About Avaaz
Avaaz is an international campaigning and advocacy organization that provides its global membership of almost 70 million people with opportunities to make our world a better place.
We’re one of the world’s largest online global campaigning movements, with people from every corner in the world taking action to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want. This includes protecting human rights worldwide, supporting indigenous struggles, saving our planet from climate change and other threats, and fighting to stop disinformation and other cyber threats from undermining our democracies.
Our model enables people to channel their voices into a powerful collective force at tipping point moments to impact the pressing global challenges of our time, from climate and ecological collapse to human rights abuses and the dismantling of democracy.
Avaaz is funded through small donations from individual Avaaz members, no big money from governments or corporations. This keeps us independent and allows us to keep a laser focus on doing what the world needs.
Position overview
Avaaz is at an exciting moment in its evolution. Over the past 18 months, the organisation has restructured to adapt to the rapidly changing global context and deliver more impact. With this foundation in place, the CEO now seeks to shift towards a more externally focused posture, amplifying the organisation’s voice and impact on the global stage. To enable this transition, Avaaz seeks to recruit a Chief of Staff (CoS), who can assume critical internal management responsibilities, freeing the CEO and Deputy CEO to concentrate on strategic and external priorities.
The CoS will serve as a key driver of strategic and operational excellence, ensuring that organisational goals and strategies are delivered efficiently, shaping priorities, turning vision into execution and ensuring strategic decisions reliably outcomes. This role is designed to bring order to complexity, delivering decisions made by the executive team to drive execution across Avaaz.
The successful candidate will thrive in a dynamic environment, embracing change and introducing innovative ways of working that resonate with Avaaz’s mission -driven ethos and remote -first culture, bringing fresh perspectives and adaptability. The ability to lead with empathy, navigate complexity, and inspire a diverse, passionate team with competing priorities is a must.
Beyond technical competence, exceptional communication and interpersonal skills and the right personality fit are critical - the successful candidate can handle a fast pace, high stress, complexity, and ambiguity with grace and determination.
The CoS will join the Office of the CEO, acting as connective tissue across departments and driving organisational level priorities. This is a senior leadership role that will serve as a trusted partner to the CEO, Deputy CEO and Executive Team, amplifying leadership capacity, implementing strategy and ensuring the organisation operates with clarity, speed, and cohesion.
This is a rare opportunity to both deliver impact today and help shape the future of one of the world’s most powerful civic movements.
Reporting Line
The CoS reports to the CEO and works in close collaboration with the Deputy CEO. The CoS is a member of the Office of the CEO. The Office of the CEO provides delivery capacity for the cross-organisational work and initiatives that exist outside of Avaaz’s three departments (Campaigns, Operations, Tech and Product) ensuring this work is well-organised and delivered.
Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership & Executive Partnership
- Act as a trusted advisor and thought partner to the CEO and Deputy CEO ensuring they are set up for success. Provide insight, judgment, and counsel on delivery of organisational priorities, risk management, and stakeholder engagement.
- Proactively identify challenges and opportunities for the organisation , ensuring timely information flow and decision-making support to Executives.
- Serve as a proxy for the CEO in meetings or communications when appropriate, maintaining alignment with organisational values and priorities.
Strategy to Execution
- Convert cross-functional priorities into clear, actionable plans with defined owners, timelines, and success metrics. Ensure decisions lead to measurable impact.
- Establish systems for tracking and reporting progress on strategic initiatives, identifying risks and course-correcting as needed.
Operational Planning
- Own execution of organisation -wide planning cycles, OKRs, and accountability frameworks. Ensure clarity and discipline in organisational rhythm.
- Identify and implement improvements in organisational processes, decision-making, and communication to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
Executive Team Management
- Facilitate cohesion and collaboration across the Executive Team, driving clarity on priorities and responsibilities.
- Design and run executive team meetings with clear objectives, actionable outcomes, and follow through.
Board & Governance
- Coordinate board meetings, oversee development of materials, ensure compliance with governance standards, and support Board-Executive interaction.
- Foster strong relationships with board members, ensuring they are informed, engaged, and aligned with organisational priorities.
Risk Management
- Own development and maintenance of an organisational risk register, ensuring risks are identified and appropriately managed.
- Project manage stakeholder comms and cross team crisis/project management.
Culture & Communication
- Model and actively champion organisational values, equity, and inclusion by fostering a culture where every individual feels respected, empowered, and heard. Demonstrate these principles through actions, decisions, and leadership behaviours that set a clear example for others to follow.
- Ensure priorities and decisions are communicated consistently and transparently across all regions, creating clarity and trust among global teams. Use clear messaging and accessible channels to keep staff informed, engaged, and aligned with organisational goals.
Experience
- An exceptional track record translating vision into execution, ensuring organisational priorities are delivered with precision and impact
- At least 8 years experience leading high -performing, diverse teams and working at top management level to align operations with strategic goals, preferably in a global or remote setting
- Experience designing lightweight, flexible processes to improve efficiency across operations
- Experience implementing strategies across complex organisations, with strong problem-solving in concurrent operational challenges
- Excellent change leadership credentials, including appreciation of people, technology, processes and systems, and a record for successfully implementing transformation programs
- Worked across international settings fostering collaborative, results -oriented environments with remote work experience
- Familiarity with international political and civic movement contexts
Competencies
- Strategic, critical and systems thinker; creative problem solver; curious and determined balanced with an ability to dive into details, operations and execution
- Excellent project management and organisational skills, with a bias for clarity, rigour, and delivery
- Resilient in high-pressure environments, comfortable with ambiguity and complexity
- Possesses exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to foster an environment of openness and collaboration-relationally grounded
- Political sensitivity and ability to work in a multi -cultural environment; ability to influence collaboratively
Personal Attributes
- Sound judgement, agility in problem solving, effective decision making & growth mindset
- Highly collaborative, low-ego, leveraging high levels of emotional intelligence with self-awareness & self-management .
- Skill in giving and receiving feedback on an ongoing basis.
- Adaptable in fast paced, high stakes environments .
- Purpose-driven, with a deep commitment to Avaaz’s mission
- Fluent in English
Location
Avaaz is a fully virtual organisation, with staff based across six continents. For this role candidates based in EMEA or Americas (EST) time zones are preferred, though other locations may be considered.
Compensation
The salary for this role is based on location and experience. Candidates will be provided with an accurate range in local currency.
- Europe: 135,777 - 177,839 EUR
- UK: 117,247 - 153,569 GBP
- US: 170,317 - 223,079 USD
Benefits
The development of our employees is paramount. To support this, we include these benefits:
- 5 weeks paid vacation per year
- 10 paid holidays per year
- Up to 2,500 USD for training and development per year
- Up to 1,250 USD for language development per year
- Workspace support, including reimbursement for home office or co-working expense
Application Timeline
We are reviewing applications on a rolling basis, and encourage all candidates to submit applications as soon as possible. Due to the expected high volume of applications, only candidates whose experience closely matches the requirements of the position will be contacted.
Apply : https://avaaz.pinpointhq.com/en/postings/b866aaba-f3d8-4710-845f-fc9984440e52