Managing Director

Future of Fish is a nonprofit business incubator for entrepreneurs whose business models support seafood sustainability. Ultimately, all of our work contributes to the end of overfishing of the world's oceans. We work with early-stage companies to help them launch, and with established companies to explore new business opportunities.

The FoF team includes experts in early-stage corporate development, social entrepreneurship, and food system supply chains. We select and develop companies that focus on increased efficiency, sustainable practices, and traceability in the seafood supply chain. Our approach to system change is to seed the supply chain with leaders in best, sustainable practices so that their success puts pressure on others to conform. We offer a range of business planning and strategy design services for our entrepreneurs. We assist companies in accessing funds in both the private and philanthropic capital markets, as we have relationships with both foundations and impact investors looking for mission-driven start-ups.

We don't just choose entrepreneurs from the ranks of who's asking for money. We find ideas that should be businesses, but do not yet exist. Using 2 years of comprehensive supply chain research, including an ethnographic study of the seafood supply chain, we've identified a set of levers that will produce disruptive, positive change throughout the industry. This blueprint for system change guides our decisions about what to support and help invent.

Future of Fish is looking for a dynamic, energized, and hands-on leader to help us evolve and hone our operations and client projects, systems, and processes, and to ensure excellence in the management and delivery of services. This new, full-time, salaried role in our growing organization is a perfect fit for someone with the desire and ability to operate at both tactical and strategic levels, an interest in juggling diverse internal and external responsibilities, and a passion for addressing/solving social and environmental issues.

Future of Fish, founded in 2010, is a small organization with team members based in San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, Santa Fe, and Seattle. We favor a Chicago or Bay Area location for this position, but are open to others. Our mission is to end overfishing by helping entrepreneurs reinvent the seafood industry.

Position Overview:

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Managing Director will be responsible for managing all of Future of Fish's operations, both internal, as well as its external consulting engagements with its entrepreneur clients. This new role will involve approximately 10% strategy, 70% people and process management related to internal or external projects, and 20% client relationship management.

Externally, the Managing Director will serve as the project lead on multiple client engagements, assist with setting strategy, and oversee all of the external consultants who execute that strategy. The MD will ensure that the quality of all external consultants is high.

The Managing Director also oversees other project leads on client projects, helping ensure that the right contractor assets (either internal or external) are recruited to the project.

Internally, the Managing Director will oversee FoF's fiscal sponsor relationship, which means tracking monthly spending to existing budget, helping the Executive Director set and shift budget targets, and overseeing branding and marketing work. (Does not include bookkeeping, or communication to funders, which is executed by the fiscal sponsor.)

The Managing Director will also oversee the Research Manager and the Administrative Coordinator internally, in addition to a network of outside consultants related to client projects.

Responsibilities:

External Operations:

• Serve as point person and project lead for FoF clients and related engagements
• Translate strategy, jointly created with Executive Director, Entrepreneur in Residence and others, into an Execution Plan
• Ensure that all engagements go according to the Execution Plan, or flag when the client needs have shifted to require a revision of direction or strategy
• Ensure the highest level of quality and client satisfaction on projects. As needed, provide support and guidance to other project leads in responding to their clients' concerns and needs
• Work closely with the Administrative Coordinator, who creates and tracks project paperwork
• Work with the Executive Director to write Scope of Work documents for contractors
• Submit weekly project status reports using an online team collaboration tool
• Manage and vet the work of outside contractors working on client projects
• Manage and oversee other project leads on internal or external projects

Internal Operations:

• Supervise the Research Manager & Administrative Coordinator (part-time staff roles)
• Oversee any initiatives related to FoF marketing or branding (e.g. new logo design or Web site re-design)
• Review monthly expenditures with Executive Director to ensure spending is tracking to budget
• Convey any necessary budget changes to the Fiscal Sponsor
• Manage relationship with the Fiscal Sponsor

Qualifications:

Education and Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years experience in an operations-oriented role, preferably in business management and/or consulting
• Demonstrated experience continually improving client relationship management processes
• Experience with start-up(s) and/or high-growth companies
• Experience with sophisticated client relationship management
• A strong arc of professional growth, both in terms of technical and interpersonal skills

Skills, Ability & Knowledge:

• Excellent people management skills
• Solid project management skills including management of scope and cost
• Demonstrated ability to simultaneously oversee multiple projects
• The ability to manage time, project scope, and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment, and in response to changes in direction and/or client objective
• The ability to coach others by building sufficient trust and rapport, and by challenging and supporting them as needed
• Demonstrated ability to deliver clear expectations, clarify assumptions, and make and keep commitments
• The awareness to work with others in a way that balances attention to important tasks and attention to the business relationship
• Demonstrated grasp of what is now known as "emotional intelligence" and its application to the management of self and others
• A history of reasonable, proactive conflict negotiation and resolution skills

Preferred Skills:

• The ability to vet financial modeling
• An understanding of core issues around a start-up company's growth trajectory
• An understanding of the key elements involved in choosing and refining a business model
• Familiarity with the process of raising venture capital and other forms of finance

To Apply:

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and 2 reference contacts to Scott Chilberg. Please make "Managing Director Application - YOURNAME" the subject of your email.