Managing Director, Project Origination & Development
Center on Economics & Foreign Affairs · United States
full timehybridManaging Director
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Owns the project pipeline and advances qualified opportunities from initial concept through feasibility, sponsor alignment, and development readiness.
Responsibilities
- Manage opportunities through defined development stages, from initial concept and screening to feasibility and implementation readiness. - Build integrated workplans covering market, technical, site, regulatory, stakeholder, financing, governance, and delivery questions. - Coordinate sponsors, consultants, public agencies, industry partners, communities, and capital providers around documented decisions. - Maintain project risk registers, decision logs, budgets, schedules, data rooms, and stage-gate recommendations. - Ensure proposed activities demonstrate mission alignment and public benefit and are escalated when conflicts or private-benefit concerns arise. Reporting & working relationships Reports to the project-development executive or managing director. Leads cross-functional project teams and works with sponsors, advisers, public agencies, researchers, finance staff, consultants, and community stakeholders. Authority & limits May lead assigned programs, staff, outreach, negotiations, and approved expenditures within written delegation. Final contracts, capital commitments, securities activity, public positions, and material partnership terms require authorized approval.
Required qualifications
- Experience in project development, infrastructure, industrial development, economic development, engineering, real estate, consulting, or project finance. - Ability to integrate technical, commercial, public-policy, stakeholder, and financing workstreams. - Strong project judgment, written communication, negotiation, and disciplined documentation skills.
Preferred qualifications
What success looks like: - Complete, decision-ready feasibility and development packages at each stage gate. - Stakeholders aligned on scope, responsibilities, milestones, risks, and next decisions. - Projects advanced efficiently, with weak opportunities paused or closed early. - Accurate project records and transparent use of CEFA resources.
Benefits
Employment classification: Paid senior staff position. Status: Full-time. Term: Ongoing employment, subject to applicable law and CEFA policies. Compensation: Salary and benefits commensurate with experience and CEFA's approved compensation framework. Performance cycle: Annual objectives with regular check-ins and a formal performance review. Work arrangement: Location, travel, schedule, and exempt/nonexempt status determined for the final role and jurisdiction.
Equal opportunity
CEFA is an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration without regard to any legally protected characteristic.
About Center on Economics & Foreign Affairs
CEFA is a mission-driven nonprofit institution connecting research, policy, capital, and public- and private-sector partners to advance economic development and foreign-affairs priorities at national scale.