Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Campaign Management

Department

ADV Office of Campaign Management

About the Department

The University of Chicago Advancement team cultivates lifelong connections with more than 220,000 alumni, current students, parents, and friends worldwide, building community through intellectual, professional, and other meaningful experiences on campus, around the world and online. Advancement empowers every division, school, department, and institute to thrive, generating support for esteemed faculty, pioneering researchers, visionary practitioners, and ambitious students.

During the Chicago Minds campaign, Advancement seeks to raise over $1 billion annually. This unprecedented philanthropic effort is designed to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, fueling bold discovery and amplifying the University’s global impact.

Our work is rooted in the belief that meaningful connection and lasting experiences inspire ambassadorship and enduring commitment. We champion a culture of innovation and excellence, inviting every member of our community to participate in a future defined by creativity, intellectual rigor, and shared purpose. Through collaborative partnerships, strategic stewardship, and investment in talent, Advancement is reimagining alumni and donor engagement while ensuring UChicago remains a catalyst of impact for generations to come.

The Strategic Planning function in Advancement propels operational excellence and supports enterprise-wide alignment to help us meet, and exceed, our fundraising goals. Acting as a vital bridge between vision and execution, this function brings clarity to priorities, mobilizes cross-functional partners, and keeps complex initiatives on track. With a sharp focus on delivering practical strategies and strengthening core operations, Strategic Planning ensures that Advancement not only performs at a high level today, but is also positioned for long-term, sustainable success.

Job Summary

The Senior Director bridges strategic direction and execution across the Strategic Planning, Campaign Management, and Executive Office functions, connecting people, priorities, and workstreams to advance the Assistant Vice President’s strategic agenda. Reporting to the Assistant Vice President for Strategic Planning and Campaign, the role translates organizational strategy into coordinated action by establishing clarity around priorities, ownership, sequencing, and decision-making across the division.

The Senior Director directly manages project managers embedded within Strategic Planning and Campaign Management who oversee day-to-day implementation, milestones, and delivery within their respective workstreams. Working across rather than within individual workstreams, the Senior Director drives broader organizational progress through cross-functional facilitation, coordination, and problem-solving with colleagues across the enterprise.

This role identifies and resolves complex, ambiguous challenges, including competing priorities, unclear ownership, cross-functional dependencies, and stalled decisions, and develops structures to support sustainable solutions or directs issues to the appropriate owners. Through this enterprise-wide perspective, the Senior Director also surfaces emerging risks, patterns, opportunities, and organizational constraints to the Assistant Vice President and other senior leaders to inform strategy and executive-level decision-making. This position leads the planning, development, and implementation of University objectives, long-range and strategic plans, and identifies the University’s strengths and weaknesses. Identifies new external partners to advance strategic priorities.

This position is not eligible for employer-sponsored employment authorization.

Responsibilities

• Serves as the operational bridge between the Assistant Vice President's strategic direction and the teams responsible for delivery across Strategic Planning, Campaign Management, and Executive Office Coordination, translating Executive Team priorities into integrated plans with clear ownership, timelines, accountability, and measurable outcomes. Aligns priorities and resources across the portfolio and ensures insights, risks, resource needs, and emerging constraints flow upward to inform strategy.
• Directly manages project managers embedded within the Strategic Planning and Campaign Management functions, setting priorities, allocating resources, and providing coaching and performance management. Provides the operational leadership and decision-making framework that guides their work and partners with them to build systems and processes that enable efficient, accurate, and repeatable execution.
• Identifies and resolves complex, ambiguous problems that cross functional boundaries, including competing demands, unclear ownership, contested priorities, and dependencies no single team is positioned to see. Designs and implements governance structures and processes that improve decision-making and, when ownership resides outside the Assistant Vice President's office, elevates issues to the appropriate senior leader and collaborates toward resolution.
• Facilitates alignment across functional leaders to advance organization-wide campaign and strategic planning objectives, serving as a convener who brings together the appropriate stakeholders to resolve issues, clarify direction, and maintain momentum while surfacing emerging conflicts and resource constraints before they become blockers.
• Partners with People and Culture to lead the orientation of new senior leaders joining Advancement to the planning process, ensuring they have the context and working knowledge of organizational plans and cross-functional interdependencies needed to lead effectively.
• Establishes and maintains standards for the quality, accuracy, and completeness of campaign and strategic planning deliverables, serving as the final review point before materials reach the Assistant Vice President or executive audiences and creating infrastructure that promotes consistency and cohesion across deliverables produced by teams throughout Advancement.
• Oversees campaign governance processes and workstream management, including planning, tracking, and reporting of the campaign budget and the operational infrastructure supporting the Campaign Cabinet, campaign co-chairs, Steering Committee, and other campaign leadership bodies.
• Oversees the development of Board materials, executive presentations, and other leadership-facing communications that support executive decision-making, provide clarity into Advancement progress and objectives, and articulate campaign strategy. Draws on organizational context and directs the collection and synthesis of information across functions to shape the narrative presented to executive audiences.
• Supports enterprise campaign initiatives and strategic projects, including campaign case support, executive analyses, and cross-functional initiatives that advance the University's strategic fundraising priorities.
• Leads execution of Advancement's strategic planning process and cadence, partnering across the organization to coordinate executive updates, annual planning, organizational goal setting, multi-year priorities, campaign milestones, and long-range strategic planning. Tracks progress against annual strategic objectives, develops unit- and team-level planning resources, supports development of the enterprise's three-year strategic plan, and oversees executive presentations and leadership materials that communicate organizational priorities, campaign performance, and strategic direction.
• Synthesizes progress against strategic objectives and campaign goals into an integrated view of organizational performance, partnering with Operations to assess the feasibility of stated goals against organizational capacity, competing priorities, and current conditions, and surfacing findings and course-correction recommendations to the Assistant Vice President and Executive Team.
• Provides strategic leadership for Executive Office Coordination, directing the operating rhythm of the Vice President's Office through Executive Team and Senior Leadership Team planning, STAT processes, executive briefings, prioritization of executive initiatives, and coordination across internal and external stakeholders.
• Continuously improves the systems, governance structures, management tools, and operational processes supporting Strategic Planning and Campaign Management to strengthen decision-making, organizational alignment, and execution across the portfolio.
• Seeks opportunities for professional development that will enhance job performance including attending webinars, seminars, building networks within the University and with colleagues at peer institutions.
• Acts as a lead researcher and planner for a wide array of efforts led by the department/division.
• Establishes and maintains a database of peer and competitor profiles. Helps develop and maintain a database of faculty (international) research topics and international inter-institutional collaborations.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications

