Director of Development Strategy & Operations at New Energy… · Oakland

ABOUT NEW ENERGY NEXUS

New Energy Nexus (NEX) is an international NGO that supports climate solutions and builds a more equitable clean energy economy. Our laser focus is on clean energy entrepreneurs: providing them with funds, accelerators, and networks to thrive. They are our main audience and our agent of change.

We started in California in 2004 and now operate across China, India, Southeast Asia, East and West Africa, and Australia. We have leveraged US$5.4 billion in investment and supported more than 11,000 entrepreneurs.

ABOUT THE ROLE & OPPORTUNITY

The Director of Development Strategy & Operations will lead the internal engine behind New Energy Nexus' global fundraising and business development efforts. Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, this role sits at the center of NEX's development team — turning what our development and partnerships staff and country teams learn on the ground with funders into a coherent, prioritized fundraising strategy, and making sure the team is coordinated, resourced, and focused on the highest-value opportunities.

This is not primarily a donor-facing relationship management role. It is a strategy, team leadership, and fundraising operations role for someone who understands the business and fund development cycle deeply enough to translate frontline intelligence — what funders are signaling, what's landing and what isn't, where proposals are stalling, which markets and programs are attracting interest — into clear direction for where the team should spend its time.

The Director will lead and develop NEX's global platform-level development team, ensuring that individual team members' skills and expertise are deployed effectively against organizational priorities, while bringing together the knowledge and fundraising capabilities of country leaders, chapter teams, and program leads. The ideal candidate has the analytical rigor and systems mindset of a strong operations leader, paired with real fluency in philanthropic and development finance fundraising, so they can be a credible internal leader and partner to a globally distributed team of fundraisers, country directors, and program leads.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Fundraising Strategy & Prioritization (50%)

• Help develop a living, prioritized development strategy based on proposal outcomes, funder conversations, and market signals gleaned from team conversations and learnings from fundraisers, country directors, and program leads
• Synthesize funder conversations, proposal outcomes, market signals and intelligence generated across the organization into clear fundraising priorities
• Identify where NEX should be focusing time and effort across programs and geographies, based on funder appetite, pipeline strength, and organizational priorities.
• Maintain a clear view of the funding pipeline across the network — by funder, program, chapter, and stage — and flag risks, gaps, or unrestricted-vs-restricted balance issues early.
• Translate strategy into concrete guidance: which opportunities to prioritize, which proposals need repositioning, where the team is over- or under-invested.
• Serve as a thought partner to the CEO and program leads on funding strategy, drawing on patterns across markets rather than any single relationship.

Team Coordination & Enablement (35%)

• Lead and develop the global platform-level development team including recruiting, hiring, onboarding, coaching, and managing performance, and ensure team members' skills are effectively leveraged against NEX's development priorities.
• Translate the development strategy into a clear rolling work plan for the team, aligning ownership, resources, and timelines.
• Build strong collaboration across the global development function, bringing together the expertise and fundraising capabilities of platform-level staff, country leaders, fundraisers, and program leads to maximize collective impact.
• Run the operating rhythm of the fundraising team: pipeline reviews, proposal coordination across programs/chapters/finance/communications, and prioritization check-ins.
• Coordinate multi-country and multi-program proposals, including combining country and program inputs into a cohesive narrative and budget that aligns with broader NEX operational and growth priorities.
• Build and own a central library of fundraising collateral - pitch decks, one-pagers, case studies, program summaries, impact data - so materials for funder meetings and conference talks can be assembled quickly rather than built from scratch each time.
• Draft and maintain core funder and conference decks, adapting a standard set of modular slides/content to each audience so our fundraisers can focus their time on external relationship-building and speaking rather than deck production.
• Partner with the Chief Communications Officer to keep collateral aligned with current messaging, program updates, and brand standards.
• Provide country leads and fundraisers with the tools, templates, frameworks, and support to raise funds effectively and report consistently.
• Build feedback loops so that what is learned through funder and country-level engagement consistently makes its way back into strategy, priorities, and team planning.

