Principal, Project Development
Center on Economics & Foreign Affairs · United States
full timehybridPrincipal
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Leads individual projects through feasibility, stakeholder alignment, market analysis, technical planning, funding preparation, and implementation 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 manage assigned workstreams, consultants, vendors, and routine expenditures within approved plans and delegated limits. May not bind CEFA, promise funding, execute agreements, or represent transaction approval without authorization.
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 professional 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.