All Things Urban

Since its inception, the Bernard van Leer Foundation has worked in more than 50 countries and invested over half a billion dollars toward our mission: “To improve opportunities for young children growing up in circumstances of social and economic disadvantage”. Bernard van Leer was an entrepreneur who built a large global packaging company. After witnessing the destruction of World War II, Bernard was inspired to invest in improving society and started the Foundation in 1949 with a wide range of philanthropic activities. After Bernard passed away in 1958, his son Oscar took over the packaging company and the Foundation. Oscar focused the Foundation on young children. He believed that giving all children a good start in life was not only the fair thing to do, but also an effective pathway to building more peaceful, prosperous and creative societies.

Are you committed to tackling inequality and making cities better places for everyone, especially babies, toddlers and the people who care for them? Are you an experienced leader who has worked on urban initiatives at scale, whether in government or with an NGO, international organisation, consultancy, or other? Do you want to help shape and lead our journey to greater impact through the use of knowledge, networks and advocacy and communications, working globally with a committed, creative, collegial and professionally diverse international team? Want to be able to cycle safely everywhere by being based in our office in The Hague – a lovely, international city with 10+ km of white sand beach that’s 45 minutes to Amsterdam and 30 minutes to Rotterdam by train? If so, we’d love to hear from you about joining our senior management team in The Hague, The Netherlands as our new Knowledge for Policy Director. We’re looking for an experienced leader who has worked on urban initiatives at scale and led the development of knowledge resources. The Bernard van Leer Foundation is moving into a new phase where we want to increase our support to partners in the implementation and scaling process, improve the use and impact of knowledge resources developed by our partners and team, and better assess the ideas being tested and scaled by our partners.

Based in our head office in The Hague, our new Knowledge for Policy Director will lead the established Knowledge for Policy team and work closely with the senior management, Programme and Operations teams to take us into the next phase of our strategy as we seek to exponentially scale our impact on babies, toddlers and the people who care for them. The Knowledge for Policy Director will: - As a member of the senior management team, lead the evolution of the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s strategy to scale its impact and reach through knowledge - Lead an innovative, high-performing team that seeks to influence changes in policy and practice globally, in close cooperation with our Programme team, by working across a wide range of knowledge initiatives. - Serve as a senior subject matter expert for urban policy, planning or design

This job is available for international candidates.