Chief of Staff

PURPOSE

Spark seeks a Chief of Staff to partner with the CEO as we scale a proven village-led model through national government partnerships and multi-country growth. This scope of work outlines the role's mandate, core responsibilities and first-year goals.

ABOUT SPARK

Spark believes that families in every village and neighborhood should have the right to community, purpose, and progress. We have worked in 800+ villages across 6 countries and pioneered a community-driven development model in sub-Saharan Africa. Our model combines facilitated community meetings with a small, discretionary grant to catalyze local action and institution building. We partner with governments and NGOs to scale the model on rural communities' own terms. You can read more on our website.

THE ROLE

The Chief of Staff serves as a partner to the CEO, ensuring strategic priorities are executed, cross-functional initiatives are effective, and the Board and external partners are engaged with care. The role blends strategic insight, project management, and communication excellence to increase organizational and executive effectiveness.

WHO YOU ARE

You are a go-getter who builds and don’t wait for direction to figure out how to make a project or process better. You bring the rare combination of being highly organized, i.e. nothing drops, and genuinely creative: you design for mission and values and are bored by repeating what has been done before. You do not want to do development as usual, and you care about expanding high-impact work through new modalities.

You are motivated to join at a crucial juncture in our growth, as we build government and donor coalitions and generate evidence on village cash and facilitation models. The people who thrive at Spark drive improvements within the organization and make systems easy to navigate, effective, and reinforcing of our values.

LOCATION

New York City preferred; remote candidates considered.

TIME COMMITMENT

Full time.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Chief of Staff ensures Spark operates with clarity, focus, and execution excellence across a globally distributed team, uplifting the future facing work of the CEO and leadership team, while enabling speed at turning strategies into actions.

1. Strategic Planning and Management

Design and manage multi-year strategic planning and review cycles, as well as annual planning and reviews. Ensure these processes reinforce Spark's values in how plans are made and reviewed.

Year One Goal: Facilitate Spark’s 2035 vision and strategy process, finalizing in a living document that includes paths to multi country scale.

Responsibilities:

• Lead Spark's multi-year and annual planning, goal-setting, and review processes.
• Establish operating practices that keep strategic priorities moving (quarterly reviews, planning cycles, dashboards, implementation calendars).
• Identify and communicate bottlenecks and opportunities to advance work with greater quality and speed, including unblocking decisions that get stuck.

2. CEO Effectiveness

Support the CEO on strategic initiatives, serving as thought partner, project manager, and implementer on high-potential projects and ensuring quality and timely completion of deliverables.

Year One Goal: Strategic initiatives are launched and delivered with high quality, leaders can report on their standing against annual goals at any moment, and the CEO spends 20% more time on emergent opportunities versus managing current strategies.

Responsibilities:

• Pick up and drive ad hoc projects from initiation to close as needed by the Leadership Team, including for example drafting concept notes on, and for, emerging opportunities, including populating them with the most relevant data and market numbers for possible growth scenarios.
• Oversee the Office of the CEO, partnering closely with the operations and fundraising teams.
• Ensure CEO priorities progress internally, from modeling a multi-country initiative, to organizing a strategic retreat with partner organizations, to introducing an HR benefit that aligns the employee experience with the organizational ethos.

3. Board and Stakeholder Engagement

Ensure the Board of Directors and other key stakeholders are engaged and updated on Spark's work through high-quality communications and effective, efficient meetings and experiences.

Year One Goal: 100% on-time delivery of board materials, with positive board feedback.

Responsibilities:

• Own preparation for Board of Directors meetings: decks, notes, and follow-ups.
• Drive engagement with key external stakeholders through improving ad hoc communications during strategic moments.
• Draft high-level communications, including donor updates, strategic announcements, and stakeholder correspondence.

4. Team Alignment

Deliver internal and external communications on behalf of the CEO and Leadership Team, bolstering stakeholder and staff alignment and access to the information they need to advance Spark's work.

Year One Goal: Communications to staff, board, and key partners are consistent with the CEO's tone and voice, and CEO communication output increases 25%.

Responsibilities:

• Keep teams informed about organizational priorities and progress.
• Ensure important decisions, priorities, and next steps are communicated clearly across the organization.
• Build and steward channels for discussion and alignment-building for strategic work.
• Act as a barometer for alignment: identify where strategy is unclear, contested, or unevenly understood, and close those gaps proactively.

WHAT YOU BRING

• 5+ years of relevant experience, including supporting a CEO or senior leadership in a global, mission-driven organization
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with sound judgment and discretion
• Strategic thinking paired with a strong bias toward action and results
• Comfort working independently while anticipating needs and proactively solving problems
• Self-driven and highly professional, with an entrepreneurial spirit
• A genuine interest in community-driven development
• Proven ability to support cross-time zone collaboration

OTHER INFORMATION

Job Location: New York City preferred. Other remote locations in the US will be considered.

Reporting to: CEO

Start Date: As soon as possible

Salary: The preliminary salary range for this role is approximately $80,000 –$90,000, with final compensation based on experience and skills. We provide a comprehensive benefits package, including 100% employer-paid health insurance premiums for employees and 50% coverage for dependents, a 401(k) plan with a 3% employer contribution, generous paid leave, and a professional development stipend, among other benefits.

Probation period: Three months probation period with learning and performance objectives

How to Apply: Follow the link to apply:

SAFEGUARDING

Our safeguarding follows a do no harm principle. All Spark staff are expected to respect and uphold the safeguarding procedures and principles to minimize harm to stakeholders, program participants, and the environment, in compliance with the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework and national legislation in the countries where we operate.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

Spark Microgrants provides equal employment and advancement opportunities to all individuals. Employment decisions at Spark are based on merit, qualifications, and abilities. Spark does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by the law. Spark will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities unless doing so would result in undue hardship to daily operations.