Vice President, Programs (Bridgeport)

Location: Hybrid role based in Connecticut. Regular travel throughout the state, including Eastern Connecticut, Hartford County, Litchfield County, and other partner locations. Bridgeport office presence is expected, but this role is not tied to a traditional office-based schedule.

Position Overview

The Vice President, Programs (VPP) is responsible for aligning programmatic work across The Housing Collective, supporting and developing program leaders, and ensuring HC's initiatives operate as a coordinated portfolio advancing a shared mission.

Reporting to the CEO and serving on the Senior Leadership Team, the VPP oversees five directors and one project manager. This role provides strategic leadership across HC's programs, connecting work across housing, homelessness, policy, systems change, and community partnerships. The VPP identifies opportunities for collaboration and growth, helps align priorities across initiatives, and ensures organizational strategy is translated into clear plans, structures, and outcomes.

HC's initiatives are led by experienced directors with deep expertise in housing, homelessness, systems change, and community engagement. The VPP leads through these experienced leaders, fostering collaboration, building organizational capacity, and creating the conditions for teams to navigate complexity and advance HC's long-term vision. This is first and foremost a leadership role rather than a content-expert role.

Key Responsibilities

People Leadership & Capacity Building

• Lead, coach, and develop HC's senior program leaders, creating the conditions for their continued growth, success, and impact across the organization.
• Ensure every program team has clear roles, decision-making authority, work plans, supervision, and professional development support.
• Build management capability across the program organization so that supervision, feedback, and accountability are consistent and dependable.
• Strengthen organizational resilience through documentation, cross-training, knowledge transfer, and transparent resource planning.

Strategy & Alignment

• Translate HC's organizational strategy into clear program priorities, work plans, budgets, staffing plans, and results frameworks.
• Bring regional and community-level insight into HC's organizational strategy, ensuring priorities reflect what is actually happening in the field.
• Ensure HC’s initiatives operate as aligned, mutually reinforcing parts of one housing systems-change agenda rather than as separate programs.
• Champion alignment across HC's housing and homelessness initiatives, helping create a more integrated and coordinated approach to advancing housing stability and systems change across Connecticut.
• Connect HC’s homelessness response work to its broader housing stability, supply, preservation, and policy strategies.
• Identify opportunities for collaboration, growth, and innovation across HC's programs and partnerships to increase organizational impact.
• Bring a clear-eyed view to where HC should invest, expand, or step back, in partnership with the CEO and Senior Leadership Team.

Program Oversight & Operating Discipline

• Provide executive oversight of program budgets, grant and contract deliverables, compliance requirements, reporting deadlines, and partner commitments.
• Establish clear operating rhythms for program leadership: cross-team coordination, work plan review, issue escalation, and resource planning.
• Work with finance, development, communications, and operations to ensure program plans are financially realistic, fundable, and operationally sound.
• Oversee shared measurement, data-informed learning, and impact reporting.

Partnership & External Engagement

• Build and maintain trusted working relationships with the public agencies, municipalities, nonprofit partners, funders, and community leaders engaged in HC’s programs.
• Represent HC at partner tables, funder conversations, and regional convenings as delegated by the CEO, who leads HC’s public policy voice.
• Surface what HC is learning through its regional work to inform HC’s policy agenda, and support development in pursuing and reporting on public and private funding.

Who Should Consider This Opportunity?

• The Housing Collective welcomes candidates from a variety of sectors and leadership backgrounds. Candidates may come from roles such as Vice President of Programs, Vice President of Community Impact, Chief Program Officer, Executive Director, Senior Director, Regional Director, or other leadership positions overseeing complex programs, partnerships, and teams.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years of progressively senior leadership experience, including at least 5 years supervising senior staff or managers.
• Experience leading through other leaders, including supervising directors, department heads, or other senior-level professionals responsible for independent bodies of work.
• Experience translating strategy into structure, including roles, decision-making authority, work plans, budgets, and performance measures.
• Experience leading complex initiatives, program or portfolios across multiple geographies, funding streams, stakeholder groups or organizational functions.
• Demonstrated success building and maintaining cross-sector partnerships, coalitions, or collaborative initiatives involving public agencies, nonprofits, funders, community organizations, or other diverse stakeholders.
• Experience managing complex budgets, grants, contracts, reporting requirements, and partner commitments.
• Strong facilitation, writing, and communication skills, with the judgment to adapt to varied audiences.
• Belief that stable, affordable housing is foundational to thriving communities.
• Preferred, not required: experience in affordable housing, homelessness response, community development, or housing policy.
• Preferred, not required: familiarity with Continuum of Care structures, Coordinated Access, HMIS, or HUD-funded environments, or with collective impact and backbone organization models.

Leadership Competencies

• Skilled people leader who coaches senior staff and builds accountable teams
• Strategic, systems-oriented thinker who translates strategy into execution
• Strong collaborator able to lead through influence
• Ability to build clarity and trust during transition, ambiguity, and organizational change
• Confident executive presence with staff, partners, funders, and Board members
• High degree of integrity, diplomacy, emotional intelligence, and accountability

What Success Looks Like

In the first 18-24 months, success will be demonstrated through:

• Strong, supported program directors who are growing as leaders
• Greater coordination and collaboration across HC's initiatives
• Identification of opportunities to expand organizational impact
• Stronger integration of HC's housing and homelessness work into a unified strategy
• Increased organizational clarity around priorities, accountability, and resource allocation

About The Housing Collective

The Housing Collective is a Connecticut-based nonprofit organization dedicated to ending homelessness and expanding access to safe, affordable housing.

As a backbone organization, HC operates at the intersection of policy, practice, community voice, and investment, aligning systems, not just delivering programs. HC partners with more than 200 organizations statewide and is recognized as a leading voice in housing systems change in Connecticut.

Our integrated housing systems-change approach is advanced through our core collective impact initiatives: Opening Doors, Centers for Housing Opportunity, and Housing for All. Together, these initiatives connect homelessness prevention & response, housing stability, affordable housing production & preservation, housing policy & practice, and community voice to advance HC’s mission.

Our initiatives and programs are supported by a strong organizational infrastructure including finance, fund development, communications, and operations teams.

Gallagher's HR & Organizational effectiveness team provides expert guidance and hands-on support in HR, Recruiting, and Payroll to help organizations stay focused on achieving their strategic business goals.