Key Qualifications: Strong alignment with our vision and mission, a passion for startups, experience building or running an organization, experience managing a team
Start Date: Fall, 2015
Time Commitment: Full Time, minimum 2 years
Location: Amman, Jordan
About Think Unlimited
Think Unlimited is a dynamic, fast-growing nonprofit registered in the U.S. and based in Amman, Jordan. We envision a rising generation of Arab youth equipped and empowered to become proactive citizens, social innovators, and problem-solvers in their communities, their nations, and the world. We provide transformative learning experiences that build achievement motivation, creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship skills, and encourage young people to apply those skills through social innovation.
Our flagship program, called “Solutionaries,” is an evidence-based curriculum designed specifically for Arab youth. The first of its kind in the Middle East, the Solutionaries program brings issue-centered experiential learning to classrooms where rote memorization is the norm.
We partner with Jordanian Universities to offer Solutionaries as a two-semester, credit-bearing course. We also work to build an innovation ecosystem on campuses to support students as they develop and implement projects and initiatives. We also recruit Arab youth from all over the world and bring them to Jordan for a year of service as Solutionaries facilitators. We're placing youth on the front lines of education reform in the Arab world with this unique and powerful peer-to-peer model.
Think Unlimited is a Draper Richards Kaplan grantee, and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. Our work has been featured by New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, as well as on the Harvard Business Review Blog, the World Economic Forum Blog, and the FastCompany CoExist Blog.
Position Description
Think Unlimited is in its fourth year of operations and is entering an exciting growth phase. We are making preparations to double our staff and our impact in the 2016-2017 academic year, and are undertaking an ambitious long-term plan for expansion both within Jordan and regionally. We are looking for a dynamic, passionate individual to join us as our first Director of Operations. This person will help us build the necessary operations systems to support our rapid growth, will build out our operations team by adding new positions, will facilitate a transition from our current work flow, and will ultimately manage our full operations team. The Director of Operations must bring a high attention to detail, possess an unwavering commitment to excellence, and be able to feed energy and enthusiasm to our team.
This position will be full-time, will be located in our Amman, Jordan offices, and will require a commitment of two years minimum. Because we are a startup and therefore in a constant process of growth and development, this is a truly dynamic position. We envision this position developing in phases, with the Director of Operations’ main responsibilities changing over time as follows.
Phase 1: Building HR Systems (4 months)
- Recruiting: Systems and talent pipeline
- Establishing pay scales, and performance evaluation and rewards systems
- Employee onboarding: contracts, systems orientation, employee handbook, etc.
- Legal: residency, visas, orientation to Jordan, etc.
- Payroll
- Paid time off systems
- In-service training and support systems for staff
- Workplace culture
- Preparations for handing off the HR systems to an HR manager, to be recuited
Phase 2: Transitioning from current admin team’s workflow to a new set of positions and reporting structures (4 months)
- Recruiting and onboarding staff to fill empty positions
- Reconfiguring roles and responsibilities in order to transition from an admin staff of 3 to an admin staff of 6
- Transitioning management of all operations activities from Executive Directors to Director of Operations
Phase 3: Preparing all remaining systems and infrastructure for the doubling of our staff in August, 2016 (2 months)
Phase 4: Stepping into Director of Operations role (Starting approximately 10 months after hire, and ongoing)
- Managing full operations load including:
o Reporting for U.S. and Jordan
o Legal compliance
o Budget creation and monitoring
o Interfacing with EDs and Program Director
o Helping establish and maintain overall organizational culture
o Talent cultivation and staff check-ins
- Managing full Admin Staff:
o HR Manager
o Finance Manager
o Communications Coordinator
o Administrative Assistant
o Executive Assistant
Our ideal candidate will bring:
- Strong alignment with our vision and mission, including a passion for social entrepreneurship, education, and human development
- A passion for startups and the process of building new initiatives
- Enthusiasm for working with an early-stage, but quickly growing organization
- Flexibility and comfort working in a fast-paced environment where creativity, collaboration, initiative, some unpredictability, and an iterative approach are the norm
- Significant management experience
- Experience building or running an organization
- Training in business or administration
- A meaningful connection to the Arab World – culturally, ethnically, and/or time spent in the MENA region