Director of Engagement

Overview

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is seeking a strategic, impact-oriented transportation professional to join our team as a full-time Director of Engagement. This executive-level role will be the strategic mind behind curating, directing, and implementing the overall strategy for the Engagement Team at NACTO, and collaborating with executive team members as the organization's leaders.

The ideal candidate has significant experience with being a strategist, visionary, and steward of a robust and evolving impact network, creating the framework for members to thrive. The ideal candidate also has a demonstrated track record of understanding the intricacies and complexities of local government, enabling them to support NACTO’s impact network members effectively and thoughtfully.

This executive-level role is supervised by the Executive Director and collaborates closely with the other members of the NACTO leadership team, the Director of People and Culture, and the Director of Policy and Practice. This role manages the Associate Director of Member Programs and the Associate Director of Convening, and is responsible for the success of the entire Engagement Team's workstream. The position will be remote with some travel to support NACTO events, such as the annual Designing Cities Conference, as needed. Interest in transportation is required, while at least significant experience working in local government or alongside local government partners is essential.

Who we are

NACTO is a nonprofit association of over 100 major North American cities and transit agencies, formed to exchange transportation ideas, insights, and practices, and to cooperatively address national transportation issues. Our members include cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston, as well as transit agencies such as LA Metro and the Chicago Transit Authority. Our mission is to build cities as places for people, with safe, sustainable, accessible, and equitable transportation choices that support a strong economy and vibrant quality of life. Our staff is passionate, outcomes-oriented, and committed to challenging the status quo in transportation and raising the bar for city streets. Our values include transformative vision, mobility justice, collective action, meaningful impact, public leadership, and integrity.

The Engagement Team at NACTO is composed of four core areas that touch all the work at NACTO: (1) Membership & Member Engagement (2) Capacity Building (3) Events (including the annual Designing Cities Conference), and (4) Field Building. As a membership organization whose goal is to build a connected, mutually supportive community of professionals in city transportation departments and transit agencies, the Engagement Team supports our members by providing a member engagement platform that offers them information, resources, inspiration, and tools to make change in their communities. The Engagement Team works cross-collaboratively with the Policy & Practice team to convene, activate, and inspire members through working groups, peer networks, committees, learning/collaboration spaces, and fellowship programs.

NACTO's Policy & Practice Team is a multidisciplinary team charged with developing and uplifting policies and design practices that result in equitable, safe, and sustainable cities. The team brings communications expertise, deep policy knowledge, and technical know-how to NACTO's work. Policy & Practice collaborates with the Engagement Team to support the city transportation and transit agency professionals working in our member agencies with value-aligned design guidance, program development, and policy recommendations.

Who you are

You are a big-picture thinker who knows how to meet the needs of an impact network that is learning and growing together in order to advance the practice. You are eager to learn the inner workings of how we connect with our members to develop and implement an impactful strategy. Guided by our strategic plan and annual work plan, you are working in close collaboration with your Engagement Team members, who oversee membership, including member engagement and capacity building, and convening, including events and field building, to develop and launch projects and priorities to engage NACTO members. Whether you are meeting with the Engagement Team, connecting virtually or by phone with new or long-tenured NACTO members, or collaborating in weekly leadership meetings, you are putting on your strategic thinking cap to find opportunities to ignite members, in person and virtually, in a way that is mission-aligned. As projects and programs at NACTO are complex, layered, and include many people and moving parts, you know how to take your impact network stewardship to the next level through expert project management that thoughtfully integrates your team and other collaborators across the organization.

Your background working in local government or partnering directly with local government workers provides you with a lens for understanding the roadblocks and challenges that our members face, as well as the opportunities and openings that will help them to advance the practice. In your meetings with NACTO members, you seek to learn what makes them tick, what fills them with hope, and what professional learning gaps they need NACTO’s support with. You can translate this information back to the NACTO team in a way that is accessible, comprehensible, and actionable within your broader strategic vision.

A large part of your work is connecting the dots between your team members so they feel connected to the annual work plan and the strategic plan, enabling them to serve NACTO members. You balance being a strategist with being an equity and accountability-forward manager and coach. You see the importance of balancing both support with encouraging self-direction and independence on your team. You recognize that it is essential to delegate clearly and directly so that your team members can use your direction to apply their expertise to their workstreams. You know that team members of all career levels from all backgrounds require both compassion and understanding as well as boundaries and clear expectations, and you regularly ask questions about power and privilege to help you to effectively manage and communicate. As you will be in regular 1:1 and group meetings with your team, you seek to be a clear and effective communicator so that your team can do their best work toward our organizational mission.

