Associate Director, Global Operations

Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB) has built a global reputation based on its immersive and innovative management programs. We provide students a transformative leadership experience, pushing the boundaries of knowledge with faculty research, and offering a portfolio of entrepreneurial and non-degree programs that deliver global impact. We invite you to be part of our mission of developing innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change lives, change organizations, and change the world.

About Stanford Seed:

Stanford Seed is a Stanford Graduate School of Business-led initiative working to end the cycle of global poverty. We partner with entrepreneurs in emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives, making a positive impact on people, organizations and the planet. Seed believes that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the long-term engine of shared economic prosperity. That’s why we provide business development programs and long-term support to fuel their growth and scale their success. To date, participants of the Seed Transformation Program have raised over $2.8 billion in capital for their businesses, contributed $2.1 billion to their local economies and created approximately 434,000 direct and indirect jobs. Read more about Seed’s impact here.

Stanford Seed seeks an Associate Director, Global Operations. The global operations team comprises more than 50 staff located across Sub-Saharan Africa, India and Indonesia, and manages offices in Ghana, Kenya, and India, as well as partnership offices in Botswana and Indonesia. Together with Stanford GSB Faculty, the global team delivers business development programs to roughly 1,000 CEOs/founders each year. The Associate Director will lead and drive efforts to continuously improve Seed’s global hiring, training and HR processes for current and new Seed locations across Africa and Asia. They will also lead the annual project planning and execution for recruitment of participants for the global Seed Transformation Program - Seed’s flagship entrepreneurship support program. The Associate Director, Global operations will also be responsible for reviewing and preparing contract documents (HR, participant agreements, etc.), budget guidance (including for global compensation), and serve as Seed’s risk management lead. This role will report directly to Seed’s Global Director, and work closely with Global HR, Risk Management, and our teams at the GSB and in South Asia, Indonesia, East, West and Southern Africa. The Associate Director, Global Operations will contribute to the continued strengthening and success of Seed’s diverse global team.

In this role, you will work with a mission-driven and dynamic global group of teams and individuals. As we continue to deliver upon our ambitious mission and vision, success for this role will lead to the improved performance of the teams and individuals, as well as the quality of participants in Stanford Seed’s flagship Transformation Program. You will drive initiative, lead with creativity, and inspire resilience.

This is a full-time hybrid role that requires regular, on-site work in Seed’s offices at the Stanford GSB campus, with a minimum of at least two days per week, on average.

Your primary responsibilities include:

• Work closely in collaboration with the Director of Global Operations (direct supervisor) to strengthen team culture and routines to ensure maximum impact of Seed programs worldwide.
• Working in collaboration with Global HR and regional teams, manage and optimize the hiring processes for all global hires. Drive the ongoing improvement of and lead Seed’s Global onboarding, training, development and offboarding processes. For new regions, lead the hiring processes to bring on the initial team. Provide support to Seed Global Director and Global Human Resources on annual global compensation process.
• Lead the project planning and execution of Seed’s annual Transformation Program recruitment and admissions process for Africa and South Asia. For new regions, develop, project manage, and implement, the admissions process end-to-end for the first cohort.
• Oversee relationship with Risk Management with respect to international operations. Review and/or draft all contracts for which Seed Global Operations is accountable, consulted or informed.
• Support Seed Global Operations and Finance in ensuring the execution of programs in alignment with strategy and budget.