Senior Strategic Facilitator - Stanford University

Stanford University is seeking a Senior Strategic Facilitator to join its Improvement, Analytics, and Innovation Services team, an in-house consulting group dedicated to elevating Stanford's research and teaching mission. In this role, you'll lead some of the university's most impactful projects, from strategic planning and team-building retreats to coaching senior leadership on institutional strategies. Reporting to the Senior Director of Service Design and Facilitation, you'll thrive in a collaborative, engaging environment that values innovation. With a competitive benefits package and relocation assistance, this hybrid role in Palo Alto and Redwood City offers the chance to shape Stanford's future across both administrative and academic domains.

Apply today to join Stanford's mission-driven team and lead projects that shape the university's future!

Another Source's client, Stanford University, is recruiting a Senior Strategic Facilitator to join their Improvement, Analytics, and Innovation Services team to work at both campuses in Palo Alto and Redwood City, CA. This is an opportunity to have a huge impact with a team that supports many groups campus-wide at Stanford. This is a hybrid position; a minimum of 2 days on-site, however expectations may allow for more days on-site each week depending on project needs.

Stanford recognizes that living in the Bay Area comes with a high cost of living. Because of this, they are doing their absolute best to offer a total compensation package that creates an opportunity for you to thrive in a career at Stanford AND enjoy the beautiful Bay Area! How do they do that?

This is a hybrid opportunity with the flexibility to work remotely and on both Stanford's Redwood City and Palo Alto campus.

• 17+ transportation programs and resources.
• 7+ On-site childcare facilities available to you!
• Relocation assistance is available.

Being on campus means the opportunity to utilize world-class exercise facilities where you can grab a lunchtime workout to sustainability and environmental responsibility programs that make it easy to live your values:

• 20+ recreational facilities
• 18+ Mental health and wellness programs

A caring culture! We provide superb retirement plans, generous time-off, and family care resources:

• $6,000+ in tuition and training assistance annually

• Up to 50% of Stanford's annual tuition cost applied to your child's undergraduate tuition across the nation https://cardinalatwork.stanford.edu/benefits-rewards/tgp
• 18+ PTO/Vacation days per year
• Up to 5% of your base pay contributed automatically to your 403(b) + a generous match
• 100% of your retirement account is fully vested immediately

Anticipated Salary Range: $166,000 - 170,000 annually, commensurate with experience.

About Improvement, Analytics, and Innovation Services:

Improvement, Analytics, and Innovation Services is an in-house consulting group serving a wide variety of Stanford University organizations and departments (both administrative and academic). Our teams provide expertise in process improvement, service design, facilitation, business analytics, and project management.

Our vision is to create, instill, and sustain a business improvement discipline throughout Stanford that delivers transformed and efficient processes and services through a structured, data supported approach. Our mission is to identify, prioritize, and launch projects that measurably improve our business processes and services by looking broadly across the institution and through collaboration with university partners.

Learn more here: https://improvement.stanford.edu/

Meet the Team: https://improvement.stanford.edu/people

Position Summary:

This position will lead projects for our growing strategic facilitation service line, including: strategic planning facilitation, cross-team and team-building retreat facilitation, providing coaching and advising to senior leadership teams to develop and implement institutional strategies, and facilitation of focus groups and workshops for gathering qualitative input from a variety of university stakeholders.
The role will work with senior leadership across the university to design stakeholder engagements and facilitative approaches for projects that best meet desired organizational outcomes. You will develop, scope, and lead strategy initiatives for clients and their respective leadership teams, facilitating the process and stakeholder engagement throughout.
The Senior Strategic Facilitator role is part of our Service Design and Facilitation team, which provides user research, usability review and testing, survey design and analysis, service design, co-design and ideation workshops, retreat facilitation, and service strategy. This position will also be expected to contribute to and participate in projects that span this range of efforts across the design, innovation, and facilitation space.

