Vice President of Impact

Maximize GFI’s impact in building a just and sustainable food system 

The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a nonprofit think tank working to make the global food system better for the planet, people, and animals. Alongside scientists, businesses, and policymakers, GFI’s teams focus on making plant-based, fermentation-enabled, and cultivated meat delicious, affordable, and accessible. Powered by philanthropy, GFI is an international network of organizations advancing alternative proteins as an essential solution needed to meet the world’s climate, global health, food security, and biodiversity goals.

How You Will Make a Difference 

GFI is a network of independent organizations across the U.S., Brazil, Europe, India, Israel, and the Asia-Pacific, with the U.S. team also playing a critical infrastructure and support role for the entire global network. GFI currently consists of roughly 200 staff — half based across 7 US departments and half spread across the other 5 GFI global affiliate organizations, which are independent but coordinating entities. Each organization independently sets its own objectives and key results while aligning to a shared global strategic vision to accelerate the pace at which alt proteins are no longer alternative.

The Essence of the Role: Working alongside the GFI U.S. Executive team, CEO, and U.S. Leadership Team you will: 1) Ensure effective planning, systems, and processes for cross-functional collaboration and learning across the GFI U.S. team for maximum mission impact, and 2) Support excellent collaboration across the six global regions where GFI operates (and with other key strategic partners) by removing roadblocks and solving problems. 

Reporting to GFI’s CEO Ilya Sheyman, GFI’s Vice President of Impact will be responsible for:

Ensuring effective planning, systems, and processes for cross-functional collaboration and learning across the GFI U.S. team for maximum mission impact.

• Strategic Planning. Analyzing our existing Objectives and Key Results (OKR) planning processes and reporting systems  – and working to ensure an integrated planning, evaluation, learning, and adaptation cycle exists across the organization.
• Implementing and Sharing Best Practices. Developing and sharing best practices; ensuring that strategic plans, goals, and OKRs demonstrate coherence, are shared appropriately with the right stakeholders, and meet timelines needed for our various global reporting and planning requirements.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration. Supporting the Leadership Team and Cross-Organizational Working Group to make consistent and progressive steps towards cross-functional coordination and collaboration, as well as sustainability.
• Evaluation and Learning. Ensuring the development of a consistent approach to after-action reviews, internal impact evaluation, internal and external reportbacks, knowledge sharing, and dissemination of best practices. 
• Multi-Year Strategic Planning. Supporting GFI’s multi-year strategic planning efforts including working closely with potential external consultants and staff across the organization. 
• Leading the U.S.-Based Executive Team. Ensuring that the Executive team subteams and individual team members are well-coordinated, properly supported, and maximally impactful, including managing 2-3 team members as well as potential external contractors and vendors as needed; facilitating weekly team meetings. 

Ensuring excellent collaboration and minimizing redundancies across the six global regions where GFI operates (e.g., removing roadblocks & solving problems)

• Building strong relationships with the Leadership Team and Regional Leadership Teams (which are comprised of GFI’s U.S. VPs and international affiliate Regional Leads, respectively), which are responsible for shared global stewardship of GFI’s mission and strategy, and ensuring that these constellations are maximally effective for global collaboration. 
• Working to align global strategic planning processes and support GFI affiliate Managing Directors (MDs) as they develop and maintain strategic plans and cyclical and annual goals; honing and supporting the tracking and reporting back of progress. 
• Supporting the global budgeting processes in close partnership with the VP of Operations, CEO, and MDs to ensure budgets are maximally optimized to deliver on global impact. 
• Organizing and leading Regional Leadership Group meetings, project managing potential multinational strategic planning processes, and ensuring the right conversations are teed up and collective decisions are made.
• Ensuring maximum effectiveness in information dissemination and learning throughout the global network. 
• Working in partnership with VPs on the U.S. Team to optimize collaboration between GFI affiliates and U.S. programs and operations - via Global Committee Meetings (GloCos) and other structures. 
• Performing other duties as assigned.

