Job openings/Business Development

WMF Job Description: Head of Business Development

JOB TITLE

Head of Business Development, Wikimedia Foundation

JOB PURPOSE

As head of business development for the Wikimedia Foundation, your job is to develop and execute a business development strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation in the context of its mission, vision, values, and overall strategy. This position reports to the Chief Financial and Operating Officer.

JOB SUMMARY

This position will develop and execute a business development strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation in the context of its overall mission, vision, values and goals. The primary focus of this role will be to identify and develop earned-income activities with for-profit companies, particularly where those activities can help to make the Foundation’s educational and informational materials more widely available, in multiple forms, for people around the world. The role mainly involves developing new deals, although it includes some management of existing deals.

Responsibilities:

• Develop strategy: including identifying the major assets and capabilities that the Foundation brings to business development activities and developing and implementing a process for evaluating opportunities in terms of financial gain, mission/strategy fit and organizational capacity;
• Manage ongoing activities, including triaging all incoming opportunities; developing relationships with external partners and potential partners; managing the deals pipeline; researching opportunities and selecting the most appropriate to be developed; creating and implementing realistic business plans; working with legal counsel to develop contracts; coordinating and managing multiple projects simultaneously;
• Create key performance metrics during the execution of business planning and strategy development for specific programs, including market analysis, revenue planning, activity forecasting, and development of pro forma financial statements;
• Achieve annual business income targets, as established during the budgeting process;
• Prepare verbal and written communications, reports, and presentations;
• Stay on top of industry trends (e.g. acceptance/adoption of new technologies, etc.);
• Other duties as required.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Understanding of, and sympathy with, the mission and goals of the Wikimedia Foundation;
• Business Degree is required; Master’s Degree (MBA) would be an asset, Project Management Certification also an asset;
• 5-10 years management or leadership experience, with progressive responsibilities related to analysis of strategic opportunities, business development, marketing/professional outreach, and operations implementation;
• Excellent communication/relationship skills including the ability to persuade, negotiate, summarize and present; to prepare materials including RFIs, RFPs, client correspondence and reports;
• Possess skills to develop business plans, design deals in a mission-driven context, operationalize programs, and analyze financial and other outcome metrics;
• Solid understanding of the digital landscape and developing business models for content distribution;
• Technology literate;
• The ability to speak multiple languages is a major plus;
• Experience living or working outside the United States is a major plus;
• Understanding of the free culture and open source software movements is a plus;
• The ideal candidate will be highly-organized, motivated, and able to operate effectively in a collaborative, consensus-oriented environment.

ABOUT WMF

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable corporation. It is fully audited and has 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the 10 most-visited websites in the world.

TO APPLY

Please send a CV and cover letter to jobs@wikimedia.org, before November 5, 2007. Please put “Business Development” in your subjectline.

In your cover letter, please lay out some opening thoughts about how, in your view, the Foundation might best approach business development. Please also be aware that applications which do not include a cover letter will not be considered.

Please copy and paste the text of your CV into the e-mail, in addition to attaching the file.

Due to the volume of applications we receive, we regret that only people selected for an interview will be contacted. Regardless of whether you are interviewed, we thank you for your application.

This position is based in our San Francisco headquarters. If you are not currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area, please make that clear in your cover letter.