Director, Finance and Operations, The AI Access Initiative

"About The AI Access Initiative We're at an inflection point in artificial intelligence - presenting both tremendous potential opportunity and risk for people in developing countries rather than allowing the poverty gap to expand low-income countries have an opportunity to leapfrog development milestones with AI-powered innovations. Incubated at Evidence Action we're launching The AI Access Initiative an organization focused on scaling AI-enabled ‘big bets' to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of people in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We will operate at the intersection of global development actors top AI labs and leading researchers to drive meaningful access to the benefits of AI for the 3.5 billion people living in poverty globally. We will create ""public good"" open-sourced playbooks toolkits and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. Given the scale of opportunity we expect our portfolio to expand substantially but to start we're scaling two programs focused on AI in Agriculture and AI in Health. We are led by former Evidence Action CEO Kanika Bahl a founding member of Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust and advised by Nobel Laureate Michael Kremer Dario Amodei CEO of Anthropic and Kent Walker President Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google. This work builds on Evidence Action's track record reaching 530M+ people with cost-effective evidence-based programs across 9 countries in Africa and Asia with a focus on last-mile delivery. Our approach We're scaling AI-enabled big bets to benefit tens or hundreds of millions of individuals living in poverty. We will focus both on delivering near-term tractable direct impact and supporting governments to establish an enabling environment for the ‘AI for Good' ecosystem including Launching AI-enabled interventions to impact tens or hundreds of millions such as delivering AI-enabled forecasts to smallholder farmers to improve yields and earnings leveraging AI to dramatically improve medical diagnosis and treatment implementing frontier systems to identify and mitigate disease outbreaks or putting personalized AI tutors into the hands of students to drive reductions to system-level educational attainment gaps. As part of this work we will create ""public good"" open-sourced playbooks toolkits and insights that define how to design and launch tractable and impactful AI-enabled programs. When relevant we will partner with leading AI labs to shape technical offerings including adapting for underrepresented languages bandwidth constraints etc Partnering with governments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to drive regulatory changes policy and investments necessary to unlock beneficial use cases at national scale while proactively mitigating the downside risks of AI Building on our recent analysis of near and medium-term AI opportunities in LMICs we are advancing the highest-scoring interventions through a rigorous vetting process including evidence reviews cost-effectiveness analyses risk assessments and early operational/technical scoping. We are excited about the opportunity to deliver and are now running deeper analysis on opportunities in global health.

The Role

We are seeking a high-ownership and rigorous finance and operations leader to help architect the institutional backbone of a rapidly scaling AI-focused global development organization. This founding role will partner closely with the CEO and leadership team on financial strategy organizational scaling and operational infrastructure. While incubated at Evidence Action we plan to spin out in Q4

• The right person thrives at the intersection of institutional rigor and startup pragmatism. You will set the strategy own the outcomes and serve as the internal expert while identifying contracting and managing high-quality external partners accountants attorneys payroll providers auditors insurance brokers and state compliance vendors. You are comfortable in a high-ownership high-ambiguity role and excited by the opportunity to define an organization's operating system from scratch. We are open to this role being structured as a full-time employee or a senior fractional/contract engagement for the right candidate. You Will Establish high-caliber financial systems and reporting Build and manage grant tracking reporting calendars and spend-down requirements across all transferred and new grants own year-end audit Form 990 budgeting and board-level financial reporting Run analyses to drive strategic organizational decisions Build financial models scenario plans and organizational forecasts to support strategic decision-making in a fast-scaling environment Drive organizational spinout and setup Own financial legal and compliance workstreams to stand up the AI Access Initiative as an independent 501(c)
• including entity creation payroll benefits and staff transfers Design procure and oversee a lean high-performing finance and compliance ecosystem Manage outsourced partners (e.g. accounting audit legal payroll insurance and HR) while ensuring strong institutional controls without unnecessary bureaucracy Enable our expansion Design financial systems capable of supporting rapid international scaling and increasingly complex funding structures Drive high-leverage resource allocation Partner with leadership to build a culture of analytically rigorous budget allocation and organizational decision-making Build and own compliance infrastructure Own critical compliance and institutional risk infrastructure including charitable registration insurance governance and regulatory filings Support governance and board operations Establish board meeting cadence minute-keeping conflict-of-interest disclosures and fiduciary orientation for new members Manage legal affairs & contracting Serve as the primary internal point of contact for all legal matters review and negotiate vendor contracts grant agreements MOUs and partnership arrangements while ensuring IP protections are in place for open-source assets

Requirements

The ideal candidate

is a finance and operations leader with a track record of standing up or significantly scaling organizational infrastructure. You are excited by the challenge of helping a new organization scale responsibly under conditions of rapid growth evolving strategy and funding uncertainty. We seek someone with high throughput strong judgment and the ability to manage complexity across multiple workstreams simultaneously. You will likely have 8+ years in finance strategic operations consulting nonprofit leadership startup operations or related fields including significant experience managing organizational finance and budgeting Experience sourcing and managing outside counsel accounting firms auditors insurance brokers and payroll providers — you know how to get the most out of external partners Comfort operating at both strategic and operational levels you can set policy and also handle the detail work required to ensure nothing slips Strong written communication skills able to translate complex financial and legal concepts clearly for board members program staff and funders CPA JD or equivalent professional credential strongly preferred nonprofit-specific training or certification (e.g. CGAP CNAP) a plus Experience with nonprofit finance compliance and 501(c)

• environments strongly preferred e.g. Form 990 single audit charitable solicitation registration IRS rebuttable presumption and state-level tax exemptions Traits High ownership mindset you hold yourself accountable for outcomes not just tasks and you proactively surface and resolve problems before they escalate Comfortable with ambiguity and early-stage environments you can build structure from scratch without waiting to be told exactly how Collaborative and low-ego you work well with a small fast-moving leadership team and can flex between big-picture strategy and detailed execution Mission-aligned you are motivated by the opportunity to ensure that the legal and financial infrastructure of this organization is a platform for impact not a bottleneck Position

Location

This role location is flexible anywhere within the United States for fully remote candidates We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of a U.S. employment visa at this time. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. for roles based in the U.S. Evidence Action is an Equal Opportunity Employer with a commitment to diversity. All individuals regardless of personal characteristics are encouraged to apply.

Benefits

The expected role range for this US position is listed below. We consider multiple factors when determining the base salary for a role including but not limited to role scope program budgets internal equity and a candidate's qualifications and/or prior experience. Note Pay and benefits will be commensurate with the role specifications local statutory requirements and the cost of labor in the markets where we operate. The pay range for this role is $155000 - $170000 per year. This role will initially be housed at Evidence Action with the explicit plan to transfer with the AI Access Initiative as a founding member of the team when that project is spun out as a new entity later this year. At that point benefits and policies may change. For US based roles Evidence Action provides comprehensive benefits including international health care HSA/FSA options life insurance disability coverage retirement plans with a matching component generous and flexible leave options as well as other employee perks on a reimbursement basis. For more information visit our careers page or ask our recruiting team!"