundation in critical policy environments worldwide and cultivates durable relationships across national governments regional and multilateral institutions and a diverse set of global and local partners to ensure strategies are grounded in political realism and institutional insight.

This leader brings a deep and sophisticated understanding of domestic US political dynamics paired with a strong global perspective shaped by knowledge and engagement across both the global north and the global south especially the Middle East Africa and Asia. They possess the ability to build coalitions across governments multilateral institutions and philanthropic partnerships and navigate complex geopolitical environments with credibility discretion and sound judgement. The President leads the GPA division to

integrate government relations strategies with programmatic ambition aligned with the foundations priorities and partnerships.

What Youll Do

Provide Enterprise Political Leadership and Strategic Counsel

• Serve as the foundations chief advisor and strategist to the CEO Trustee Governing Board and Executive Leadership Team on complex domestic geopolitical and multilateral dynamics affecting the foundations mission.

• Provide forward-looking analysis and judgment on policy and political issues to inform enterprise strategy investment decisions risk management and institutional positioning.

• Demonstrate balanced bipartisan and globally credible acumen across diverse political systems and perspectives.

• Partner closely with regional leaders and program strategy teams (PSTs) providing geopolitical insight and developing strategic guidance that strengthens country-level positioning and execution across diverse geopolitical contexts.

Shape and Align Global Government and Financing Strategy

• Set the overarching strategic direction for global government relations and partnership with multilateral finance institutions.

• Guide the development and execution of global financing and policy strategies including donor funding domestic resource mobilization and multilateral development bank engagement making disciplined tradeoffs across competing institutional priorities.

• Ensure alignment across regional and market strategies while empowering senior leaders to drive execution within their respective contexts.

• Partner closely with Program Presidents and division leaders to ensure government relations policy and financing strategies directly advance programmatic priorities and measurable outcomes.

Mobilize and Strengthen Global Coalitions and Partnerships

• Set the enterprise direction for coalition and partnership strategies that sustain and expand government and financial support to advance the foundations three long-term goals: ensuring no mother child or baby dies of a preventable cause; eliminating deadly infectious diseases for the next generation; and enabling hundreds of millions of people to break free from poverty.

• Lead and continuously evolve politically relevant coalition and engagement strategies across key donor markets including North America and other priority geographies to expand and strengthen durable support for global health and development.

• Build and maintain trusted senior-level relationships across diverse stakeholders including government leaders civil society faith communities think tanks philanthropic peers and private-sector partners ensuring broad-based and sustained institutional credibility.

• Oversee a dynamic philanthropic partnerships strategy seeking to expand strategic giving in the US and globally to the foundations priority areas

• Mobilize influential champions and cross-sector partners to amplify policies increase issue salience and reinforce sustained government and financial support for foundation priorities.

• Steward the foundations most senior and strategically consequential relationships with government leaders multilateral finance institutions philanthropic peers and global influencers.

• Empower regional and market leaders to design and execute context-specific coalition and engagement strategies aligned to enterprise priorities.

• Foster cross-market learning and alignment to ensure coalition efforts reinforce one another and advance shared institutional goals.

Represent the Foundation with Credibility and Influence

• Represent the foundation publicly at the highest levels in bilateral multilateral and global policy forums.

• Operate effectively in high-visibility and high-pressure contexts including in close partnership with the CEO and engagement with the Trustee demonstrating sound judgment discretion and a confident but non-ideological approach when the foundations work intersects with sensitive political dynamics.

• Guide and oversee strategic recommendations for Trustee external engagements ensuring alignment with enterprise strategy institutional priorities and long-term mission objectives.

• Personally steward relationships and engagements where presidential-level presence advances institutional influence and credibility.

• Partner closely with the Communications division to ensure strategy and public positioning on political issues are aligned disciplined and globally coherent.

Lead and Evolve the GPA Division

• Lead a globally distributed division through continued organizational evolution clarifying enterprise priorities and aligning structure capabilities and leadership and resources to long-term strategy.

• Manage a portfolio of program and market-facing teams ensuring each has a clear and rigorous strategy delivers measurable programmatic outcomes and builds strong internal and external partnerships.

• Oversee long-term portfolio planning and resource allocation making disciplined tradeoffs to evolve investments capabilities and geographic focus over time.

• Build and sustain a high-performing senior leadership team with the appropriate capabilities judgment and bench strength to deliver on enterprise priorities.

• Mobilize and align the full GPA division including government engagement development policy and finance advocacy communications partnership philanthropic engagement and key country platforms to deliver cohesive market-informed strategies in support of the foundations goals.

• Steward the foundations reputation relationships and institutional positioning with governments and global partners across all engagement efforts.

• Provide credible technical expertise in public policy development finance and economics to internal and external stakeholders reinforcing the divisions authority and influence.

• Ensure strong governance risk management compliance and ethical standards across all engagement and advocacy efforts.

• Sustain morale resilience and performance through periods of geopolitical uncertainty and institutional change.

Your Experience

• Deep and demonstrated judgment with a track record of advancing institutional priorities in complex political environments.

• Demonstrated senior-level political acumen and strategic judgment across diverse global contexts including the United States major donor markets and low- and middle-income countries with the ability to navigate complex dynamics institutions and stakeholder environments to advance mission outcomes.

• Proven ability to operate globally with experience engaging across multiple geographies and political systems and the ability to fluidly shift perspective between countries and regions.

• Experience advising senior leaders or boards on politically sensitive issues with credibility and presence at the highest levels.

• Demonstrated success leading large complex and globally distributed teams within highly matrixed organizations with experience leading teams through strategic evolution and organizational change.

• Ability to build clarity alignment and high-performance during periods of transition while modeling the foundations core values of collaboration rigor innovation and optimism.

• Demonstrated success building and sustaining high-trust relationships and coalitions across diverse political and institutional contexts both externally and within large complex organizations.

• Experience representing an organization publicly in high-stakes environments.

• Exposure and/or experience with global health or development policy and financing including donor funding or multilateral institutions.

• Preferred exposure to grantmaking and/or managing investment portfolios.

• Preferred exposure in strategic communications public positioning or philanthropic partnerships.

• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills with the ability to synthesize complexity into strategic action.

The salary range for this role is $800000 to $USD. As a mission driven organization we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidates job-related skills experience and expertise as evaluated during the interview process.

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

Were 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 processsuch as an ASL interpreter alternative interview format or physical accessibility supportwere happy to help. Please contact 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.