Who We’re Looking For 

An ideal candidate for the Vice President of Impact position will have experience that reflects the following:

• Minimum ten years of professional experience in leadership positions with a successful track record in, for example, supporting and implementing strategic planning processes (OKR-based or similar), guiding investment in people and systems, effective project management across different regional or functional priorities, and developing infrastructure that creates a stronger and more efficient organization. 
• Experience in nonprofit organizational management, food or agriculture,  and/or strategic consulting strongly preferred.
• Experience supervising teams; proven leadership and supervisory skills.
• Excellent written, facilitation, and verbal communication skills. 
• Experience crafting strategic plans and summaries, leading team planning and strategy sessions, and effectively communicating tradeoffs of strategic choice points to internal stakeholders is preferred.  
• Cross-cultural competency: an ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively engage with team members from different backgrounds.
• Experience, skill, and comfort in collaborating, project managing, and delegating responsibilities upwards and laterally (including to executives and principals).
• Experience with best practices in monitoring, evaluation, and learning preferred. 
• Excellent interpersonal skills — the ability to communicate, influence, build alliances, network, and work well in a team.
• An optimistic and collaborative spirit with flexibility, resilience, open-mindedness, and a sense of humor.
• Willingness to regularly work ET hours and flexibility to accommodate recurring meetings with affiliate teams located worldwide. 
• A commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to nurturing this on the U.S. Executive team and throughout GFI.
• Comfort working remotely and in a rapidly growing and evolving organization.
• Strong support for GFI’s philosophy and mission; demonstrated interest in plant-based & other alt proteins, public health, environmentalism, climate change, animal protection, or hunger relief.
• A commitment to GFI’s values: believe change is possible, do the most good we can, share knowledge freely, act on evidence, and invite everyone to the table.

We want the best people and we don’t want biases holding us back. We use a third-party anonymizing tool to redact personal information from submitted applications — including name, location, contact details, and several other factors — to reduce bias and increase fairness in our process. We strongly encourage people of every race, color, orientation, age, gender, origin, and ability to apply. Since we value a diverse workplace, we prioritize an inclusive climate absent of discrimination and harassment during the application process and after you join the team. 

Research indicates that men tend to apply for jobs when they meet just 60% of the criteria, while women and people from other marginalized groups only apply if they are a 100% match. If you are passionate about GFI’s mission and think you have what it takes to be successful in this role even if you don’t check all the boxes, please apply. We’d appreciate the opportunity to consider your application. 

The Fine Print

• Terms of employment: Full-time, exempt 
• Reports to: Ilya Sheyman, CEO
• Location: Remote; United States 
• Travel: Two weeks per year for organization retreats (reasonable accommodations for and exemptions from organization retreats considered on a case-by-case basis) and up to 10% additional time for in-person engagement with GFI’s independent global affiliates.
• Benefits: Working from home, full medical coverage, optional dental and vision packages, a 401(k) plan with employer match, flexible holiday and vacation plans, lifestyle spending account, opportunity for advancement, respectful managers, and supportive colleagues. More information here: https://tinyurl.com/GFIBenefits. 
• This is a U.S.-based position: In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form upon hire. 
• COVID vaccination policy: GFI requires all US employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Proof of vaccination will be requested before the start of employment. GFI will consider requests for accommodations or exemptions from this policy on a case-by-case basis, in accordance with applicable laws. More information here: https://tinyurl.com/GFICovidPolicy. 
• Salary: $165,120.02 - $173,376.06 (depending on experience and qualifications)

Important Dates

Application deadline: July 9, 2024

Anticipated start date: On or around September 3, 2024 

Application Instructions

GFI uses an anonymized hiring system that redacts key identifying personal information from all applications. We use this tool as part of a wider effort to reduce bias in our hiring process. Following these instructions will help to ensure your application is not delayed by a failed redaction. 

• Where possible, limit the creative formatting of your documents. If the name on your resume is an inserted image file or is styled with large spaces between each letter, for example, the redaction is likely to fail. Colors and designs are OK, but wherever possible, the text itself should just be regular text. 
• Please use consistent names. It helps to ensure that the name you use in your resume and cover letter is the same as the name you type into the application below. For example, if your name is Jennifer, please sign your cover letter as “Jennifer” rather than “Jenny.” 
• Submit PDF or .docx files only. Other file formats, like .txt, are likely to fail redaction. 
• Please do not include personal identifying information in your responses to the application questions. Referencing past education, work experience, and mission-alignment is OK. 
• Please do not contact the role’s supervisor or any potential member of the hiring team. If you have questions, please email careers@gfi.org. 

Thank you for helping us to ensure that the redaction process works smoothly and to review your application as quickly as possible!