You are eager to collaborate with the other members of the leadership team to create synergy between your workstream and the other workstreams across the organization. You display curiosity, openness, and a collaborative spirit regarding the workstreams of the Executive Director, the Director of Policy and Practice, and the Director of People and Culture. You understand that organizational leadership is challenging work that requires resilience, strategic thinking, iteration, compromise, balance, and a dedication to a “we” mentality. You come to leadership meetings prepared to learn, make actionable proposals, develop plans, grapple with staff opportunities and challenges, and align with our strategic plan and annual work plan. You are always working to reach across the aisle to your other leadership team members to do this work as a unit for the greater good of our organization, our team, and NACTO members.

To be successful in this job, you will excel in the following core competencies:

Impact Network Stewardship

• You have moderate to significant experience in stewarding robust member networks composed of diverse practitioners with different identities and needs across career levels. You have experience with both systems-level organization and direction of networks, as well as the relationship-building that sustains these networks. You know how to use active listening, research, and evaluation skills to get to know members and to consider the most effective and appropriate programming and opportunities to engage them virtually and in person. You have a customer service mindset and know how to meet member needs through responsive, mission-aligned member programs.
• You use a business mindset to develop and maintain relationships with funders and partners. You consider the big picture of our membership plan as a key part of our business plan. This includes overseeing the work of team members who make recommendations about dues costs and communicate the costs and benefits to members, and collaborating with the Executive Director and the finance and administration team to ensure we're meeting our annual fundraising goals through membership. This also includes collaborating with the Executive Director on the management, implementation, and relationship maintenance of relevant grants.
• You know how to effectively translate your experience stewarding impact networks into actionable and sustainable systems and programs for members. You have a proven track record of taking projects and programs from strategy to fruition and documenting the processes, protocols, and structures for a team to adopt. You can anticipate and identify challenges and drive solutions, strategies, and systems that work. You are prepared to present potential plans, solutions, proposals, and recommendations to move your ideas for network stewardship into action. You understand that adaptation and editing are part of bringing any strategy to light, so you shift course and try a new approach when necessary.
• You effectively collaborate with your internal team members at different career levels to bring the Engagement Team’s work plans, strategies, and priorities to fruition. You oversee two workstreams within engagement: Member Programs and Convening, supervising the Associate Directors of each workstream and providing them with clear guidance and direction on project implementation, staff roles, and priorities. You are comfortable delegating, directing, and collecting valuable perspectives and insights from your colleagues on the Engagement Team, as their expertise will help you intentionally engage our members, ensuring they feel valued, welcome, and well-resourced. You recognize that you cannot do this work alone, so you trust the expertise of the Engagement Team while also providing sufficient direction, accountability, resources, and support to enable them to collaborate with you in your quest toward collectively stewarding a high-quality impact network. You readily partner with the Director of Policy and Practice to ensure that the impact network stewardship aligns with NACTO’s full scope of work. You welcome the expertise and partnership of the Director of People and Culture to ensure your work aligns with cultural and operational values and protocols.

Public Leadership-Focused Strategic Lens

• You have at least moderate experience and understanding of the transportation field, planning, policy, or other area within government that you use as a framework and lens for your strategic vision. You are motivated by your own experiences and knowledge of local governments as agents of progress. Your experience in or partnering with local government gives you the perspective to create the conditions for the professional transportation community to thrive. You drive towards outcomes, with a focus on people and the cities where they live.
• You have a deep understanding of community engagement, how plans become projects, collaborations between departments and across agencies, and opportunities and challenges in funding and policy. You are passionate about the connection between transportation and the health of people and communities. You use this knowledge to direct programs and strategies that support the NACTO team in high-quality, impact-oriented network stewardship, attuned to the lived experiences, challenges, opportunities, and aspirations of public leadership professionals working in transportation.

