The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

Global Health
The Gates Foundation Global Health division harnesses advances in science and technology to save lives in poor countries. We focus on the health problems that have a major impact in developing countries but get too little attention and funding. Where shown tools exist, we support sustainable ways to improve their delivery. Where they don’t, we invest in research and development of new interventions, such as vaccines, drugs, biologics, and diagnostics. Our work in infectious diseases focuses on strategies to fight and prevent HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases, enteric and diarrheal diseases and pneumonia. These strategies are supported by functional teams that focus on Discovery & Translational Sciences, Vaccine Development, Integrated Development.

The Discovery Team
The mission of Discovery & Translational Sciences (D&TS) is to catalyze innovation for the discovery and translation of transformative Global Health (GH) solutions. The primary role of D&TS is to support the foundation to achieve its ambitious equity goals as articulated in the objectives of the program strategies in GH and the Women’s Health Innovations program in Gender Equality (GE). For this, we exploit a unique advantage of the foundation in general and D&TS in particular: the ability to invest in high-risk initiatives with potential for truly disruptive change. We channel resources into creating more practical (affordable, scalable, deliverable) versions of existing tools, develop transformative new tools where none exist, and speed the translation of scientific discovery into implementable solutions, seeking better ways to evaluate and refine potential interventions before they enter costly and time-consuming late stage clinical trials. Key functions in support of this R&D mission include identifying and filling gaps in scientific knowledge, creating or implementing new technology platforms that can accelerate research in support of our goals, investing in potentially transformative ideas, continuous surveying of an ever-changing scientific and technological innovation space, and the fostering of an effective ecosystem of global health innovation, funding, and partnership to advance the foundation’s mission. Our intervention areas of focus include vaccines, biologics, drugs, and microbiome, as well as reproductive and sexual health.

Our work is organized into the following domains:
• Two tool-focused domains (Drugs; Vaccines & Biologics) and one topic-focused domain (Reproductive Health Technologies) that focus on our core pipeline of interventional product candidates.
• Three functional domains that support and accelerate the above work: Global Partnerships & Grand Challenges, which focuses on global health innovation sourcing and ecosystem support, particularly for priority low- and middle-income countries; Translational Sciences, which works to accelerate translation of products and technologies to maximize their potential impact; the Global Health Discovery Collaboratory, which provides foundation grantees with access to best-in-class technologies and platforms and fosters a collaborative network of centers of excellence in technological innovation, technology platforms, and grantees.

The Vaccines and Biologics (VxBx) domain has a large and growing portfolio of investments in innovative approaches and platforms aimed at the prevention of infectious diseases whose burdens are a major source and manifestation of inequity. As a functional team, we engage deeply and in a highly matrixed fashion with all our program strategy partners (e.g., Malaria, HIV, TB, Pneumonia and Pandemic Preparedness, Enteric and Diarrheal Diseases, Neglected Tropical Diseases, and Women’s Health Innovations) and other functional teams (e.g., Vaccine Development). Outside the foundation, we work closely with diverse external not-for-profit and for-profit partners including academia, biotech, pharma, government agencies, and other key funders.

The Global Health Discovery Collaboratory (https://www.ghdiscoverycollaboratory.org/) domain brings the leading edge of technological innovation to priority global health problems by sourcing cutting-edge enabling technologies, lowering barriers to accessing state-of-the-art tools and expertise, and supporting interdisciplinary scientific partnerships among our global grantee network to catalyze the discovery of novel biomedical solutions for global health priority problems.

Your Role

The Senior Program Manager (SPM) will provide strategic and operational support to Vaccines & Biologics and GH Discovery Collaboratory domains to enable the smooth execution of complex high priority, product development programs and enabling sciences which are strategically aligned with the Global Health priorities. You will ensure that product development teams and other stakeholders across the Foundation receive essential strategic and operational support to accelerate informed decisions based on scientific data emerging from diverse sources. This role is critical in managing cross-functional alignment, tracking program progress, coordinating strategic initiatives, and ensuring efficient portfolio processes.

