Curator, Convenings (Director) in Washington, District of Columbia at The Skoll Foundation
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Job Description
Role
The Skoll Foundation is hiring a Curator, Convenings based in Washington, DC. This role is eligible for a hybrid work schedule, including Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday required onsite in the Washington, DC office.
The Skoll Foundation is a private grantmaking foundation that seeks to build a sustainable world of peace and prosperity for all by investing in, connecting, and championing social entrepreneurs and other social innovators. Together, we advance bold and equitable solutions to the world's most pressing problems. The Skoll Foundation fosters a mission and values based approach to the work we do focused on the vision of doing good.
The Curator is the creative and intellectual engine behind Skoll World Forum content, holding end to end ownership of programming from annual content strategy and plenary speaker curation through the full breakout session program.
The Curator will design and steward the structures through which the Skoll community, including Awardees, Fellows, staff, external partners, and beyond, contributes ideas, topics, and speakers to programming, ensuring diverse geographies and expertise are represented. They directly manage the Program Manager, Convenings Program and Projects as the primary internal execution partner. Beyond the flagship Forum, the Curator contributes expertise to select strategic events across the Foundation's broader portfolio, working with colleagues to ensure cohesion and added value across convenings and partnerships.
Ideal Candidate
The Curator must be intellectually curious and globally connected, able to identify the ideas, voices, and questions that will make the Forum essential for the world's leading social innovators. The Curator must be an effective relationship builder with the credibility and range to engage heads of state, Fortune 500 executives, social entrepreneurs, artists, and emerging thinkers with care and authenticity.
A thoughtful leader, the Curator will bring a collaborative spirit to their work, partnering closely with internal staff, Foundation leadership, and the broader network. The Curator will bring deep sector knowledge and an active network spanning corporate, government, and social sectors, with a genuine passion for elevating cross sector voices and surfacing emerging trends. To this end, the Curator will be a creative and strategic force on the Convenings team, inspiring fresh approaches to how Forum content is developed and delivered. The Curator will bring comfort with ambiguity, a bias toward action, and the organizational discipline to drive complex workstreams across tight international timelines.
Responsibilities
Forum Content Strategy and Plenary Curation (30%)
- Develop and shape the annual content strategy for the Skoll World Forum, defining central questions, thematic arcs, and programming goals that reflect the most urgent and emergent issues in social innovation.
- Identify, recruit, and confirm diverse plenary speakers representing a wide range of perspectives, potentially including social entrepreneurs, heads of state, global agency leaders, corporate CEOs, artists, and emerging voices at the cutting edge of their fields.
- Contribute to the selection of plenary performers and cultural programming, identifying contributors who align with Skoll values and add dimension to the Forum experience.
- Continually monitor global progress on relevant issue areas, new and emerging topics, and leading thinkers across sectors for consideration as speakers, facilitators, or delegates.
- Partner with Foundation leadership and the production team to ensure cohesion between programming and production, creating a unified and purposeful delegate experience.
Breakout Session Program Development and Management (40%)
- Oversee the annual content strategy for the SWF breakout program at Saïd Business School (SBS), curating thoughtful speaker voices, expanding perspectives on central questions, and designing opportunities for meaningful audience engagement.
- Oversee the research, development, and execution of SBS program content across a wide variety of topics.
- Invite, confirm, and prepare innovators and leaders from corporate, government, and the social sectors as speakers and facilitators across the breakout program.
- Direct overall project management of the SBS program, encompassing communications, logistics, and preparation processes in line with established milestones and deadlines for more than 100 speakers.
Network Input and Programming Design (15%)
- Design and steward the structures through which external and internal voices shape Forum programming, whether through advisory councils, subject matter experts across geographies and verticals, network convenings, or other mechanisms, ensuring meaningful channels exist to surface topics, speakers, and session ideas, and that programming accurately reflects the needs and interests of the Forum's global audience.
