President

Job Description

About the Company

Aksarben Foundation is seeking a President to serve as the organization's chief executive and lead its next chapter of economic opportunity, workforce development, and statewide collaboration. Aksarben's work is centered on a clear outcome: grow economic opportunity and quality of life for Nebraskans by helping them prepare for, connect to, and advance in good jobs and careers.

About the Role

The President is accountable to the Board for the performance of the entire enterprise - strategy, people, resources, partnerships, public leadership, and results. This leader will inherit a respected statewide platform, a broad network, and important initiatives already underway, while strengthening senior leadership capacity and building the focus, operating discipline, and accountability needed to deliver measurable results. The President will turn the strategic framework into a practical multi-year plan, make clear choices about priorities and resources, and build alignment across organizations so that shared work produces commitments, owners, and results.

Responsibilities

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• Lead the enterprise. Set direction for the Foundation as its chief executive, establish priorities, make resource tradeoffs, and ensure the organization's strategy, people, finances, partnerships, and programs are working toward shared outcomes.
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• Set strategy and priorities. Work with the Board and Executive Committee to translate Aksarben's strategic framework into a practical three-year plan, annual priorities, and a clear scorecard. Identify three or four priority sectors and critical occupations, define owners and milestones, and bring the Board and Executive Committee disciplined recommendations on what to scale, redesign, or sunset.
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• Partner with the Board. Serve as the principal staff partner to the Board Chair and Executive Committee; provide decision-ready information; maintain a clear governance and reporting cadence; support the Board's committees on engagement, composition, and succession; and ensure the Board understands performance, risk, and resource needs.
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• Lead statewide alignment. Serve as a trusted convener and partnership builder. Bring together employers, higher education, K-12, community colleges, labor, state and local government, economic-development organizations, philanthropy, and regional leaders around specific work with shared metrics, commitments, and accountability.
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• Strengthen talent pathways. Connect employer demand to curriculum, credentials, scholarships, internships, apprenticeships, placement, conversion, and retention, with a clear line from workforce needs to jobs and wages.
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• Guide the initiative portfolio. Connect and scale existing work, including the Nebraska Tech Collaborative, scholarships, InternNE, apprenticeships, community grants, higher-education partnerships, and other Powered by Aksarben initiatives. Establish clear ownership and performance expectations for each major effort, and recommend to the Executive Committee where an initiative should be restructured or sunset.
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• Lead the organization and its people. Build and coach a capable senior team, clarify staff and Board roles, establish an effective operating cadence, set expectations for performance and culture, and create the leadership depth needed to sustain statewide work.
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• Lead financial and fiduciary stewardship. In partnership with the Board, the CFO, the Treasurer, and the finance and audit committees, lead the annual budget and long-term resource plan; safeguard the Foundation's assets and reputation; and maintain appropriate financial controls, compliance, risk management, and reporting.
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• Lead fundraising and the Aksarben Ball. Grow the Foundation's donor, sponsor, and grant relationships, and serve as a visible leader of the Aksarben Ball - one of Nebraska's signature civic events and a cornerstone of the Foundation's revenue and relationships - carrying out the fundraising strategy the Executive Committee sets and supporting the Ball Committee's work.
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• Be the public voice. Represent Aksarben with a clear, credible, evidence-based, and nonpartisan voice. Build trusted relationships with senior business and civic leaders, elected officials, universities, labor and training partners, donors, media, and communities across Nebraska.
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• Keep the broader conditions in view. Lead where Aksarben has the strongest role - talent and wages - while helping partners address the energy, housing, childcare, broadband, infrastructure, transportation, entrepreneurship, and quality-of-place conditions that help people and communities thrive.
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Qualifications

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• Executive leadership experience with responsibility for an organization, business unit, enterprise, or significant statewide initiative.
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• Experience setting strategy, allocating resources, and turning a complex agenda into disciplined execution and measurable results.
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• Experience managing budgets and financial performance, and building support through fundraising, partnerships, sponsorships, grants, or related resource development.
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• Experience partnering with a Board and working with influential, diverse stakeholders.
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• A record of hiring, developing, and leading strong teams through growth, change, or organizational renewal.
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• A record of turning strategy into execution across organizations that do not report to one another.
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• Strong judgment, personal integrity, and comfort being accountable for results.
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• A CEO-level leader who can protect the Foundation's long-term purpose while making clear choices about priorities, resources, and performance.
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