Chief Technology Officer (deadline May 12)

Position Summary

Color Of Change is one of the largest Black-led racial justice organizations in the country with more than 10 million email and SMS subscribers. We specialize in providing our members with easy, strategic actions to take in response to racial injustices – that when added with the voices of others – create the leverage for winning real-world change for Black people.

From our work to replace district attorneys unwilling to punish violent police officers to pushing back against Silicon Valley enablers of white supremacists,  Color Of Change has a track record of holding decision makers – corporate and political – accountable to Black people.

Role Summary:

There has never been a more exciting time to be a technologist at Color Of Change: the organization is making deep investments in technology and data. We’re scaling our technology department to optimize our work of improving the lives of Black people.

The person in this role will be focused on supporting Color Of Change’s activism impact and business goals with equal emphasis. This means leading a team of current and new engineers, analysts and product managers while driving change processes in conjunction with other leaders at the organization. You’ll have a budget to grow the team to meet the organization’s wide-ranging needs and create a first-class digital experience for our members.

This senior executive position, reporting to the Vice President and sitting on the organization’s senior leadership team, will set the vision for the organization’s technology strategy and tools, serving as the organization’s thought leader and also a public face on technology with funders, and other external stakeholders.

Responsibilities:

Vision

The most important responsibility of this role will be developing and implementing a clear, strategic vision for the organization’s technology, which includes:

• Effectively identifying the business needs for technology and the needs of our “product”: the campaign and media infrastructure that is working to improve the lives of Black people
• Developing a strategy and framework for allocating resources effectively in line with vision, in a way that motivates and inspires team members
• Continually communicating the vision of the organization’s technology to leadership, external stakeholders, allies, and team members in a way that is understandable and approachable for each audience
• Maintaining the appropriate urgency for an organization that is often facing off against powerful interests – leading the team in anticipating vulnerabilities and mobilizing resources quickly when required
• Building relationships and feedback loops across the organization to ensure that all departments are increasingly finding more efficiency with their internal tools and with the products they provide to the rest of the organization or our member base
• Engaging enthusiastically with Color Of Change’s mission and advocating publicly for a vision of technology that benefits our members and our allies

Team Building

You will be central in recruiting and retaining high-performing technical, engineering, and data staff. This includes:

• Bringing to the table an experience-based understanding of a well-staffed technology department and guiding the direction of our hiring to build the teams necessary to meet our goals
• Building a technology leadership team that can expertly manage their own teams, develop a strong and focused culture, and be responsive to the organization’s needs
• Setting goals that help meet the organization’s needs, set a high standard for success, and draw on the strength of team managers
• Identifying and resolving performance challenges in an empathetic, responsible way that reflects our culture and goals

Product Leadership

The person in this role will use their technical background to competently and skillfully manage the department by:

• Thinking critically about how to balance priorities and implement solutions in a way that garners respect among the technology department team, as well as senior leadership
• Guiding team leaders on architecture and technology decision making with an eye toward keeping project development time short, best practices kept, and technology standards as high and forward-looking as possible
• Staying current with new industry standards, trends, and technologies and find ways to integrate those into the organization’s infrastructure when appropriate
• Making decisions that produce high-quality results by analyzing problems, applying technical knowledge, and calculating risks

Infrastructure and Tools

Color of Change’s technology department is responsible for infrastructure across the entire organization. While we don’t expect the person in this role to be an expert in our systems, we are looking for someone who has the background and experience that ensures they can make informed decisions about:

• Third-party CRMs focused on campaigning
• Internal and external applications built by the in-house engineering team
• Analytics, including, reports, models, and survey research produced by the in-house analytics team
• The organization website, supporting infrastructure, and web architecture
• Information technology
• Cybersecurity practices and training

The ideal candidate will have:

Proven technical team leadership — in a change management context — is most important. The right candidate has the ability and technical leadership experience necessary to leverage state-of-the-art technology and practices to deliver best-in-class technology and data services, including managing teams for impact and scale.

This includes demonstrated knowledge, understanding, and deep experience in applying the latest technology and IT security tools, techniques and strategies, and data and analytics approaches.

• Excellent leadership, team building, and management skills, including a track record of coaching and mentorship
• A clear approach for building strong interpersonal relationships with internal and external senior-level stakeholders
• Significant experience building and implementing a technology roadmap that aligns with business objectives and user needs in a product, engineering, information technology roles, or related field
• A background implementing innovative technology solutions that remove barriers to scale
• Ability to translate big-picture strategy into written plans and presentations especially for non-technical team members
• Strong communication skills with the ability to present a technology vision confidently in a way that motivates others both internally and externally
• Hands on experience making decisions to allocate resources effectively across a cross-functional team
• Deep project management experience using agile methodologies
• Willingness and ability to adhere to budgets – and knowing when urgent needs rise to the point of changing direction
• Comfort with working remotely and managing staff who often work remotely
• Commitment to the mission of Color of Change: to help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us, moving decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America

Our tech stack includes:

• Field tools like TargetSMART, NGP VAN, and EveryAction
• Digital tools like ThruText, ThruTalk, ActionKit, and Google / Facebook ads
• Data warehousing tools like Civis Platform
• Dashboard tools like Periscope and Tableau
• AWS products like EC2, S3, and RDS

More Information:

Location: Washington, DC / New York, NY / Oakland, CA / Los Angeles, CA preferred, but remote candidates are welcome if willing to travel periodically to work with the team once offices re-open

Reports to: Arisha Hatch, Vice President, Chief of Campaigns

Salary: $230,000. This is a full-time exempt position.

Benefits include:

• Comprehensive Health Insurance – Health benefits plus dental, vision, and affordable family coverage.
• Flex Spending Account – Tax free accounts to offset transportation and medical costs.
• 401K Plan – To save for retirement.
• Life Insurance & Disability – To protect you and your family.
• Generous Vacation Package – 17 days of vacation (almost 3 and a half weeks!) plus 9 sick days and 9 holidays each year.
• Paid Parental Leave – New parents get this time to spend with their family! 12 weeks if you’ve been here a year or more!
• Sabbatical – After 5 years employment, take some time to recharge and pursue personal projects.