Program Officer, Economic Growth in LMICs

Position description

Open Philanthropy is looking to hire a Program Officer to lead our new program: economic growth in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The successful candidate will help launch this new program, with a minimum budget commitment of $30m over 2025-2027. They will develop our grantmaking strategy and be responsible for leading and executing that strategy. 

About Economic Growth in LMICs

We are launching a new program focused on promoting economic growth in LMICs. The potential benefits of successful grantmaking are substantial, and we believe that there are strategic, high-value grants that Open Philanthropy is well-placed to make. You can read a high-level summary of our research on economic growth in LMICs and rationale for launching this program in our blog or in our research report. 

We plan to launch this program with a minimum commitment of $30m over three years, from 2025 to 2027. In our research so far, we have identified promising potential grantmaking strategies, but the Program Officer will be responsible for developing our program strategy and executing it, supported by our research, operations, and grants teams. We have flexibility on the strategy we end up pursuing, and will ask candidates about their potential approach as part of the selection process. 

About the Role

Your primary responsibility will be to make, manage, and evaluate grants to promote economic growth in LMICs. Your key goal will be to maximize the cost-effectiveness of the grantmaking portfolio. 

You will develop and execute OP’s grantmaking strategy in this area. Our grantmaking might focus on a few thematic areas (e.g., economic policy, trade, state capacity), have a geographic focus in target countries/regions, and/or respond to promising grant opportunities across countries and thematic areas. After deciding on a strategy, you will execute it by making grants, tracking their progress, and rebalancing the portfolio to maximize impact. You will also build relationships with other grantmakers and policymakers to stay abreast of opportunities and promote approaches you think are unusually valuable. 

Our Program Officers are leaders in their fields, and we give them high levels of autonomy in the grantmaking process. Open Philanthropy is committed to helping you succeed. We offer support through our experienced grants, legal, operations, and research teams. If the program demonstrates success in achieving its goals, it could be extended over time, potentially with a higher yearly budget or additional staff. This is an opportunity to shape a new initiative from the ground up, with significant flexibility and the potential for substantial impact.

Key Responsibilities

• Setting strategy: Set the program’s strategy and direction based on your own analysis of which thematic areas and/or geographies to focus on. Solicit and investigate new ideas or approaches, and continue to build and update this strategy as conditions evolve.
• Making grants: Source and investigate promising grant opportunities to promote economic growth in LMICs. 
• Managing and evaluating grants: Follow up with grantees periodically. Regularly monitor and assess their progress to inform our evaluation efforts.
• Developing relationships: Establish and maintain relationships with current and prospective grantees, funders, policymakers, and other stakeholders in the field. Explore and develop promising partnerships opportunities. 
• Be an active voice in the field: Represent Open Philanthropy at relevant external meetings and conferences. Give interviews and publish in the area.

Who might be a good fit

You might be a good fit for this role if you have:

• Relevant experience in organizations working to promote economic growth in LMICsand knowledge of such organizations. This could come from working in economic policy for an LMIC government or for organizations that directly fund or advise economic policy work in LMICs such as multilateral organizations, philanthropic donors, or private sector organizations (e.g., rating agencies and macro investments funds). It might also include academic or policy research directly about economic growth in LMICs.
• Relevant technical knowledge of key issues related to economic growth. For example, being a thoughtful, critical consumer of frontier research on key areas related to growth (e.g., macroeconomics, development, trade, political economy, state capacity). 
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills. Able to rigorously assess the cost-effectiveness of potential grant opportunities and to critically evaluate assessments by others. You should possess a willingness to acknowledge tradeoffs, and use evidence about impact and cost-effectiveness to update your views. 
• Good communication skills, especially the ability to articulate your views clearly and with strong reasoning transparency, including to smart generalists who may not have a deep background in your area. You must be able to represent Open Philanthropy effectively to external audiences, and to build rapport and relationships with grantees, peer funders, and other stakeholders.
• Be based in, or able to travel frequently to, countries or regions in which you expect to focus our grantmaking. You will need to be knowledgeable about the economics and politics of these countries or regions and have strong networks within them. 
• Excitement for our mission.

We expect all applicants to have at least 5 years of relevant experience working to promote economic growth in LMICs. We strongly encourage applicants with significantly more experience to apply and expect that many strong candidates will have more experience. 

This job description is intentionally somewhat broad and covers a range of potential outcomes in terms of scope and seniority. This reflects our willingness to shape the role around specific candidates. We are open to a more senior version of this role for candidates with 15+ years of relevant experience who have held key leadership positions in the past, demonstrated a deep knowledge of the field, and built a strong network of relevant people and organizations within it. In such a case, the compensation and title would reflect this higher seniority. 

The ideal candidate for this position will possess many of the skills and experiences described above. However, there is no such thing as a “perfect” candidate. If you are on the fence about applying because you are unsure whether you are qualified, we strongly encourage you to apply. 

Application Process

Our application process will include work tests and interviews, all of which will take place remotely. Please note that we cannot give feedback during the early stages of the process, including on any work tests, due to time constraints. Thank you for your understanding.

The initial application consists of answering a series of short questions on our application form, including some questions related to promoting economic growth in LMICs, and a 25-minute quantitative work test (for which you will need to use Google Sheets or MS Excel).

We plan to reach out in December and ask candidates who advance based on the strength of their initial application to submit a work test in early January. This work test will ask candidates to explain their likely strategy if they were to lead this program and to complete a quantitative assignment. Based on previous hiring rounds, we expect to interview shortlisted candidates in February and make an offer in March, but we will communicate any timeline updates to candidates who remain in the process.

Role details and benefits

• Compensation: The baseline compensation for this role is $203,855.76, which would be distributed as a base salary of $180,855.76 and an unconditional 401(k) grant of $23,000.00 for U.S. hires. All compensation will be distributed in the form of take-home salary for internationally based hires.
  • These compensation figures assume a remote location; there would be geographic adjustments upwards for candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area or Washington, D.C.
• Time zones and location: You can work from anywhere, though we would require the successful candidate to be able to overlap 2 hours/day with the North American Central Time Zone. 
  • Although we don’t require this role to be based in the U.S., we are happy to consider sponsoring U.S. work authorization. However, we don’t control who is and isn’t eligible for a visa and can’t guarantee visa approval. 
• Benefits:
  Our benefits package includes: 
  • Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the U.S. for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personal health expenses.
  • Dental, vision and life insurance for you and your family.
  • Four weeks of PTO recommended per year. 
  • Four months of fully paid family leave.
  • A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive. 
  • A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered. 
  • Support for remote work — we’ll cover a remote workspace outside your home if you need one, or connect you with an Open Phil coworking hub in your city.
  • We can’t always provide every benefit we offer U.S. staff to international hires, but we’re working on it (and will usually provide cash equivalents of any benefits we can’t offer in your country).

Application instructions

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