Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative, founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, that bets early on exceptional people making the world better. We knit talent into networks, bet on the most promising ideas through diverse forms of competition and support, and equip people to scale through partners and modern tools. To realize this vision, Schmidt Futures uses a broad set of tools — including gifts, grants, investments, and startup activity — for charitable, educational, and commercial efforts with a public purpose. Our initiative brings together the efforts of various charitable and non-charitable entities to improve our potential impact by making diverse types of capital available to the efforts we support.
The Role
Manager of Delivery is a role within the AI2050 program at Schmidt Futures. AI2050 is grounded in the following motivating question: “It’s 2050. AI has turned out to be hugely beneficial to society. What happened? What are the most important problems we solved and the opportunities and possibilities we realized to ensure this outcome?” The initiative aims to answer this question primarily by making awards to support work conducted by researchers from across the globe and at various stages in their careers. Eric and Wendy Schmidt have committed $125 million over the next five years to the initiative; Eric Schmidt and James Manyika are co-chairs of the initiative.
The main areas of AI2050 work include:
Awards: AI2050 will issue awards to support work conducted by researchers. These awards will primarily aim to enable and encourage bold and ambitious work, often multi-disciplinary, that is typically hard to fund but socially beneficial. Awards will be given for exceptional work tackling one or multiple items from a working list of hard problems.
Artifacts: Work supported by AI2050 will be open-source and published, in order that society can benefit from this important work. This includes research from the award recipient network, from our collaborations with leading groups, and from the initiative itself.
Community: AI2050 Fellows will come from around the globe, and include qualified researchers and practitioners in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Through this initiative, we will plan to support talented researchers at various stages of their careers, to help encourage the next generation of researchers to focus on the hard problems in AI. AI2050 Fellows, our expert group, the broader AI community, and other stakeholders will regularly convene to discuss and advance the work of the initiative.
Key Responsibilities
The Manager of Delivery will provide support on AI2050’s program strategy; help source, diligence, and manage the program’s gifts, grants, and investments; and provide operational support.
Provide support on AI2050 program strategy
- Ensure team understanding of and compliance with internal processes during program implementation (e.g., budgeting, contracting).
- Support the structured challenge processes for AI2050 (e.g., developing and managing the selection and due diligence process for early career and senior fellowships, competitions, and awards).
- Collect data to monitor program progress on target metrics prep through grantee conversations and report reviews.
- Manage project execution for team - e.g., timeline, milestones, progress reporting.
- Coordinate with relevant functions whose work will support the impact of the program (e.g., comms, finance).
- Align and manage internal stakeholders and external consultants/advisors to support program goals.
Provide support on sourcing, diligence, and management of AI2050 gifts, grants, and investments
- Support gifts, grants, and investments proposal writing as needed (e.g., budget, outcomes/outputs).
- Coordinate submission to relevant review committees and follow up.
- Track post-approval and payment processes in coordination.
- Act as the point of contact for grantee during approval process.
Provide operational support
- Organize and manage team files.
- Coordinate team / grantee meetings (as needed).
- Help diligence partner organizations — including research facilities (universities, labs, etc.), startups, and philanthropic and government organizations — that could work in concert with Schmidt Futures.
- Work with our communications team to develop materials to publicize the accomplishments and impact of our grantees.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Preferred knowledge of grantmaking and grant management processes.
- Exceptional operational and program management skills.
- Experience collaborating with and managing multiple diverse stakeholders.
- Experience building and managing communities of people or talent networks.
- Outstanding interpersonal skills and ability to work well as part of a team.
- Strong written communication and oral presentation skills.
Requirements
- Have 7+ years of experience in an operational or program management/delivery type function.
- Have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent from an accredited institution.
- Demonstrated ability to manage large portfolios of grantees to agreed-upon outcomes.
- Be based at the Schmidt Futures offices in New York or Washington D.C. and be able to travel within the U.S. and internationally regularly as needed, following company policy and permitting circumstances.
At Schmidt Futures we are committed to fair, transparent pay and we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation. The target base salary range for this role is $155,000 to $180,000. Compensation for the successful candidate will be informed by the candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, competencies and experience.
Futures Action Network, LLC, which operates Schmidt Futures, is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that proudly pursues and hires a diverse workforce. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion or religious belief, ethnic or national origin, nationality, sex, gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws or prohibited by Company policy. We strive for a healthy and safe workplace and strictly prohibit harassment of any kind.
