Senior Project Manager, Global Endowment

Key Details

Compensation: $150,000 - $200,000

Contract: Full-time

Location: Fully remote, with a strong preference towards candidates based in San Francisco.

Reports to: CEO

Start date: ASAP

The Moment

AI is likely to generate economic gains to rival the most productive decades of the past century. However, these returns will flow primarily to those who own AI infrastructure, and most of the world's population is not connected to the systems in which that wealth accumulates.

The people furthest from these gains are not the white-collar workers who are dominating the discussion. The deeper problem is the roughly 700 million people living in extreme poverty who hold the lowest asset ownership, the weakest representation, and the least access to digital infrastructure. They will be excluded not because AI takes their jobs, but because they hold no stake in what it creates.

Windfall Trust is building a coalition of actors interested in directly tackling the issue of global inequality in AI-driven economic futures. We propose the founding of a global endowment on behalf of all of humanity, beginning its distribution to raise the floor where it is the lowest. The Fund will create a shared stake in that prosperity for those the market will not reach.

About Windfall Trust

Windfall Trust is a global policy accelerator preparing society for the economic disruption of transformative AI.

Our mission is to ensure that the economic benefits of advanced AI are broadly shared, rather than captured by a few. We do this by raising awareness, building coalitions, and strengthening the evidence base for policy action.

Our Scenarios Program convenes economists, AI researchers, policymakers and civil society leaders to explore plausible economic futures and identify the policy responses each future demands. The workshops are complemented by the Policy Atlas, Windfall’s evolving map of policy options for governments preparing for AI’s economic consequences. Our Global Dividend Fund is an initiative intended to respond directly to the growing issue of global inequality in AI economic futures.

The Role

As Senior Project Manager, Global Endowment, you will help stand up a new institution from a standing start.

The Fund is currently a research and design project. Over the next eighteen months it needs to become an operating entity with a legal structure, a governing board, a founding coalition, an endowment, and a first distribution. Your job is to make that happen: holding the plan, sequencing the workstreams, driving the external relationships, and making sure the pieces arrive in the right order.

This is not a delivery role inside an established program. Much of what you manage will not exist yet when you start, and a significant share of your work will be deciding what needs to exist and then building it. You will work directly with the CEO, with external counsel in multiple jurisdictions, with delivery and coalition partners, and with prospective funders including AI companies and major foundations.

Responsibilities

You will:

• Own the Fund's build plan, sequencing legal, governance, partnership, fundraising and pilot workstreams against external milestones and funder commitments.

• Manage external counsel across jurisdictions, including US tax-exempt organization counsel and Swiss foundation counsel, translating legal advice into decisions the team can act on.

• Drive partnership development with delivery organizations, coalition members and endorsers, including preparing term sheets and memoranda of understanding and managing them through to signature.

• Support fundraising end to end: building materials, preparing the CEO for funder conversations, responding to diligence requests, and maintaining the pipeline and reporting obligations to existing funders.

• Support the design and stand-up of the Fund's governance, including board formation, charter development and committee structures.

• Prepare the Fund's first distribution pilot in partnership with delivery organizations, from design through operational readiness.

• Build the Fund's internal operating infrastructure, including planning, reporting, decision records and the systems a new institution needs to be credible to counsel, funders and auditors.

• Represent the Fund with external stakeholders where the CEO cannot, with judgment about what can be said and what remains undecided.

About You

You’re ideally based in the Bay Area and immersed in the emerging AI conversation, as many of the conversations around funding will take place there in the next 12 months.

You are fast moving and good at structuring ambiguity. You can take a question like "what does the founding coalition look like, and what does each partner actually get?" and turn it into a set of options, a recommendation, and a path to a signed agreement.

You have credibility with sophisticated counterparties. You can hold your own with foundation program officers, general counsel, AI company executives and the leadership of major development organizations, and you know when to press and when to defer.

You exercise discretion and good judgement. Much of the work involves confidential funder conversations, partner negotiations and unresolved internal positions.

You are not expected to be an expert in AI economics, development finance or nonprofit law. You do need to engage seriously with the substance, learn quickly, and know when a question needs an expert rather than your best guess.

Experience

Strong candidates will bring most of the following:

• 5+ years in a role requiring end-to-end ownership of complex projects with external stakeholders. Relevant backgrounds include strategy consulting, foundation or fund operations, development finance, international organizations, legal or transaction management, or an early operating role at a fast-growing organization.

• Direct experience standing up something new, whether an organization, fund, program or major partnership.

• Track record managing external advisers, particularly legal counsel, and converting their advice into decisions.

• Excellent writing and synthesis. You will produce material that goes to boards, funders and counsel.

• Experience with partnership or contract negotiation, or a demonstrated ability to learn it quickly.

• Familiarity with at least some of: philanthropy, global development, nonprofit governance, institutional investment, or AI policy.

• Comfort working in a fast-moving, remote, international team, with the self-direction that requires.

• Willingness to travel internationally.

Experience in cash transfer programs, social protection, or the nonprofit legal and governance space is a strong advantage but not a requirement.

Process

We run a structured hiring process designed to be thorough but respectful of your time.

1. Application review. We review applications on a rolling basis, but will prioritize applications submitted before September 6th.

2. Screening interview (20 minutes)

3. Live exercise interview (approximately 45 minutes). You will receive a prompt 48 hours in advance covering a real problem the Fund is working through. This is not a take-home exercise; come prepared to discuss how you would approach it.

4. Final interview (approximately 45 minutes)

5. Reference Check

The starting date will be determined together with the successful applicant.

Not sure if you’re qualified? Apply anyway.

We actively encourage applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds and experiences.