Associate Vice President, Policy Management

Associate Vice President, Policy Management

R Street Institute

Washington, D.C.

Are you an experienced, proven manager and coach?  Are you good at bringing out the best in smart, creative and talented people?  Are you comfortable with making tough calls even when you have limited information? Do you enjoy collaborating with colleagues outside of your team? Do you have a passion for free markets and limited, effective government?  If you answered with an unequivocal “yes,” the R Street Institute needs you as our Associate Vice President, Policy Management to oversee the execution and financial performance of our policy operation and editorial departments. This position will be a member of our executive team and report directly to the president.

About us first: We’re a quirky, right-of-center libertarian think tank with a budget of over $10 million, a full-time staff approaching 70 and a great work culture that landed us on Washingtonian Magazine’s Great Places to Work list in April 2019. We have offices around the country (although most of our staff are in Washington, D.C.) and our people frequently testify before Congress and have their work published by the nation’s leading outlets.

While a passion for our mission is a must, and a broad engagement with public policy issues is a plus, this job is not concerned with developing policy content. Instead, you will guide, lead and coach our policy and editorial directors and their teams to the next level. In addition to people management and leadership, this position will require substantial project management acumen. We believe that many strong candidates might have developed these types of experience in areas such as information technology, management consulting and political campaigns. We are particularly interested in candidates with these backgrounds, and experience in them or similar ones could prove as useful as direct policy management experience at a think tank, trade association or office on the Hill.

Your typical day at R Street might include working with the business development team to roll out a new and improved process; monitoring policy impact deliverables and helping a team make progress toward their goals; working with editorial to ensure publication quality; helping a policy director draw resources from across the organization to deliver on a last-minute request from a major foundation; collaborating with executive team members to resolve specific barriers to the success of a project; and shaping a joint funding proposal between two policy shops.

Skills and Qualifications

• Proven experience in leading and managing senior staff and delivering on complex projects
• Ability to communicate clear performance expectations and motivate staff to drive results
• Experience in managing progressively larger teams and working to develop a high-performing organizational structure
• Ability to balance and act decisively on potentially competing organizational priorities
• A passion for mentoring and developing talent
• Strong writing skills
• A dedication to working with others in the organization to produce high-quality outputs that delight our stakeholders
• Demonstrated success in achieving organization-wide goals
• Passion for free markets and limited, effective government
• 5 to 10+ years of progressively responsible experience, including direct experience managing people
• A sense of humor and a desire to grow with a dynamic organization

We think that most successful candidates will have at least a bachelor’s degree and many will have advanced degrees, but proven ability to get results can always substitute for formal credentials.

This is a full-time job based in Washington, D.C., and may require some travel and late hours. R Street is growing rapidly but remains a close-knit team. 

R Street strives to provide a compensation package superior to those at other think tanks and nonprofits. In addition to a competitive salary, we provide a health insurance option entirely paid by the employer (even for families), wellness benefits, an employer-subsidized mobile phones benefit, 401(k) contributions with up to a four percent match (fully vested from the beginning) and an exceptionally generous vacation policy.

R Street does not discriminate on the basis of age, sex, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, era of military service, gender identity, relationship structure or anything else that's illegal, immoral or stupid to use as a basis for hiring.

We currently plan to accept applications for this job until it is filled, and we hope to fill it by mid-October 2019. We will contact ideal individuals for video interviews and conduct them on a rolling basis. We will hold in-person interviews in our Washington, D.C., office.

Don’t wait any longer! To apply, please upload a cover letter and resume in Microsoft Word or PDF format.