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About Equality Fund

Equality Fund is a global fund working to create a more sustainable and equitable model for funding feminist and human rights movements worldwide. Since its creation, Equality Fund has brought together grantmaking, investment and policy to move resources towards organisations and movements advancing gender equality and human rights. Today, it works with partners across more than 100 countries and oversees an investment portfolio of close to $400 million: proof that the model works at scale and the foundation for the multi-billion-dollar systemic investing platform Equality Fund is now building toward.

Equality Fund is now entering an important next phase. Having built and tested a distinctive model, the organisation is looking at how to deepen its impact, strengthen the way its different areas of work come together, and continue building a sustainable approach to financing movements and driving systemic impact across the full continuum of capital. This next chapter will require Equality Fund to keep the entrepreneurial and opportunity-driven spirit that has supported its growth, while bringing greater clarity and alignment across the organisation.

About the Role

The Managing Director is a senior leadership role with a direct line to the CEO and a broad cross-organisational remit. The role will serve as a trusted partner to the CEO while also taking substantive ownership of the organisational conditions that enable Equality Fund’s strategy to be well executed.

A central purpose of the role is to translate ambitious vision into practical action. The Managing Director will help turn strategic direction into priorities, operating plans, decisions, governance processes, and clear communication, and will ensure that commitments are followed through on. They will bring realism and rigour to prioritisation, including helping the organisation decide what to pursue, pause or deprioritise as new opportunities emerge.

The Managing Director will also provide strategic leadership over critical enabling functions, including internal communications, People and Culture, systems and operations, and connect these with externally oriented areas such as strategic partnerships, global grantmaking, investment, resource mobilisation, advocacy and innovation. The role is intended to bridge these worlds, strengthen integration across the organisation and help senior leaders work effectively across functional boundaries.

This is not simply a coordination role. The Managing Director brings a systems-thinking orientation, taking ownership of how the organisation functions as a whole and actively enabling it to work well as it grows. They will be expected to personally lead and deliver substantive work, while enabling functional leaders to retain clear ownership of their areas. They will need the judgement to know when to lead, when to challenge, when to convene and when to create space for others to exercise authority.

Duties and Responsibilities

Strategic Partnership and Execution

• Act as a trusted senior partner to the CEO, providing candid advice, constructive challenge and practical support on organisational and strategic priorities while building strong collaborative relationships with the wider leadership group to drive alignment and effective delivery across the organisation;
• Translate the CEO’s vision and strategic direction into clear priorities, practical plans, decisions and action across the organisation;
• Bring rigour and realism to strategy, helping close the gap between ambition and what the organisation can effectively deliver;
• Lead and personally deliver priority cross-organisational work where issues cut across functions or require executive-level ownership;
• Bring strong political and organisational judgement to complex situations, anticipating implications and helping the leadership team navigate them with clarity;
• Represent the CEO and Equality Fund with internal and external stakeholders when appropriate.

Internal Communications, Culture and Organisational Readiness

• Provide strategic leadership for internal communications, promoting staff engagement and shared understanding of major decisions, priorities and organisational developments;
• Bring clarity and shared language to strategic direction, so it connects clearly to work and priorities across Equality Fund;
• Play a central leadership role in Equality Fund’s cultural evolution and professionalisation, ensuring that people are supported as the organisation strengthens its systems, practices and readiness for scale;
• Build trust and alignment across the organisation while balancing participation and consultation with clear decision-making and accountability;
• Support leaders and teams to absorb new priorities and ways of working without losing the creativity, humanity and feminist values that are central to Equality Fund’s culture.

Enabling Functions and Cross-Organisational Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership over critical enabling functions, including internal communications, People and Culture, systems and operations;
• Align these enabling functions with externally oriented work, including strategic partnerships, global grantmaking, investment, resource mobilisation, advocacy and innovation;
• Act as a bridge across these areas, helping leaders identify dependencies, resolve tensions and make integrated decisions;
• Strengthen the leadership of others rather than replacing functional expertise or centralising decisions unnecessarily;
• Create the conditions for distributed leadership to work effectively through clear roles, decision rights, accountability and information flow.

Executive Functioning and Governance

• Own and strengthen the operating rhythm of the Executive Office and senior leadership, ensuring meetings and decision processes are focused, well prepared and result in clear action;
• Shape and manage the executive agenda so that the CEO’s time is focused on where her leadership adds the most value;
• Coordinate the preparation of substantive executive and governance outputs, including management reports, Board papers, executive briefings, decision materials and strategic recommendations;
• Synthesise complex information from across the organisation into clear analysis and decision-ready materials for the CEO, senior leadership and Board;
• Strengthen governance processes and information flow between the CEO, Board, senior leaders and the wider organisation.

External Insight and Strategic Connectivity

• Maintain a strong understanding of the external environment in which Equality Fund operates and connect relevant developments, relationships and opportunities to internal strategy and execution;
• Work effectively across sectors and with a range of stakeholders, including movements, governments, funders, investors, multilateral institutions, and other partners;
• Support strategic thinking across Equality Fund’s different forms of capital and external work, helping the organisation identify where collective approaches can create greater impact;
• Bring sufficient external credibility and judgement to engage partners, support resource mobilisation and represent Equality Fund when required.

Organisational Prioritisation and Ways of Working

• Shape strategic workforce and resource planning to ensure capacity and staffing remain aligned with organisational priorities;
• Serve as a thought partner to leaders to make explicit choices about what to pursue, pause, stop or deprioritise as new opportunities arise;
• Work with leaders to anticipate and remove barriers to delivery, positioning the organisation for growth and scale.

Skills and Experience

• Substantial senior leadership experience at a comparable level, with a track record of personally owning and delivering complex organisational work;
• Extensive experience working closely with a high vision organisation and senior executives, with the confidence, judgement and credibility to challenge, anchor and translate vision into executable strategy;
• Strong operational and organisational leadership experience, including prioritisation, execution, systems, governance and cross-functional ways of working;
• Demonstrated experience leading through organisational evolution. Strong coaching and conflict facilitation skills, able to build coaching capacity across the organisation and help surface, navigate and resolve tension constructively. Background in organisation development would be a strong plus;
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to personally produce high-quality executive and Board-level reports, briefings, analysis and recommendations;
• Strong experience in internal communications and the ability to communicate strategy, organisational decisions and change with clarity, judgement and care;
• A track record of working laterally across senior teams, integrating different strategies and functions, resolving tensions and moving complex decisions into action;
• Strong cross-cultural competence, with an adaptive, growth-oriented mindset suited to working in complex global environments, across diverse teams, geographies and contexts;
• Comfort engaging externally with movements, governments, funders, investors and other partners, including experience supporting fundraising or resource mobilisation;
• Knowledge of feminist funding, gender justice, global development or a closely related field is valuable. Candidates from adjacent sectors are encouraged, provided they bring a strong understanding of power, equity, participation, and feminist values;
• Strong judgement, self-awareness and relational intelligence, with a thoughtful approach to power, positional authority and distributed leadership;
• The ability to thrive in an ambitious, creative and evolving organisation where there may not be an established playbook, combining imagination with pragmatism and a strong bias toward delivery.