Managing Director

The Kelsey is hiring a Managing Director, Technical Assistance to lead and grow our disability-forward technical assistance, municipal consulting, and field-building efforts — supporting others to create inclusive housing and scaling the tools and systems that enable 20,000 disability-forward homes by 2030. This role will guide The Kelsey’s technical assistance portfolio, oversee partner engagements, and steward the Learn Center open-source platform. As a senior leader, the Managing Director will help shape strategy, manage a growing team, and ensure our TA work drives impact across communities, geographies, and sectors.

About The Kelsey

Based in San Francisco, operating nationally, we are a team of people with and without disabilities, creating a disability-forward housing future. The Kelsey advances disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to homes and opportunities for everyone. We both co-develop affordable, accessible, inclusive housing and lead advocacy and field-building efforts to create market conditions so inclusive housing becomes the norm.

In just six years, we have built over 240 homes, unlocked almost $190M in funding, and impacted over 6,000 community advocates. Residents with and without disabilities now live in communities that were in concept five years ago. Our Technical Assistance has supported projects across 16 states, and our open-source resources have been used in almost every state.

All new and existing team members are expected to embody our values in their everyday work:

• Disability-Forward: We bring our lived experiences as disabled people and allies to everything we do. We seek to create spaces where disability is a valued part of human identity and communities. We center access, practice interdependence, and value diversity.
• Intentional: We are thoughtful, curious, and deliberate. We deeply understand the systems impacting our work and willingly learn new strategies needed to advance our mission.
• Joyful: We value joy even as we undertake serious work and challenges. We create space for ourselves and our partners to experience community, fun, purpose, and happiness.
• Radically Inclusive: We are welcoming, care-centered, and accepting. We practice hospitality and foster belonging for all people in our community and networks, across their many identities and ideas.
• Groundbreaking: We pave new ways to understand and approach the work we do, unconstrained by the status quo and stigma. We transparently and willingly share our knowledge with others to make more impact possible and open new opportunities.

About the Role

Building on The Kelsey’s momentum and growing national footprint, the Managing Director, Technical Assistance will play a central role in shaping what comes next. As a core member of the senior leadership team, this leader will guide and grow our strategy to build, assist, and enable 20,000 homes by 2030 — with a focus on the “homes assisted” side of our impact.

The Managing Director will oversee and expand our technical assistance and municipal capacity-building portfolio, supporting cities, developers, public agencies, and nonprofits to replicate and adapt The Kelsey’s disability-forward housing model. This includes overseeing project intake and delivery, managing consulting engagements, shaping tools and templates, and evolving our Learn Center — a growing library of open-source resources.

This leader will manage a talented and expanding team, balancing day-to-day TA delivery with long-term field-building strategy. They’ll cultivate a culture of performance, collaboration, and joy, while strengthening systems for organizational sustainability, accessibility, and scalable impact.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and Scale Technical Assistance & Replication Work

• Advance The Kelsey’s TA portfolio to meet revenue, housing impact, and mission-aligned targets
• Oversee end-to-end delivery of TA projects, ensuring client satisfaction and measurable outcomes
• Lead intake, vetting, onboarding, and staffing of TA and consulting clients
• Reinforce and refine client screening processes to ensure values alignment and strategic fit

Build Systems and Tools to Increase Reach and Replicability

• Standardize and improve TA frameworks, tools, templates, and data collection methods
• Guide the Learn Center strategy and manage development of new open-source content
• Conduct data and financial analysis to inform TA strategy and client support
• Translate complex housing, policy, and financial concepts into accessible language for varied audiences

Advance Field Partnerships and Policy Influence

• Represent The Kelsey in partnerships with public agencies, advocacy networks, funders, and sector leaders
• Contribute to housing policy advocacy efforts, including Section 811, QAP, and LIHTC reform
• Help translate TA insights into broader systems change, field-building content, and advocacy campaigns
• Ensure TA work strengthens and informs The Kelsey’s goals around equity, accessibility, and replication

Manage Team and Collaborate Across the Organization

• Supervise and develop members of the TA and housing teams, providing coaching, support, and accountability
• Design internal systems that reduce friction and enable seamless, inclusive execution
• Foster a culture of access, collaboration, learning, and impact
• Collaborate cross-functionally to integrate TA work with The Kelsey’s development pipeline, narrative strategy, and policy work
• Participate on the senior leadership team to shape strategy, align on goals, and track organizational impact

About You

The Managing Director, Technical Assistance will be a dynamic and mission-driven leader who is passionate about both sustained impact and transformative scaling. You bring a strategic mindset, a collaborative spirit, and a commitment to equity and inclusion. You're energized by working across teams, sectors, and systems to make housing more inclusive, accessible, and replicable.

You thrive in roles where you're asked to zoom out to shape long-term strategy and zoom in to guide detailed execution. You're experienced in navigating complex systems — whether local governments, housing policy, public finance, or cross-sector partnerships — and can guide others through that complexity with clarity and focus. You’ve built and managed programs or teams that deliver measurable impact while developing the tools, systems, and knowledge to enable others to do the same.

You take pride in not just doing the work yourself, but in supporting others — cities, developers, advocates, and communities — to lead their own disability-forward housing efforts. You’re excited to equip others with the frameworks, insights, and guidance needed to create inclusive housing at scale.

You’re a skilled communicator who can translate technical concepts into accessible guidance, and you know how to align diverse stakeholders around shared goals. Whether you come from the public, nonprofit, private, or philanthropic sectors, you’re excited to shape the future of inclusive housing by working with and through others.

The ideal candidate will have:

• Experience in housing systems, policy, or technical assistance — including municipal consulting, capacity building, or advocacy-oriented program design.
• Demonstrated success scaling programs or organizations, including building replicable tools, processes, and teams to enable growth.
• Strong strategic thinking and facilitation skills — able to lead clients, colleagues, and partners through complex decision-making processes.
• Experience managing people and teams, including in remote/hybrid settings and with staff from diverse lived and professional backgrounds.
• Exceptional cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to work across silos and disciplines to maximize shared impact.
• Strong analytical and communication skills — able to synthesize data, surface insights, and share ideas in clear and accessible formats.
• Commitment to equity and disability-forward values, with the humility to learn and the courage to lead in complex and evolving systems.
• A bias toward action with the discipline to execute and the flexibility to iterate — able to move seamlessly between vision and detail.

We need people with and without disabilities from diverse backgrounds, lived experiences, and skill sets to live out our mission at The Kelsey. We strongly encourage people who have felt the impacts of the nation’s housing crisis to apply. This includes but is not limited to people most impacted by racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, and other forms of oppression.

Location

This is a remote position with travel 10-12 times annually. Preference for candidates based in the southeast or with experience in the southeast or candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area, tied to our growing housing pipeline in those regions.

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $105,000 to $170,000 based on experience and location, with future growth. We offer benefits such as robust health coverage, three weeks of vacation and family leave, and retirement matching contributions.

If you have any access needs or accommodations for the interview process, please don't hesitate to email us at molly@thekelsey.org. Requests will have no impact on the selection process.