Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives.

Position Details

Dartmouth College has a Tobacco-Free Policy. Smoking and the use of tobacco-based products (including smokeless tobacco) are prohibited in all facilities, grounds, vehicles or other areas owned, operated or occupied by Dartmouth College with no exceptions. For details, please see our policy. https://policies.dartmouth.edu/policy/tobacco-free-policy

Key Accountabilities

• Strategic Initiative Ownership and Execution
  • Description: Owns the day-to-day planning, execution, and delivery of strategic initiatives that lack a dedicated departmental owner, including cross-institutional priorities related to operations, capital planning, governance, institutional policy, investor responsibility, long-range planning, and crisis management.
  • Description: Develops and maintains structured workplans, timelines, and accountability frameworks for each initiative, ensuring consistent forward progress and clear reporting to the SVP and Board of Trustees as needed.
  • Description: Conducts research, analysis, and benchmarking to inform institutional decision-making on complex policy questions, producing white papers, briefing documents, and board-ready presentations.
  • Description: Advances Dartmouth’s thought leadership positioning in higher education by identifying emerging trends, drafting institutional responses, and coordinating with communications and government relations as appropriate.
  • Description: Manages the crisis management planning cycle, including scenario development, tabletop exercises, and maintenance of institutional response frameworks in coordination with relevant campus partners.
  • Description: Staffs and supports advisory committees and working groups as assigned by the SVP, preparing agendas, managing follow-up, and ensuring that committee deliberations result in actionable recommendations.
  • Description: Tracks the broader landscape of strategic commitments across the division, identifying risks, interdependencies, and resource conflicts, and escalating issues to the SVP with recommended courses of action.
  • Description: Develops and manages initiative budgets, conducts financial analysis and modeling to support strategic decision-making, and monitors expenditures to ensure fiscal accountability across assigned projects and programs.
• Operational Initiative Coordination and Liaison
  • Description: Serves as a strategic liaison to operational initiative owners (e.g., housing, childcare, energy transition), monitoring progress against institutional goals, identifying cross-cutting dependencies, and facilitating coordination where initiatives intersect or compete for resources.
  • Description: Maintains a consolidated view of the division’s strategic initiative portfolio, including status dashboards, milestone tracking, and regular briefings for the SVP that synthesize progress across both owned and coordinated initiatives.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Institutional Navigation
  • Description: Serves as a strategic liaison to operational initiative owners (e.g., housing, childcare, energy transition), monitoring progress against institutional goals, identifying cross-cutting dependencies, and facilitating coordination where initiatives intersect or compete for resources.
  • Description: Maintains a consolidated view of the division’s strategic initiative portfolio, including status dashboards, milestone tracking, and regular briefings for the SVP that synthesize progress across both owned and coordinated initiatives.
  • Description: Builds and sustains productive working relationships with senior administrators, faculty leaders, deans, trustees, and external partners whose engagement is essential to advancing strategic initiatives.
  • Description: Navigates the complex governance and decision-making structures of a research university, exercising political acuity and discretion when managing sensitive topics such as investment policy, institutional planning, and strategic positioning.
  • Description: Represents the SVP in meetings, committees, and working groups as delegated, ensuring continuity and consistent messaging across institutional conversations.
  • Description: Drafts executive communications, talking points, and briefing materials for the SVP in preparation for board meetings, senior leadership forums, and external engagements.
• Culture and Employee Belonging
  • Description: Demonstrates a commitment to inclusion and cultural awareness through actions, interactions, and communications with others.
  • Description: Participates in division wide CEB initiatives and training, including promotion of the 7 Principles (Empathy, Fair, Dependable, Inclusive, Considerate, Vulnerability and Respect).
  • Description: Willingness to foster a growth mindset in the areas of belonging and inclusion across the division.