Reports to: Deputy General Counsel
Wikimedia envisions a world where the sum total of human knowledge is available to everyone.
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit home of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and other free educational projects, serves as the hub of a global movement of hundreds of thousands of contributors collaborating to collect and share the sum of all human knowledge with the world.
As Wikimedia pursues a new global strategic direction, our Legal department is tasked with solving many legal questions, including some no one has fully considered before. We are looking for a Legal Department Program Manager to join our in-house legal department to help ensure strong programs based on coordination and strategic alignment across our Legal Affairs, Public Policy, and Community Resilience & Sustainability (including Trust & Safety) verticals. This professional will help our department deliver on strategic programs, streamline ongoing workflows, optimize resources, improve collaboration and knowledge sharing, and measurably improve our collective impact.
Responsibilities:
- Facilitate a shared understanding of objectives and key results across diverse sets of stakeholders, managing processes, identifying and clearing bottlenecks and integrating timely opportunities
- Streamline, organize, and support reporting and communication flow for the General Counsel
- Streamline, organize, and support the department in providing briefings for the executive team, and for all staff
- Work with department leaders to provide program planning and facilitation, and to identify and optimize recurring workflows
- Help coordinate cross-departmental efforts led by the Legal department
- Coordinate strategic projects as needed
- Keep stakeholders aware of progress and facilitate strategic alignment across different levels in the department
- Support budget planning and monitoring
- Take on projects as new opportunities arise
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience
- Excellent organizational skills to manage programs, projects, process, calendars, and planning activities
- The ability to drive projects independently with limited feedback on a daily basis
- Strong verbal, written, and social communication skills with attention to international diversity
- Tolerance for ambiguity and facility with managing complex problems
- The ability to excel in a fast-paced, changing environment that often requires fast turn around
- The ability to thrive in a globally-distributed team and nurture and maintain positive, respectful professional relationships
- Natural inclination for team collaboration and for helping colleagues succeed
- Flexible mindset and ability to adjust processes to scale or to change course
- Internal motivation and high standards
- Experience with project management tools (e.g., Asana, Trello, or other systems)
Nice to have
- Prior experience as a department-wide program manager and/or chief of staff
- Prior experience working with a legal department
- Experience working in an global organization that has a distributed workforce
- PMP or MSP certification
- Non-profit experience
- Tech sector experience
The Wikimedia Foundation is…
…the nonprofit organization that hosts and operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge, free of interference. We host the Wikimedia projects, build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content, support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible, and advocate for policies that enable Wikimedia and free knowledge to thrive. The Wikimedia Foundation is a charitable, not-for-profit organization that relies on donations. We receive financial support from millions of individuals around the world, with an average donation of about $15. We also receive donations through institutional grants and gifts. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.
U.S. Benefits & Perks*
- Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage for employees and their eligible families (yes, fully paid premiums!)
- The Wellness Program provides reimbursement for mind, body and soul activities such as fitness memberships, baby sitting, continuing education and much more
- The 401(k) retirement plan offers matched contributions at 4% of annual salary
- Flexible and generous time off – vacation, sick and volunteer days, plus 22 paid holidays – including the last week of the year.
- Family friendly! 100% paid new parent leave for seven weeks plus an additional five weeks for pregnancy, flexible options to phase back in after leave, fully equipped lactation room.
- For those emergency moments – long and short term disability, life insurance (2x salary) and an employee assistance program
- Pre-tax savings plans for health care, child care, elder care, public transportation and parking expenses
- Telecommuting and flexible work schedules available
- Appropriate fuel for thinking and coding (aka, a pantry full of treats) and monthly massages to help staff relax
- Paid travel to Wikimedia Foundation events all around the world!
- Equipment including a laptop, monitor, plus a one-time stipend to cover any additional needs to make sure you have the best work experience
- Great colleagues – diverse staff and contractors speaking dozens of languages from around the world, fantastic intellectual discourse, mission-driven and intensely passionate people
*Please note that for remote roles located outside of the U.S., we defer to our PEO to ensure alignment with local labor laws.