Director of Strategic Growth in Baltimore, Maryland at AfriThrive Inc

Who You Are

• You are a builder, strategist, connector, and executor who knows how to turn relationships and opportunities into meaningful growth.
• You have successfully built partnerships, developed new opportunities, and led complex initiatives from idea through implementation.
• You are comfortable working across government, healthcare, philanthropy, corporations, community organizations, and other institutions and you know how to bring different stakeholders together around a shared vision.
• You are equally comfortable developing strategy and rolling up your sleeves to move the work forward. You can manage multiple stakeholders, timelines, budgets, and competing priorities while maintaining focus on results and long-term impact.
• You understand that sustainable growth requires the right combination of partnerships, organizational presence, programs, resources, and infrastructure.
• You are excited by the opportunity to build to deepen AfriThrive's presence in an existing region, strengthen relationships, create new opportunities, advance a major community infrastructure project, and help shape a model that can support AfriThrive's future growth.

What You Will Do

Lead Strategic Growth

• Develop and execute strategies to deepen AfriThrive's impact, presence, and reach in priority communities, beginning with Greater Baltimore.
• Assess community needs, service gaps, policy and funding priorities, and emerging opportunities to guide growth.
• Translate opportunities into actionable strategies for partnerships, programs, resources, and infrastructure.
• Establish priorities, milestones, and measures of success and keep the CEO and leadership team informed of progress, opportunities, and risks.

Build Partnerships & Presence

• Strengthen existing partnerships and cultivate new relationships with government, healthcare systems, foundations, corporations, schools, universities, community organizations, and other institutions.
• Represent AfriThrive in regional coalitions, convenings, government forums, and other strategic spaces.
• Build collaborations that expand AfriThrive's visibility, credibility, resources, and community impact.
• Position AfriThrive as a trusted partner in food security, health equity, and community food systems.

Grow Programs & Resources

• Identify opportunities to expand AfriThrive's programs and services in response to community needs and regional priorities.
• Build a pipeline of government, healthcare, philanthropic, corporate, and institutional opportunities.
• Develop strategic concepts and partnerships that can lead to new programs, contracts, grants, investments, and other resources.
• Work across AfriThrive teams and with external partners to move opportunities from concept to partnership, funding, implementation, and sustainability.

Advance the Essex Community Food Center

• Serve as a key organizational lead for the renovation and activation of the Essex Community Food Center, coordinating with the CEO, architects, contractors, consultants, funders, government partners, and other stakeholders.
• Help manage organizational priorities, timelines, budgets, risks, decisions, and stakeholder communication to keep the project moving toward completion.
• Lead development of the Center's program vision, partnership strategy, utilization plan, and long-term sustainability.
• Engage community and institutional partners to position the Center as a regional resource for food access, health and nutrition programming, distribution, education, and community engagement.
• Identify additional infrastructure and capacity opportunities that can support AfriThrive's future growth.

• 8+ years of progressively responsible experience in strategic growth, nonprofit leadership, partnerships, government relations, healthcare, community or economic development, business development, or a related field.
• Demonstrated success building strategic partnerships and translating opportunities into programs, resources, organizational growth, or measurable community impact.
• Demonstrated experience leading a complex, multi-stakeholder project such as a facility renovation, capital project, major program launch, community development initiative, or comparable organizational initiative from planning through implementation.
• Experience managing project priorities, timelines, budgets, stakeholders, risks, and deliverables.
• Experience cultivating and managing relationships with government, healthcare, philanthropic, corporate, institutional, and community leaders.
• Strong knowledge of Greater Baltimore and established regional relationships are highly desirable.
• Strong strategic thinking and the ability to understand community needs, identify opportunities, and translate them into practical strategies and action.
• Excellent relationship-building, communication, facilitation, negotiation, and organizational skills.
• Entrepreneurial and execution-oriented mindset with strong initiative, judgment, accountability, and follow-through.
• Ability to work effectively across teams and navigate multiple priorities in a growing organization.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.
• Commitment to AfriThrive's mission and the communities we serve.
• Must reside in Greater Baltimore or be willing to relocate to the Greater Baltimore area within an agreed-upon timeframe after hire. This position requires a strong and consistent in-person presence across Greater Baltimore, including regular engagement in Baltimore County and at AfriThrive's Essex Community Food Center.