Description
APPLY HERE: https://careers.future-matters.org/40653
Instead of a cover letter, please answer the short-answer questions below. Please keep answers to 150 to 200 words and don't spend too long editing or formatting.
**Q1: About you** Please share with us how your background and experience are relevant to the skills and qualities listed in the job description. Take this opportunity to highlight accomplishments, experience, and interests that may not be clearly evident in your resume, that you feel are important or would be useful in this role. Where success was achieved by a team, make your specific contributions clear. *(200-300 words)*
**Q2: Field Coordination** Tell us about a time you needed to bring together different parties to agree on a course of action. What were you trying to do? What was the greatest barrier you faced and how did you overcome it? What would you do differently next time? *(150–250 words)*
About this role
For years, Future Matters has helped organizations working on the world's most serious risks figure out what actually makes a difference. Our strategic coordination work grew out of that, and it has become some of the most valuable work we do. We are now expanding this strategic coordination and coalition-building, grounded in rigorous strategy craft, into a dedicated program, and this is the first hire of this new chapter.
Concretely, this role involves finding the people and organizations who can move the key questions in AI governance forward, build and own the relationships that bring them to the table, and help a fragmented field act with shared strategy and foresight, so it builds support for key ideas systematically and makes the most of windows of opportunity that open and close fast. Done well, a fragmented field starts acting together, and the odds of a safer future rise.
What we're looking for
This is a builder's role for someone who has scaled something, from a nascent stage or from scratch, in a political field: a coalition, an advocacy campaign, or something adjacent. A successful applicant will have most or all of these:
Strategic reasoning and systems thinking. You reason through different options for achieving goals, think through trade-offs across scenarios, identify bottlenecks and multi-step plans to resolve them, sequence sensibly and defend the reasoning, and anticipate actions and motivations of other players. You clearly think through actions as embedded in systems and longer-term strategies.
Entrepreneurial strength, drive, and high agency. You have started things with little scaffolding, ship MVPs over perfecting, and are comfortable with strategic risks and failures and what to do after failing. You bring relentless follow-through and don't wait to be told what to do but are happy to collaborate and support when asked. This is a role with intense periods and plans that change, and you’re comfortable navigating that.
A proven track record as an outcome-focused convener. Not just bringing people together, but stewarding different players to actually achieve goals together. You are described by others as a trusted, honest broker; orgs come back to work with you again, and you can diagnose why a past coordination effort failed and what you changed going forward.
Working knowledge of US politics and the D.C. political machinery. You have experience and deep understanding of how policymaking and campaigns actually work in and around Washington. You can explain how a specific outcome was actually won, you know the real levers and where they break, and senior policy people view you as a peer.
Social and political intelligence. You read power, incentives, and rooms: accurately reading stakeholder motivations; anticipating who will push back and why; adapting your approach by audience; and defusing inter-coalition tensions well.
Learning aptitude. You have a track record of getting up to speed in a new domain quickly, you ask sharp questions, and you synthesize unfamiliar material accurately. You are genuinely curious about the field and already staying current on key AI developments.
Truth-seeking, impact focus, and a collaborative, low-ego style. You update your view when shown evidence; distinguish what you know from what you believe; are comfortable saying "I don't know" but also making a reasonable call given incomplete information; and prioritize impact rather than activity.
Requirements
Responsibilities of the role
Gain a working command of Future Matters' impact maximization and strategy methodology.
Grow and deepen the existing U.S. coordination infrastructure by deepening relationships, facilitating more candid exchange, and stand up new, responsive forums based on the developing needs.
Build and lead new US AI governance coordination initiatives. Identify and bring together the right players, establish coalition priorities different stakeholders support, lead the group to alignment on shared priorities and into taking action on these priorities.
Keep the work and the stakeholders moving forward by being the engine behind winning conditions: you will be responsible for bottleneck diagnosis, backward-chaining, and sequencing the work to ensure barriers and sticking points are identified and ameliorated as quickly as possible.
Build joint foresight, increasing our collective rapid-response capability by prototyping and running a shared horizon-scanning practice so foreseeable developments get surfaced early, allowing for better chances to anticipate windows of opportunity and capitalize upon them. Build coalition members’ capacity so groups can act quickly and effectively when a sudden window opens.
Understanding coordination challenges and finding opportunities. Develop a credible, peer-supported answer as to where the AI governance field could be better coordinated and how to achieve this, including a list of what our team could offer specifically that would add the most value.
Adapt as things change: treat plans as provisional, with a bias to action and a "safe enough to try" instinct. Be excited to revise your strategy and sequencing as political and technical developments disrupt assumptions and change the landscape.
Contribute to strategy craft and capacity-building outputs. Feed insights back into Future Matters' guides and workshops, helping partners across the field work more strategically.
Support fundraising for this work. Contribute case studies of recent wins, surface intelligence on funding opportunities, and add expert knowledge to grant applications, working with our Partnerships team.
You will work most closely with Managing Director, Justus Baumann, who is leading Future Matters' AI work. We also expect to expand the AI team in the first months after your start. You will also occasionally support colleagues from our Partnerships team and other members of the team.
You do not need these in order to apply, but we are especially interested in candidates who also bring some of the following:
Being connected in and known across the US AI governance ecosystem, with warm relationships that let you open doors
AI-governance domain knowledge: already conversant in key areas and interventions and up to date on current status
Direct experience on major frontier-AI legislation (e.g. SB 53, RAISE Act) or on carrying a contested horizontal tech bill through real legislative process
Experience designing or applying a structured methodology (strategy consulting, evaluation, or structured prioritisation in any sector)
Capacity-building or training-delivery experience (workshop design, structured advisory engagements)
