Vice President, Market Strategy and Partnerships

Description

Title: Vice President, Market Strategy and Partnerships

Employee Status: Full-Time

Salary: Grade 10

Starting range of $175,000 – $227,000 | Detroit

Starting range of $160,000 – $210,000 | Grand Rapids

Reports to: Chief Regional and Markets Officer

Department: Regional and Market Leadership

Location: Detroit or Grand Rapids

Hybrid: In office: T/W | WFH: M/Th/F

Department Function: Regional and Market Leadership is IFF’s enterprise function for advancing regional strategy, market development, external engagement, and market-facing alignment across the organization’s footprint. The department helps ensure that IFF’s work across markets is strategically grounded, responsive to local conditions, and connected to broader enterprise priorities.

By linking regional leadership, stakeholder stewardship, capital investor engagement, market intelligence, and cross-functional coordination, the function strengthens how IFF identifies and advances market priorities, supports thoughtful growth, and brings field-based insight back into enterprise strategy and decision-making.

The department plays an integrative role across the organization by helping align place-based opportunity with enterprise direction, strengthening visibility into regional priorities, supporting more coherent approaches to market development and expansion, and improving coordination across business lines and enterprise functions. In doing so, Regional and Market Leadership helps position IFF as a trusted, strategic, and values-driven partner across the communities and markets it serves.

Regional and Market Leadership is a newly established and evolving enterprise function. As IFF continues to define, operationalize, and refine the role of Regional and Market Leadership function across the organization, this position will play a meaningful role in helping shape the function's priorities, operating model, processes, and cross-functional ways of working. Success in this role will require comfort with ambiguity, adaptability to changing organizational needs, and a collaborative approach to building sustainable practices and approaches over time.

The Organization

IFF is a mission-driven lender, real estate consultant, and developer that helps communities thrive. Key to our success has been a deep sense of purpose, a broad perspective, and a relentless focus on achieving positive results. Across the Midwest we help clients from every sector, including human service agencies, health centers, schools, affordable housing developers, and healthy food grocery operators. Staff contribute extensive business experience and an unrivaled connection to the mission of IFF to the clients we serve.

Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

Partnering to create thriving communities is at the heart of everything we do. We leverage knowledge, capital, and resources to advance equitable and transformational outcomes in under-resourced communities, guided by our commitment to be an inclusive, anti-racist and anti-oppressive institution that honors communities as asset-rich and as experts in their own stories.

Basic Job Function

The Vice President, Market Strategy and Partnerships is a senior leader within IFF’s Regional and Market leadership function, responsible for setting and advancing strategy across Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. Reporting to the Chief Regional and Markets Officer, the VP brings a comprehensive understanding of the region – its communities, institutions, policy environment, key stakeholders and emerging opportunities – to inform IFF’s priorities and approach.

As both a regional strategist and enterprise integrator, the VP maintains strong external relationships and market visibility while connecting regional priorities to IFF’s broader capabilities. Working across Regional and Market Leadership and with enterprise and local line of business leaders, the VP helps align the relationships, expertise, and resources needed to advance IFF’s mission.

The Vice President is responsible for building and managing strategic relationships with local and regional stakeholders, including cities, counties, universities, and community and economic development partners. Operating in partnership with External Affairs, Capital Raise, and Business Unit functions, the role advances organizational priorities through stakeholder engagement not otherwise assigned to customer-facing teams or state and federal government relations functions.

The role requires sound judgment in determining how and where IFF engages - through direct leadership, strategic partnership, or coordinated enterprise action.

IFF is looking for candidates with a commitment to the work we do who can demonstrate their creativity, diligence, enthusiasm, growth-mindset, thoughtfulness, and passion to make meaningful change in the areas of economic and racial justice.

Regional Context:

The Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky region encompasses markets at different stages of maturity and requires both consistent enterprise practices and nuanced market understanding. As IFF continues to standardize core approaches across the organization, the VP will be responsible for ensuring that regional strategy remains responsive to the distinct conditions, relationships, and opportunities within each market.

Michigan is an established market with offices in Detroit and Grand Rapids. Detroit is a mature market characterized by deep philanthropic and institutional relationships and a significant IFF presence in early childhood education; Grand Rapids is a newer market and home to IFF’s pilot Michigan Affordable Housing Fund.

Ohio is a growth market with meaningful opportunity to expand IFF’s relationships, visibility, and impact building on the strong momentum in IFF’s Cleveland office and strong partnerships with the Cincinnati Development Fund. Kentucky, as well as portions of Ohio, will be advanced through a more partnership-oriented strategy, leveraging relationships with other CDFIs and institutional partners.

The VP will be expected to apply IFF’s enterprise frameworks consistently while exercising the judgment necessary to adapt strategy and engagement to the realities of each market. Being that the Regional and Market Leadership function itself is at varying stages of maturity across markets and organizational relationships. The Vice President will help establish greater consistency and clarity while ensuring the function remains responsive to local market conditions and evolving enterprise priorities.

Requirements

Core Responsibilities:

1. Regional Strategy & Market Leadership

• Set and advance an integrated strategy for the region that reflects IFF’s enterprise priorities and the distinct conditions of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky.
• Establish clear market relationship priorities and recommend the appropriate level and form of IFF engagement based on the type of opportunity, organizational capacity, relationships, and potential for impact.
• Maintain a forward-looking view of economic, community, institutional, policy, and capital trends and translate those insights into strategic implications for IFF.
• Assess IFF’s positioning across the region and identify opportunities to deepen existing markets, build growth markets, and strengthen partnership-driven approaches.
• Provide the CRMO and other senior leaders with clear regional perspective, recommendations, and intelligence to support enterprise decision-making.