Your core responsibilities include building strong relationships with a network of academic and industry grantees and partners and product development teams, understanding their specific needs, and ensuring successful execution of D&TS goals. You will support coordination of the DTS domains and matrix partners in delivering impactful assistance, ensuring all efforts integrated and aligned with the Foundation’s overarching goal of improving access to quality health products in low-resource settings. Additionally, you will spearhead initiatives to continuously gather feedback and implement improvements to optimize support, considering all of this in the context of growing applications for GenAI / LLM / Agents.

What You’ll Do

This Senior Program Manager will partner closely with the Vaccines, Biologics and Collaboratory Deputy Directors to ensure effective and impactful D&TS support for early-stage product candidates at the Foundation.

As an initial major part of responsibilities, you will help manage DTS's and other PST’s interrelated efforts to discover and develop transformative products for malaria eradication. In addition, you will help DTS manage high value relationships with critical technology innovation partners (e.g., AI computational protein and vaccine designers), ensuring that our diverse portfolio of technology development projects have clear decision-making criteria and accountable timelines for integration into product development with critical portfolio partners.

Strategy Development & Execution:

• Support the D&TS leadership in strategic planning, execution, and operational management.
• Develop frameworks for evaluating opportunities and optimizing portfolio investments.

Portfolio & Product Management Support

• Monitor and track product development progress, ensuring alignment with global health objectives.
• Maintain a dashboard for portfolio progress and key decision points.
• Provide analytic and research support to facilitate data-driven decision-making.

Business Operations & Process Improvement

• Identify gaps in execution and recommend solutions to improve collaboration and efficiency.
• Implement operational best practices such using GenAI / LLM / Agents to automate business workflows.
• Lead budget management, financial analysis, and operational planning for large scale investments.

Stakeholder Engagement & Relationship Management

• Build relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to facilitate alignment and collaboration.
• Organize and facilitate cross-functional team meetings, working groups, and leadership discussions.
• Act as a trusted advisor to D&TS leadership, providing insights to guide decision-making.

Communication & Knowledge Management

• Develop and maintain strategy and portfolio review materials for leadership meetings.
• Create and manage content for internal communications, presentations, and training materials.
• Ensure effective dissemination of insights, best practices, and lessons learned.
• Support knowledge-sharing initiatives to enhance cross-team learning and collaboration.
• Ability to effectively work with other Program Managers, operational and strategic personnel across DTS and GH.

Your Experience

We are looking for people who enjoy the challenge of working on problems to create solutions that have the potential for groundbreaking change. We seek a self-starter with proven program/project management skills who can enable the D&TS strategy.

• Master’s degree (MPH, MBA, MS, or equivalent) in business administration, public health, life sciences, pharmaceuticals or a related field or PhD or MD desirable. PMP Certification preferred.
• 7+ years of experience in program/project management, business operations, or execution planning.
• Experience managing complex product development programs, cross-functional teams, and business processes and effectively working with other Program Managers
• High emotional intelligence, active listening, and collaborative problem-solving to manage conflicts and build a positive working environment.
• Proven ability to drive strategic initiatives, process improvement, and operational excellence.
• Strong financial acumen, with experience in budget management, resource planning, and support impact tracking.
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, and relationship-building skills.
• Ability to identify, organize, and frame issues clearly for discussion and decision making.
• Ability to quickly grasp new technical content and new drug development technologies, partner dynamics, and drivers within the program's scope.
• High adaptability and ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.

Other Attributes

• Demonstrated passion for the Foundation’s values with a commitment to deliver results against our mission.
• Technical ability to speak at a high level to advanced scientific and quantitative topics in drug development and clinical trials.
• Experience in using GenAI / LLM / Agents to automate operational tasks to reduce resource burden and improve efficiency
• Background in management consulting, change management, or product development strategy.
• This role will require up to 10% domestic and international travel for meetings, conferences, and convenings.

*Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship.

The salary range for this role is $190,100 to $294,700 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $209,100 to $324,100 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.