Director of Strategic Exploration and Innovation
Working at the Foundation for a Healthier West Orange (FHWO) means being part of a team committed to building a lasting legacy for the West Orange community. We take on complex challenges through focused, collaborative, and learning-oriented work with shared leadership, care for one another, and accountability for meaningful outcomes.
Position Summary
The Director of Strategic Exploration & Innovation leads how Healthy West Orange turns emerging priorities into action. Working from community signals, data, partnership insight, and leadership direction, this role shapes how the Foundation convenes partners, designs initiatives, tests approaches, and builds efforts that move strategic priorities from concept into real-world implementation.
Reporting to the CEO, the Director brings strong strategic judgment and operational discipline to early- and mid-stage efforts - clarifying scope, aligning partners, refining initiatives in practice, and generating clear, grounded learning about how efforts should evolve as they mature toward broader scale, sustained delivery, or community handoff.
Responsibilities & Accountabilities
Strategic Discovery & Exploration
- Clarify where and how the Foundation should advance emerging and existing priorities- drawing from community signals, partnership insight, data, and leadership direction to shape focused exploration efforts.
- Strengthen leadership decision-making by providing clear perspective on initiative progress, evolving approaches, cross-stream coordination, and the practical implications of continued investment, adjustment, pacing shifts, or partnership changes.
- Contribute to transparent, grounded dialogue with the Board by articulating how exploration efforts are progressing and what they are yielding in practice.
Innovation, Pilots & Learning
- Advance strategic priorities into practical, coordinated action - clarifying scope, shaping initiatives in real time, identifying constraints, and refining delivery so efforts mature toward sustained impact.
- Build initiatives that are grounded in community experience and strengthened through collaboration - ensuring exploration efforts are responsive to real-world conditions and evolve through shared learning with partners over time.
Enterprise Integration & Progression
- Collaborate across the leadership team to ensure exploration efforts align with brand clarity, operational readiness, and strategic priorities - strengthening cohesion as initiatives evolve.
- Guide the progression of initiatives from exploration toward expanded delivery - preserving core design principles and ensuring continuity as efforts transition to long-term ownership.
Partnerships & Convening
- Mobilize partners around emerging priorities—accelerating collaboration, shared learning, and tangible progress on complex community health challenges.
Team Skills
Human & Interpersonal
- Communicates clearly and transparently across teams and with the community.
- Collaborates openly, builds trust, and shares information generously.
- Listens with curiosity and respect for diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
- Demonstrates empathy, respect, and care in how work is done and decisions are made.
Thinking & Execution
- Approaches challenges with practical problem-solving and creativity.
- Prioritizes effectively, making clear tradeoffs to focus effort where it matters most.
- Adapts to change, experiments, and learns from experience.
- Plans work, follows through on commitments, and communicates proactively.
- Uses insight and information to inform decisions and improve outcomes.
Community & Systems Orientation
- Builds and sustains relationships with care, responsiveness, and integrity.
- Understands how their work fits within the broader mission, community, and ecosystem.
- Willing to test ideas, learn, and take informed risks in service of impact.
Technical Skills
- Strategic initiative design and scoped exploration planning
- Systems thinking and complex problem navigation
- Early-stage initiative development and adaptive execution
- Data interpretation, research synthesis, and pattern recognition
- Cross-sector convening and collaborative facilitation
- Judgment and decision-making in ambiguous, multi-stakeholder environment
Leadership Skills
- People Leadership & Development: Builds trust, develops others, and creates clarity so teams can do their best work.
- Cross-Functional & Systems Leadership: Works effectively across functions and partners, understanding how work connects to broader outcomes.
- Adaptive Decision-Making: Leads with sound judgment in dynamic, public-facing environments; adjusts quickly as conditions change.
- Focus & Boundary Leadership: Prioritizes what matters most, sets clear boundaries, and avoids unnecessary complexity or overload.
- Communication: Provides clarity, direction, and shared understanding through clear, grounded communication.
Experience
May include roles focused on innovation, strategy, program design, systems change, community development - within nonprofits, foundations, public sector, or mission-driven organizations. Experience leading exploratory work, pilots, or learning-oriented initiatives across partners is particularly valuable.
Education
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required. Advanced study or training in public health, policy, design, strategy, or related fields is a plus but not required.
We welcome passionate, mission-driven individuals who want to make a difference. Please email your resume and a cover letter indicating the position you wish to be considered for to careers@fhwo.org.
