Vice President, Transformation

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Company: National Audubon Society
Location: New York, NY 10014 (West Village area)

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Overview:[

Now in its second century, Audubon is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. Audubon’s mission is engaging people in bird conservation on a hemispheric scale through science, policy, education and on-the-ground conservation action. By mobilizing and aligning its network of Chapters, Centers, State and Important Bird Area programs in the four major migratory flyways in the Americas, the organization will bring the full power of Audubon to bear on protecting common and threatened bird species and the critical habitat they need to survive. And as part of BirdLife International, Audubon will join people in over 100 in-country organizations all working to protect a network of Important Bird Areas around the world, leveraging the impact of actions they take at a local level. What defines Audubon’s unique value is a powerful grassroots network of nearly 500 local chapters, 23 state offices, 41 Audubon Centers, Important Bird Area Programs in 50 states, and 700 staff across the country. Audubon is a federal contractor and an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE).

]Position Summary:[

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the Vice President, Transformation is responsible for overseeing Audubon’s change agenda, managing the roadmap required for success and ensuring that critical initiatives are successful to enable Audubon to scale.

There are three key areas of responsibility for the Transformation Office:
  • Enable Strategic Opportunities – Facilitate the identification, scoping, and justification to pursue key internal and external opportunities.

  • Transformation Management     – Own the 12/24/36 month roadmap for how Audubon will change including structure changes, capability development, process simplification, etc and track overall progress against goals.

  • Initiative Delivery     – Define the “Audubon Way” to successfully deliver cross-departmental critical initiatives. Manage a small team of senior project managers to embed in the most mportant efforts and establish a community of practice across the organization.

]Essential Functions:

  • Provide strategic advisory and thought partnership to the COO and CEO on various topics and issues as required.
  • Transformation Management. Lead and oversee the transformation roadmap planning and execution of the portfolio of change initiatives that enables Audubon to scale.
  • Lead and manage the team under the Initiative Delivery Team in providing the various services to support the transformation and operational agenda of the COO office. Oversee the recruiting of necessary talent to staff the Initiative Delivery Team.
  • Assist in the annual planning and budgeting process with an emphasis on the alignment and integration of goals to achieve an integrated budget.
  • Develop and maintain on-going reporting of metrics and dashboard to track organizational performance for various operational functions and for State Office performance.
  • Oversee the design, planning and execution of major CEO, COO or Audubon major initiatives to achieve on-budget, on-schedule and on-target results.
  • Oversee and lead the development of processes and practices to achieve operational improvements that can enable Audubon to scale.
  • Oversee the identification, analysis and design of operational improvement initiatives throughout Audubon.
  • Manage the strategic planning schedule for Audubon’s annual strategic planning process including the design and conduct of strategic planning sessions and the development of strategic plans and documentation. This includes the strategic planning at the Audubon-wide level and at the States Operational Planning level
  • Lead and manage the annual goal setting process including working sessions and goal development. Facilitate quarterly goal monitoring / checkpoints.
  • Oversee the change management services to be provided in supporting the various change and transformation initiatives
  • Manage the Executive Team (ET) meeting schedule and design/plan/facilitate the ET meetings as scheduled or as required.
  • Design and plan strategic meetings and workshops for the ET as scheduled and as required.
  • Assist in the design, planning and facilitation of bi-annual Audubon leadership meetings and off-sites as scheduled.
  • Participate or lead organization design sessions as required in the course of organization change initiatives.
  • Assist in performing operational assessments, gap analysis and design of improvement initiatives as necessary.

Qualifications and Experience:


Minimum Qualifications
  • BS degree, Master’s degree preferred, or equivalent experience.
  • 12 – 15 years of progressive experience in leading transformation initiatives.
  • Strong background in consulting and running a program management office.
  • Significant experience in delivering complex and multi-year transformation initiatives.
  • Experience with non-profit not required.

Required Capabilities and Competencies
  • Able to apply effective judgment in various problem-solving situations.
  • Possesses strong working knowledge and fluency across different business disciplines and functions.
  • Strong aptitude in managing by influence.
  • Effective leadership abilities to lead those from diverse business background.
  • Ability to build trust and credibility while driving complex change.
  • Well-developed analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Possess a customer focus approach in ensuring responsiveness to customer needs and requirements and managing effective partnerships across the organization.
  • Excellent communication skills – comfortable in interacting with different management levels.
  • Able to navigate, influence and negotiate with all levels of the business and organization functions.
  • Able to inspire and motivate others to achieve the next level of excellence.
  • Working financial knowledge in the effective management of budgets.
  • Strategic and critical thinker – able to develop, plan, execute a strategy and anticipate scenarios and potential issues and consequences with contingencies.
  • Able to establish productive partnerships with others across organization boundaries in working within matrix-managed organizations as appropriate.
  • Able to challenge the status quo and lead the assessment, design and implementation of change across different organizational levels.

Required Technical, Knowledge & Skills
  • Strong understanding and applied working knowledge of change management disciplines and methodology.
  • Experienced with goal setting and strategic planning processes.
  • Proven abilities and expertise in setting up and sustaining and effective program management office.
  • Working knowledge of organization design.
  • Advanced consultative and problem-solving disciplines and approaches.