- Identify, engage, and manage consultants, advisors, and advisory bodies to support SWF program curation and implementation across both plenary and breakout programming, ensuring diverse backgrounds, geographies, and areas of expertise contribute to a well rounded program.
- Set clear deliverables, timelines, and quality standards for all external collaborators, and maintain accountability throughout the program development cycle.
- Contribute curatorial expertise to community facing convenings such as the Awardee Convening and other Skoll hosted and partner events throughout the year.
Other Project Management and External Engagement (15%)
- Directly manage and mentor a Program Manager, providing direction, feedback, and professional development while ensuring their work supports achievement of goals across the Convenings team.
- Set clear direction for the production team and external vendors to manage program and speaker logistics, including speaker communications, travel, and security.
- Partner with the Communications team to coordinate speaker media relations and identify thought leadership and media opportunities for Forum speakers.
- Represent the Foundation and Convenings team with external constituencies at meetings, conferences, and convenings throughout the year.
- Contribute programming and content expertise to select strategic convenings beyond SWF as needed, including session design guidance, speaker recommendations, and thematic input for ecosystem convenings, impact convening series, and partner events.
Other duties as assigned.
Required Education and Experience
While no one candidate will embody all the qualifications below, the ideal candidate will possess many of the following professional and personal abilities, attributes, and experiences:
- A Bachelor's degree or equivalent and a minimum of ten (10) years of professional experience in program curation, content development, or strategic convenings within philanthropy, social innovation, media, international development, or adjacent sectors.
- Demonstrated success curating content and recruiting speakers for high profile, large scale events, ideally in the social impact or philanthropic space.
- Deep knowledge of global issues and social innovation, with the ability to identify emerging trends, frame compelling questions, and elevate cross sector voices.
- An extensive network spanning corporate, government, and social sectors, with the credibility to recruit heads of state, CEOs, social entrepreneurs, artists, and emerging thinkers.
- Proven ability to translate strategy into actionable programming with clear goals, content frameworks, and engagement strategies.
- Experience designing participant experiences that foster meaningful connection and audience engagement.
- Strong project management skills, including the ability to lead complex workstreams, manage timelines and deliverables, and drive execution across matrixed teams and external partners.
- Experience managing contractors, consultants, and external agencies, with a track record of setting clear standards and maintaining accountability.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with comfort communicating with VIP level speakers, senior leadership, and diverse external audiences.
- Intellectually curious, creative, and collaborative, and able to thrive in dynamic, fast paced environments with a commitment to excellence.
- Proficiency with Salesforce, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and collaborative project management tools such as Asana or Microsoft Teams.
- Ability to travel internationally, including extended onsite time at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, UK.
- Able to work onsite three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, in Washington, DC, and within fifty miles of the Skoll office. Locational proximity of fifty miles or closer to the Washington, DC office is required for consideration.
- Passion for social innovation, social entrepreneurship, and the Skoll Foundation's mission.
Preferred Education & Experience
- Direct experience with social entrepreneurship, global issues, or the social sector.
Cultural Alignment
- Enthusiastic and flexible collaborator with humility, a positive demeanor, and exceptional service orientation, ready to roll up sleeves and collaborate across the Foundation's small team.
- A keen sense of integrity, professionalism, and commitment to creating a positive organizational culture.
- Comfortable working and managing in a fast-paced environment and adaptable to change.
- Interest in social innovation and alignment with the Skoll Foundation's mission to catalyze transformational social change.
Benefits
The Skoll Foundation offers a comprehensive benefits package including a discretionary 10% employer sponsored retirement contribution, flexible time off, paid holidays, medical, dental, and vision coverage, and generous retirement plan offerings.
Salary Range
The full salary range for this role is $170,572 to $200,000 USD. New hires typically start between the range minimum and the midpoint, or $170,000 to $185,000 USD based on job related skills, experience, and expertise evaluated during the interview process.
The Skoll Foundation is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.