Systems, Data & Reporting (15%)

• Accountable for the fundraising CRM and pipeline-tracking systems, ensuring data quality, consistent use across chapters, and useful reporting.
• Produce regular and ad hoc reporting and dashboards for NEX leadership on pipeline health, funder trends, and progress against platform fundraising goals.
• Standardize proposal, reporting, and stewardship templates and processes across the global platform-level team.
• Track outcomes against the fundraising strategy and refine it as new data comes in.
• Ensure fundraising protocols and internal as well as external reporting are completed on time and to consistent quality standards

SUCCESS IN THE FIRST 6–12 MONTHS

Success in this role will mean building a more coordinated, strategic, and effective global development function. By the end of the first 6–12 months, the Director will have:

• Established clear visibility into NEX's global fundraising pipeline, priorities, risks, and opportunities, with leadership able to make decisions based on reliable, current information.
• Built a strong operating rhythm across the global platform-level development team, with clear ownership, effective collaboration, and team members' skills deployed against the highest-priority fundraising opportunities.
• Improved coordination across platform, country, and program teams so that high-value proposals are prioritized appropriately, developed collaboratively, and submitted on time and at a consistently high quality.
• Established consistent CRM and pipeline management practices across the development function, with data being used to inform strategy, prioritization, and reporting.
• Created a well-organized, accessible library of standardized fundraising collateral and tools that enables fundraisers and country teams to move more quickly and consistently.
• Established effective feedback loops between funder and country-level intelligence, fundraising performance, and the organization's overall development strategy.

Professional Experience

• 8+ years of experience across nonprofit fundraising/development, development strategy and/or development operations, including at least 5 years working directly within nonprofit or philanthropic fundraising. Candidates must demonstrate a deep practical understanding of the fundraising cycle, funder decision-making, proposal development and stewardship.
• Strong track record leading the development of complex philanthropic/grant proposals, ideally involving multiple programmes, geographies or internal stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience turning frontline or field-level input into strategy and prioritization.
• Demonstrated people-management experience, including coaching, performance management, setting priorities and allocating team capacity. Experience leading a distributed team is strongly preferred.
• Experience operating in a global or matrix organisation, with demonstrated ability to influence and coordinate country leaders, programme teams and other stakeholders who do not report directly to them.
• Comfortable using CRM and pipeline data to support fundraising decisions, forecasting and team management.
• Familiarity with the climate, clean energy, or entrepreneurship support landscape is a strong plus.
• Experience conducting dedicated funder-market or landscape research is advantageous.

Personal Attributes

• Structured, analytical thinker who is comfortable synthesizing messy, qualitative field input into clear recommendations.
• High level of adaptability in an environment with evolving team structures and workflows, with a genuine comfort operating in ambiguity - this means being a self-starter and embodying a growth mindset.
• High emotional intelligence — able to lead and support a development team well, build trust with country leads across diverse cultural contexts, and approach unfamiliar markets and norms with genuine curiosity and cultural sensitivity.
• Exceptional written communication skills — able to distill complex, multi-market fundraising intelligence into concise strategy and proposals.
• Strong project management skills; able to run a coordination function across concurrent proposals, deadlines, and stakeholders.
• Comfortable being an internal partner and "connective tissue" role rather than the primary external face of fundraising.
• Ability to work with a global team across time zones, with periodic travel for internal team meetings and relevant conferences/convenings.
• Proficiency in database/CRM management, Google Workspace, and Slack.

Preferred Qualifications

• Foundational knowledge of global clean energy and climate change solutions and ecosystems and willingness to engage in in-depth self-learning on any gaps.
• Experience building or adding structure to a development operations function from an earlier, more informal stage.
• Due to the global nature of the organization and team, some meetings will take place outside of regular work hours.

BENEFITS AND COMPENSATION

This is a full-time remote position. Relocation assistance is not available for this role and compensation is competitive for the market the candidate is based in. Applicable benefits such as medical, dental, vision, paid time off, paid holidays and insurance will depend on the location of the selected candidate.

TO APPLY, TIMELINE, AND PROCESS

• Submit your resume, cover letter and responses to our application questions.
• Click the “Apply” button below to begin your application.
• Interview process: Qualified applicants will participate in a series of interviews via Zoom. There will be 2-3 rounds of interviews.
• Accommodation: If you require accommodations during the interview process, please contact us with your request.

New Energy Nexus is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate against applicants or employees because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, citizenship status, disability status, genetic information, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression of an otherwise qualified individual, or membership in any other class protected by applicable law. New Energy Nexus hires and promotes individuals on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled. We strongly encourage diverse applicants to apply.