2. Enterprise Integration & Opportunity Development

• Connect regional priorities, market intelligence, and emerging opportunities to the appropriate IFF capabilities, helping shape enterprise responses with the greatest potential for impact.
• Utilize emerging tools for assessment of potential opportunities then, when necessary, work with the CRMO to convene engage Executive Leadership partners around significant opportunities to clarify IFF’s role, align resources, and establish a path to execution.
• Maintain a two-way learning loop, through regular touchpoints and activation of IFF’s tools, with the CDFI, capital, policy, and other enterprise functions so that market insight informs strategy and regional leadership benefits from enterprise learning.
• Partner with the Chief Capital Architect and Chief Ecosystems Officer to apply lessons from the Michigan Affordable Housing Fund and other emerging initiatives, identifying implications for future market strategy, partnerships, and opportunities across IFF’s footprint.
• Contribute to the continued development and institutionalization of Regional and Market Leadership tools, frameworks, and processes that support consistent opportunity assessment, prioritization, and enterprise collaboration across markets.

3. External Leadership & Institutional Relationships

• Represent IFF with key philanthropic, public-sector, nonprofit, civic, financial, and community leaders across the region.
• Build and steward priority relationships that advance IFF’s regional strategy, visibility, and influence.
• Maintain awareness of key stakeholder priorities and external dynamics and use that insight to inform IFF’s strategy and engagement.
• Coordinate with enterprise leaders to ensure clear ownership and stewardship of significant institutional relationships.

4. Policy, Capital & Ecosystem Alignment

• Provide insights into integrated market conditions, policy, capital, institutional capacity, and community priorities into regional relationship development and outreach strategy in conjunction with leadership
• Partner with External Affairs leaders to connect regional insight with IFF’s policy agenda and external positioning and two-way learning sharing insights from the national context.
• Bring insights to support the framing for and activation of cross functional expertise to identify capital gaps, ecosystem needs, structural barriers, and resource opportunities that may require new partnerships or enterprise responses.
• Surface opportunities for IFF to influence broader community development conditions beyond individual transactions or projects staying curious and informed about the work with a higher-level focus on IFF as a go-to systems partner.

5. Organizational & Team Leadership

• Lead Regional & Market Leadership staff across the region, establishing clear priorities, expectations, and accountability.
• Develop leaders with strong market judgment, relationship-management skills, productive cross functional relationships, and an enterprise perspective.
• Balance consistent operating practices and time commitments with responsiveness to local market conditions.
• Strengthen collaboration across functions and contribute to the continued development of RML practices and ways of working.
• Model sound judgment, curiosity, solutions orientation, accountability, and collaborative leadership.

6. Demonstrates a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Promotes an environment of empathy and respect, ensures the inclusion of all team members, and will actively engage in EDI events and learning opportunities.

Note: No job description can be entirely comprehensive, and the jobholder will be expected to carry out such other duties as may be required from time to time and are broadly consistent with the job description and status of the position within the organization.

Performance Measures :

1. Quality of development and leadership of a high performing regional team with clear priorities, accountability, collaboration and increasing leadership capacity.

2. In partnership with CRMO, creation of regional and market level relationship development and cultivation strategies that align IFF priorities with local conditions and opportunities.

3. Success in cultivation of priority external relationships that strengthen IFF’s visibility, influence, and ability to advance its mission.

4. Timely, actionable market intelligence that informs enterprise strategy and decision-making surfaced.

5. Mission-aligned opportunities generated and, when appropriate advanced, by connecting regional needs with the appropriate IFF capabilities, partners, and resources.

6. Effective coordination across the enterprise, ensuring clear ownership, strong handoffs and a One IFF approach to regional priorities.

7. Cultivates a culture of openness in information sharing. Encourages open communication, cooperation, and the sharing of knowledge.

8. Models personal accountability that promotes ownership and engagement.

9. Builds and maintains effective working relationships with colleagues, peers and team members.

10. Values and supports differences in others, contributing to an inclusive work environment. Demonstrates the ability and willingness to communicate effectively with people of diverse backgrounds and experiences to create a collaborative, collegial, and caring community.

11. High level of satisfaction with both internal colleagues and external contacts.

12. Successful contribution to the continued development, adoption, and refinement of Regional and Market Leadership practices, frameworks, and ways of working.

Position Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor’s Degree required in business, finance, urban planning, economic or community development OR equivalent experience in similar position

Previous Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years of progressively responsible experience in community or economic development, lending, philanthropy, nonprofit leadership or a related field, including senior leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading through organizational change, building new functions or initiatives, developing operating practices, or working effectively in evolving organizational environments preferred.

Additional Requirements: Regular travel throughout the Midwest region; occasional early start or extended hours and evening or weekend work.

Standard Benefits:

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Paid time off

401(k) retirement plan with employer contribution

Life Insurance

Short and long term disability

Work-Life Balance Benefits:

Hybrid workplace

Summer Fridays

Employee Development Benefits:

Professional development stipend

Mentorship program

Miscellaneous:

Wellness programs

Employee assistance

Referral Bonuses

IFF does not offer the following:

relocation package

100% remote

sponsorship to applicants who require or will require a work permit.

Check off only some boxes in the requirements listed above. Studies have shown that marginalized communities - such as women, LGBTQ+ and people of color - are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every qualification. So, if you're excited about this role, we encourage you to apply.

Application Instructions: Please visit the Careers section of our website to apply online.

IFF values equity, diversity, and inclusion as part of its mission to strengthen nonprofits and the communities they serve. IFF is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building and maintaining a culturally diverse workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment of any kind. We encourage women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and veterans to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.