Global Program Manager Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Reports To: CEO

Level: Director | Full-Time

Salary: $110,000 to $125,000 annually, depending on experience

Manages: Mizizi & Amplify Program Lead; U.S. Program Coordinators; Senior Program Coordinator, Kenya

Location, Hours, and Travel

• U.S.-based remote role. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S.
• Our team works across U.S. Pacific, U.S. Eastern, and East Africa time zones. This role requires the ability to work U.S. Eastern hours.
• Some international travel, including to Kenya and South Africa, will be required.

ROLE PURPOSE

A cancer diagnosis changes more than a body. It can reshape identity, relationships, and a person's sense of belonging. A Fresh Chapter addresses a critical gap in cancer care by helping people navigate the mental, emotional, and social dimensions of the experience.

The Global Program Director leads the architecture, delivery, and continuous improvement of AFC's program portfolio across the U.S. and Africa. This person translates organizational strategy into clear priorities, plans, timelines, and decision points while leading a geographically distributed program team. They align work across the portfolio, address dependencies and risks early, and ensure teams have the clarity, resources, and accountability needed to deliver high-quality programs consistently.

This is a senior, hands-on leadership role for someone who can move fluidly between big-picture thinking and practical execution. In a small, growing organization, the Global Program Director must be willing to personally build workplans, coordinate key workstreams, strengthen documentation, and step into delivery or problem-solving when additional capacity is needed.

As a member of AFC's leadership team, the Global Program Director partners closely with the Senior Operations Manager and Kenya Country Manager to connect program strategy with staffing, budgets, operational systems, funder commitments, and local context. The role also serves as a key bridge across AFC's U.S. and Africa-based program teams.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Program Architecture and Oversight

• Hold the full picture of AFC's program portfolio and delivery calendar across the U.S. and Africa, mapping dependencies, sequencing work, and identifying risks before they become urgent.
• Translate organizational strategy and curriculum direction into clear annual and quarterly plans, with defined ownership, timelines, decision points, and measures of progress.
• Partner with the Senior Operations Manager to assess the staffing, budget, and operational implications of program decisions, identify risks and trade-offs early, and build the case for additional capacity when needed.
• Ensure program commitments to participants, partners, and funders are understood by the team, tracked, and delivered.
• Lead the development and launch of new program initiatives from early planning through implementation, ensuring that scope, staffing, timelines, and operational requirements are realistic.
• Ensure alumni engagement remains part of AFC's broader program pathway and moves forward in a way that reflects organizational priorities and capacity.
• Provide accurate program strategy, planning, and program assessments to support the CEO's funder conversations and AFC's longer-term planning.

People Leadership and Coaching

• Directly manage a geographically distributed program team across the U.S. and Kenya, setting clear expectations and holding regular planning, coaching, and performance conversations.
• Build a team culture that combines warmth, trust, direct communication, and accountability.
• Set a high standard for written communication across the program team, helping direct reports turn their thinking into clear plans, recommendations, handoffs, and stakeholder-ready materials.
• Coach team members to identify underlying strategic questions, dependencies, and stakeholder needs, strengthen their judgment and problem-solving, and translate their work into what the next person or team needs.
• Clarify ownership and decision-making across the program team so that people know what they are responsible for, when collaboration is required, and when an issue should be escalated.
• Identify staffing and capability gaps and recommend changes in team structure, support, or resourcing as the program portfolio grows.
• Address performance concerns directly and constructively while creating opportunities for team members to learn and grow.

Program Quality and Improvement

• Establish and maintain clear standards for program delivery, facilitator readiness and performance, participant experience, and consistency across AFC's portfolio.
• Ensure facilitators and program teams are appropriately prepared and supported to deliver AFC's programs with quality, care, and cultural responsiveness.
• Monitor program progress and delivery risks, and ensure the team follows through on agreed timelines, commitments, and required program inputs.
• Ensure debriefs and continuous improvement cycles happen consistently, using participant feedback, program data, facilitator insights, and team learning to strengthen program design and delivery.
• Partner with the Senior Operations Manager on measurement and reporting processes by ensuring the program team provides accurate, timely information and context.
• Work with the CEO and curriculum team on program evolution, bringing informed judgment about what is working, what needs to change, and what requires deeper strategic or curriculum input.

Cross-Cultural and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead across countries, cultures, and time zones with humility and respect for local leadership, maintaining clear global program standards while creating appropriate space for local adaptation and decision-making.
• Partner with the Kenya Country Manager on local context, community relationships, resource mobilization, and Kenya-specific program priorities.
• Partner with the Senior Operations Manager to connect program priorities with staffing, budgets, technology, reporting requirements, and organizational systems.
• Work across programs, operations, development, communications, and external consultants to translate complex or incomplete information into clear recommendations, next steps, and usable handoffs.
• Provide programmatic direction, context, and quality oversight for consultants whose work touches program strategy, curriculum, research, or delivery.