Additional perks of joining our team:

• Exciting and diverse set of projects covering a wide range of topics, not limited to any industry (Stanford is a microcosm of many industries)
• Many opportunities to have a huge impact supporting many groups campus-wide at Stanford
• Be part of an organization that leverages cross-disciplinary domain expertise in process improvement, service design, business analytics, and project management when working on projects

Core Duties:

• Lead multiple complex, high-visibility strategic facilitation projects by engaging senior leadership and a wide range of stakeholders who span many decentralized administrative and academic units.
• Design and facilitate engaging and effective strategic planning processes, cross-team retreats and workshops, focus groups, and co-design workshops
• Manage high-level stakeholder interactions, facilitating difficult conversations and offering coaching to improve leadership effectiveness in challenging dynamics
• Service as a trusted advisor and provide coaching to executives and leadership teams on organizational strategy and stakeholder engagement, helping them navigate organizational challenges and strategic decision-making
• Interpret insights and conclusions from qualitative/quantitative discovery research, synthesize findings, develop actionable recommendations, and communicate results to senior level client teams.
• Assist client teams in developing implementation and action plans based on strategies developed in projects.
• Engage prospective clients who have expressed interest in the team's services, identifying needs, and tailoring approaches to tackle a broad range of business challenges
• Ensure team operations processes and reporting expectations are met, including: business development, portfolio management, time tracking, billing, and other operational tasks as part of our in-house consulting business.
• Stay abreast of new methodologies and frameworks, and continue to develop our team's playbook for strategic planning and facilitation. Provide thought leadership and innovation within projects and practice areas.
• Coach and mentor junior team members.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in business, design, psychology, behavioral science, management science, or other relevant field
• 5+ years of demonstrable and relevant facilitation experience, including working with executives, managers, analysts, and front-line teams
• 5+ years of consulting experience in a strategy consulting firm or equivalent corporate role
• At least 2 years experience leading complex projects
• Experience working with or in higher education industry a plus

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Expert facilitation skills: Skilled at building trust, managing a room, guiding the conversation, creating safe spaces for constructive conversation, resolving conflict and mediating in group settings, navigating cross-cultural dynamics and a variety of stakeholders, remaining neutral, actively listening and reflecting back, guiding the group toward alignment and resolution
• Executive coaching expertise: Strong experience providing executive-level coaching to senior leaders. Skilled at enhancing leadership performance, resolving conflicts, and improving team dynamics. Proven ability to counsel senior leadership on organizational strategy, leadership effectiveness, and team performance.
• Adaptability and mastery: Creatively design engaging meeting agendas and planning process. Comfort with a wide variety of strategic planning, design thinking, and/or other innovation frameworks; skilled in creatively adapting approaches and agendas in the moment to achieve client goals
• Comfort with complexity and ambiguity: Able to navigate complex stakeholder landscapes, manage up and influence, see the big picture and recognize critical details, deal with ambiguity, managing changing dynamics with a growth mindset, apply unstructured, creative problem solving skills
• Excellent communication skills: Skilled at distilling complex information in a clear and simple manner, outstanding interpersonal communication, creating high quality and visually engaging presentations, presenting to senior-level leadership
• Excellent attention to detail and effective time management
• Organizational astuteness, enterprise-wide vision, and comfort advising at senior leadership level

Why Stanford is for You: Imagine a world without search engines or social platforms. Consider lives saved through first-ever organ transplants and research to cure illnesses. Stanford University has revolutionized the way we live and enrich the world. Supporting this mission is our diverse and dedicated 17,000 staff. We seek talent driven to impact the future of our legacy. Our culture and unique perks empower you with:

Freedom to grow. We offer career development programs, tuition reimbursement, or audit a course. Join a TedTalk, film screening, or listen to a renowned author or global leader speak. A caring culture. We provide superb retirement plans, generous time-off, and family care resources. A healthier you. Climb our rock wall or choose from hundreds of health or fitness classes at our world-class exercise facilities. We also provide excellent health care benefits. Discovery and fun. Stroll through historic sculptures, trails, and museums. Enviable resources. Enjoy free commuter programs, ridesharing incentives, discounts and more!

Stanford is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Another Source works with their clients, on a retained project basis. We are committed to building inclusive candidate pools as we partner with hiring teams. Veterans, women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities are encouraged to apply. As you read through the job posting and review the list of qualifications (required and/or preferred), please do not self-select out if you feel you do not meet every qualification. No one is 100% qualified. We encourage you to apply and share your story with us.

#AS1