Equitable Organizational Leadership

• You have moderate to significant experience and a proven track record in equitable people management across varying career levels and identities. You are seasoned in coaching, managing, holding people accountable, setting direction, and clear delegation. You know how to take annual work plan priorities and help your direct reports and team to feel clear on their roles, aligned, accountable, and ready to deliver. You have a proven track record of implementing equitable practices in your organizational leadership work, and you actively work to dismantle bias and systems of oppression in your practice as a people manager. You value accountability, for yourself and for your team, and recognize it as an essential building block for effective leadership and people management. You view giving and receiving feedback as a core practice for demonstrating respect and doing good work together.
• You understand the nuts and bolts of remote people management and understand how to build connections and create accountability both virtually and in person. You use appropriate technology, resources, and people-management practices to engage the team in a way that encourages meaningful connection and the implementation of annual work plan priorities in a remote work environment.
• You have a proven track record as a member of a leadership team or as a trusted, consistent collaborator with leadership team members. You recognize that organizational leadership is a collaborative effort that requires alignment, clarity, an understanding and appreciation of one another’s roles, responsibilities, and expertise, trust, communication, and respect. You understand that organizational leadership can be challenging work and demonstrate resilience, a can-do attitude, flexibility, and a “we” mentality. You have strong emotional intelligence and find ways to regain balance when challenges arise.
• You readily collaborate with the Director of People and Culture to embody and adopt the organizational leadership approach expected by the organization. You are eager to brainstorm, ask for support, create plans, and iterate constantly to be an accountable, effective, and thoughtful leader. You actively seek to partner with the Director of People and Culture to apply the NACTO values, people management principles, and community principles to your work, strengthening organizational leadership, people management, and operational practices.

Work plan development, project management, and programmatic infrastructure building

• You are a strategic thinker and able to connect the dots across workstreams to identify commonalities, trends, and opportunities to harmonize with other workstreams at NACTO, creating feedback loops that ensure NACTO’s work remains connected to members’ needs, experiences, and feedback. You are able to develop strategies, action plans, and work plans with clear goals, objectives, and metrics for success, tying back NACTO’s organization-wide strategy and priorities, and those of other workstreams.
• You understand that a solid membership base is bolstered by a strong operational and logistical infrastructure, and you value keeping our membership base organized by using project management apps and other software such as HubSpot, Slack, Monday, and Forj to document and archive all membership information. You embrace NACTO’s many internal software, tools, and resources to the fullest capacity in order to bring your strategy to life. You always look for ways to upgrade your understanding of our internal software, tools, and resources to ensure that the work gets done in a collaborative, integrated fashion.
• You understand how to create an internal feedback loop in order to strengthen the member experience with NACTO. You have the know-how to keep the entire organization apprised of your systems and regularly offer opportunities to help them better understand how to organize, document, and manage their projects, in support of strong relationships and programmatic offerings for NACTO members.
• You model, implement, and champion NACTO’s organizational and operational infrastructure, including community principles, people management principles, and project management practices, and hold your team accountable to the same standard.

Qualifications

NACTO does not have minimum requirements for education or professional experience. We encourage all candidates with relevant experiences and professional backgrounds to apply. Generally, we expect qualified candidates would have the following baseline experience for a Director at NACTO:

Director

• A proven track record and moderate to significant professional experience in providing programmatic direction and strategic visioning.
• A proven track record and moderate to significant professional experience as a subject matter expert in at least three core responsibilities of the role.
• A proven track record and moderate to significant experience as a project manager on large-scale, multi-year projects.
• A proven track record and moderate to significant experience with operationalizing equity and inclusion within a workstream.
• A proven track record and at least moderate experience as a thought partner and collaborator on a management team or a leadership team.
• A proven track record and at least moderate experience managing a diverse team across varying career levels in a matrixed work environment.

NACTO engages in a negotiation-free practice for salaries and benefits that is aligned with our internal equitable compensation plan. We seek to offer competitive salaries and benefits that are aligned with market research and the requirements of the role. All salary offers are based on a combination of factors including years of experience and core competencies instead of a candidate’s ability to negotiate a salary.

NACTO is committed to workplace diversity and inclusion. We are equal opportunity employers and do not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender identity, marital status, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. We offer competitive salaries based on a nonprofit scale and commensurate with experience. Benefits include accrued PTO and family leave; healthcare, dental and vision insurance; expanded disability and life insurance; retirement savings plan; and pre-tax commuter benefits.

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