CEO Partnership and Organizational Leadership

• Serve as a trusted thought partner to the CEO on program strategy, capacity, and AFC's global program portfolio.

DECISION RIGHTS

The Global Program Director will exercise meaningful decision-making authority within agreed organizational and budget parameters. They will make recommendations to the CEO on major changes to program strategy, staffing, budgets, curriculum direction, and geographic scope.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Required

• Significant experience leading programs within a nonprofit, NGO, patient advocacy, global health, public health, community-based, or social impact organization.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder programs from strategy and planning through delivery and improvement.
• Experience directly managing and coaching staff, including setting expectations, building accountability, supporting growth, and addressing performance concerns.
• Experience working across cultures, geographies, or significantly different communities, with strong cultural humility and the ability to adapt leadership approaches to context.
• Evidence of both strategic leadership and hands-on execution. This person must be comfortable personally building plans, systems, trackers, documentation, and other tools required to move work forward.
• Strong project and program management skills, including the ability to see dependencies, assess risks, sequence work, and manage competing priorities.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex information into clear plans, recommendations, feedback, and stakeholder-ready materials that require minimal editing.
• Sound judgment and comfort working in a small, resource-conscious organization where leaders regularly move between strategy, management, and execution, often while systems are still being developed.
• Fluency with remote collaboration, project management, documentation, and communication tools.
• Ability to work hours that allow for regular collaboration with both East and West Coast and Kenya-based colleagues.

Preferred

• Experience in cancer care, patient support, psychosocial support, trauma-informed programming, global health, or a related community-based field.
• Experience managing facilitators, trainers, peer leaders, or other frontline delivery teams.
• Experience scaling, replicating, or documenting programs for delivery across locations or communities.
• Familiarity with program quality frameworks, evaluation processes, and the use of participant feedback and data to improve delivery.
• Experience working within or alongside teams based in Africa.
• A record of progressive responsibility that reflects an understanding of both frontline execution and senior-level leadership.

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Operational Excellence: Builds and maintains the plans, systems, processes, and cadences that allow programs to run reliably. Anticipates dependencies and risks, creates structure in ambiguity, and remains willing to work at the level of detail required to move the work forward.
• Empathetic Leadership: Leads with compassion and accountability in equal measure. Sets clear expectations, coaches people to strengthen their judgment and problem-solving, addresses performance concerns directly, and holds the emotional complexity of the work without losing rigor.
• Strategic Program Leadership: Sees how individual decisions connect across AFC's broader program portfolio. Translates organizational strategy into clear priorities and delivery plans, considers upstream and downstream implications, and helps the team navigate trade-offs with sound judgment.
• Stakeholder Management: Builds and sustains trusted relationships with community partners, facilitators, consultants, cross-functional colleagues, and global team members. Works across cultures and geographies with humility, curiosity, and respect for local knowledge and leadership.
• Communication & Influence: Writes and communicates with clarity, structure, and sound judgment. Synthesizes complex information into decision-ready plans, recommendations, feedback, and handoffs that require minimal editing, while managing up effectively and aligning others around shared priorities.
• Learning Orientation: Approaches program quality and improvement as an ongoing discipline, using participant feedback, program data, reflection, facilitator insight, and team learning to strengthen delivery over time.

LEADERSHIP PROFILE & VALUES FIT

This role calls for someone who:

• Believes in belonging, dignity, and the value of lived experience.
• Leads with warmth, clarity, and accountability.
• Can move between strategic thinking and detailed execution without losing the thread.
• Asks strong questions and helps others solve rather than automatically rescuing or taking over.
• Pushes back respectfully when capacity is stretched and advocates for what is realistic and sustainable.
• Is professional without being overly corporate and strategic without losing the human dimension of the work.

ABOUT A FRESH CHAPTER

A Fresh Chapter helps people impacted by cancer around the world navigate the emotional complexities of their experience by providing skills, support, and community so they can reclaim their lives and move forward in meaningful ways.

Through peer-led programs, facilitator training, community-based workshops, and emerging digital initiatives, AFC helps people build emotional awareness, connection, resilience, and a renewed sense of belonging.

AFC works across the U.S. and Africa with a geographically distributed team and a growing network of facilitators, partners, and alumni. As the organization enters its next phase of growth, we are building the leadership, systems, and program infrastructure needed to deepen our impact while remaining rooted in the human-centered approach that defines our work.

Our Commitment to Inclusion

A Fresh Chapter is committed to creating an inclusive and supportive environment that embraces diversity in all its forms and provides equal opportunities to everyone. We welcome all individuals, regardless of income, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, marital status, and type of cancer or stage of disease. This policy extends to all employees, volunteers, participants, and contractors of A Fresh Chapter. We do not discriminate on any basis protected by law.

• Accommodations: If you need one at any point in the application or interview process, contact lyndsey@afreshchapter.com. Requesting an accommodation will not affect how your application is considered.
• If you don't meet every qualification: We'd still rather hear from you.