Director, Strategic Initiatives at North Texas Food Bank – Plano, Texas

PRIMARY PURPOSE: The Director of Strategic Initiatives provides leadership and oversight of key organizational functions, including Strategy, Grants, and FoodRx at the North Texas Food Bank. This role drives initiatives that optimize distribution and the growth of our partner network, leveraging data and best practices to inform decisions. This position also leads the identification, incubation and execution of innovative solutions to achieve strategic plan goals.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in business, management, social services, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience
• Master’s degree in a related field preferred

Special Knowledge/Skills/Abilities:

• Strategic and critical thinker, with the ability to work with ambiguity
• Applies an entrepreneurial mindset to advance mission impact to identify and act on new opportunities, navigate ambiguity and adapt strategies in response to changing internal and external conditions.
• Ability to operate effectively in a resource-constrained environment while supporting organizational scale and complexity
• Strong organizational skills; self-directed; able to prioritize and manage multiple projects simultaneously
• Proven leadership, collaboration, delegation and communication skills, both with a team and also with peers
• Knowledge of enterprise-level operations, with experience supporting executive leadership
• Understanding of food banking, logistics and product movement a plus
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications; working knowledge of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform is a plus
• Experience with data and reporting tools such as Power BI, ArcGIS, or similar data platforms preferred

Experience:

• Seven years of broad and progressively responsible public, social or human services management
• Five years in a supervisory role with some focus on career development
• Project management, data collection, reporting and program evaluation experience preferred

PRINCIPLE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Support the Chief Engagement Officer in providing strategic leadership and cross-functional coordination to identify and expand NTFB’s impact across underserved communities and high-need populations, while aligning team objectives with broader organizational goals around food equity, network capacity building, data analytics, and holistic services
• Lead the development, testing, implementation, and launch of strategic initiatives and pilot projects; define success measures, assess outcomes and optimize performance, and convert successful pilots into established programs
• Lead the publication of impact/outcome reporting for strategic initiatives and support the continuous improvement of NTFB’s impact and outcome reporting
• Guide the team in the execution and continuous improvement of the partner grant program; ensure compliance with internal and external controls
• Coordinate and manage relationships with community groups, healthcare partners, financial empowerment organizations, schools, NTFB Network Partners, Feeding Texas, Feeding America, other in-network food banks, other social service organizations and internal programs/departments to foster collaboration, share learnings and enhance service delivery
• Develop and manage the annual departmental budget, grant forecasting, and resource allocation for Strategic Initiatives
• Conduct interdepartmental meetings to identify and prioritize project needs
• Lead, mentor and develop staff to ensure continuous learning and growth
• Promote a positive culture and work environment where staff feel engaged, valued and motivated
• Provide equitable and timely leadership of performance management and team learning objectives
• Effectively represent NTFB in the community, as an ambassador of our values and mission
• Perform other tasks and duties as assigned

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Oversee a team of 3 people

MENTAL DEMANDS:

• The person in this position needs to adapt well in the face of workplace stressors, such as customer complaints and competing priorities of reasonable or high significance to the successful function of the unit.
• Must be able to effectively interpret data and make critical decisions that will have a

significant impact on the team and organization.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to finger, handle, or feel objects, tools, or controls; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop; kneel, crouch or crawl; talk or hear.
• Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
• The employee must occasionally lift and move up to 25 pounds.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS:

• Moderate noise (i.e. business office with open floor plan with computers, phone, and printers, light traffic).
• Reliable transportation and a valid DL and insurance is required for travel within our 12-county service area.

The mental and physical demands and work environment described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

This is not necessarily an exhaustive list of all skills, duties, responsibilities, efforts, requirements , or working conditions associated with the job. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current job, NTFB reserves the right to revise the job or to require other or different tasks to be performed as assigned.

The North Texas Food Bank is an equal opportunity employer.