Education:

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree.

Experience:

• Minimum seven years of professional experience in nonprofit management, development, alumni relations, marketing, public relations, sales or similar professional field.
• Minimum 8 years of progressively responsible experience in advancement, campaign management, strategic operations, or a similarly complex organizational environment; campaign experience strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading and developing a senior team, with a track record of organizational impact extending beyond direct reports.
• Strong project and operations management experience, including managing cross-team projects and overseeing multiple, simultaneous, and interdependent workstreams.
• Building systems, processes, and operational infrastructure that transform individually dependent work into documented, scalable, and repeatable practices.
• Producing and overseeing executive- and board-level materials that support strategic discussion and decision-making.
• Analyzing and synthesizing data and complex information and translating findings into clear, actionable insights for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with and advising executive-level leaders, including managing upward and navigating sensitive or high-priority matters with discretion and sound judgment.

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Demonstrated skill and knowledge of, or ability to learn quickly, the internal workings of the University as well as the technology tools available to Advancement, including Phoenix, the University's Donor Relationship Management Salesforce System.
• Proficient in a Microsoft Windows computer environment, especially with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access.

Preferred Competencies

• Outstanding interpersonal and communications skills characterized by the ability to listen, speak, and write effectively. Explain complex ideas clearly and simply.
• Manage confidential information with discretion and tact.
• Act with integrity, professionalism, and confidentiality.
• Work collegially and collaboratively in a team setting.
• Self-motivated and take initiative.
• Prioritize multiple projects and independently follow through with detail.
• Lead across functions through influence, building alignment, shared accountability, and momentum among stakeholders with differing priorities and perspectives.
• Strong facilitation skills to convene stakeholders, guide productive discussions, clarify decisions, and build shared ownership across teams.
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose and resolve complex, ambiguous organizational challenges and develop practical structures and processes that improve coordination and decision-making.
• Move fluidly between strategic thinking and operational execution, translating broad organizational priorities into clear plans, roles, and actions.

Working Conditions

• This position has a hybrid work schedule which includes weekly in office presence.
• Standard office environment.
• Travel to campus and/or non-campus locations for University business.
• Work evenings and weekends as needed.
• This position is located in Hyde Park at 5235 South Harper Court.
• This position is not eligible for employer-sponsored employment authorization.

Application Documents

• Resume/CV (required)
• Cover Letter (required)

The University of Chicago uses AI-assisted tools to streamline and augment some recruitment processes; however, AI is not used to make hiring decisions.

When applying, the document(s) MUST be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.

Job Family

Administration & Management

Role Impact

Individual Contributor

Scheduled Weekly Hours

37.5

Drug Test Required

No

Health Screen Required

No

Motor Vehicle Record Inquiry Required

No

Pay Rate Type

Salary

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FLSA Status

Exempt

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Pay Range

$140,250.00 - $165,000.00

The included pay rate or range represents the University’s good faith estimate of the possible compensation offer for this role at the time of posting.

Benefits Eligible

Yes

The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off. Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook.

Posting Statement

The University of Chicago is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or expression, national or ethnic origin, shared ancestry, age, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University's Notice of Nondiscrimination.

 

Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-702-5800 or submit a request via Applicant Inquiry Form.

 

All offers of employment are contingent upon a background check that includes a review of conviction history.  A conviction does not automatically preclude University employment.  Rather, the University considers conviction information on a case-by-case basis and assesses the nature of the offense, the circumstances surrounding it, the proximity in time of the conviction, and its relevance to the position.

 

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