Job Description About the Agency: The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is the nation’s largest municipal housing preservation and development agency. Its mission is to promote quality housing and diverse, thriving neighborhoods for New Yorkers through loan and development programs for new affordable housing, preservation of the affordability of the existing housing stock, enforcement of housing quality standards, and education programs for tenants and building owners. Your Team: The Office of Policy and Strategy (OPS) leverages its expertise to guide and support HPD and its many Offices in their efforts to deepen their impact, optimize their efficiency, and become more data-driven, compliance-attentive, climate-adaptive, and mission-focused. As part of OPS, the Division of Strategic Operations and Analytics (SOA) works to increase HPD's impact by analyzing and improving operations agency-wide. SOA does this by clarifying HPD program missions, objectives, and stakeholders; implementing initiatives that advance HPD's goals; analyzing data to deliver actionable insights to HPD programs; and increasing the agency's overall ability to leverage data. Within SOA, the Strategic Planning unit helps HPD teams clarify their missions, establish their objectives, and describe their desired outcomes while also bringing best practices for dynamic and decision-focused meeting and session design to generate ideas, produce agreement, determine options and priorities, and define programmatic success. Your Role: Reporting to the Director for Strategic Planning, the Senior Strategy Specialist will work both independently and collaboratively with other members of the Strategic Planning team, SOA, and the agency on projects to explore and enhance how HPD’s programs and support teams deliver on the agency’s mission to promote the quality and affordability of the city’s housing and the strength and diversity of its many neighborhoods. The Senior Strategy Specialist plays an essential role in conceptualizing, advancing, and ensuring successful outcomes for these projects. Your impact: Specifically, the Senior Strategy Specialist will be expected to do the following: - Manage several concurrent Strategic Planning projects, including developing work plans, leading meetings, coordinating project activities, communicating with and generating support among stakeholders, and archiving decisions and deliverables as applicable. - Prepare and conduct needs assessments to determine project concepts and scopes, and prepare corresponding project workplans. - Perform qualitative data-gathering (including developing, conducting, and summarizing interviews and focus groups) to investigate current operational conditions. - Design and facilitate sessions with staff at various levels to understand operational challenges from various perspectives, to develop potential program designs, to aid in collaborative decision-making, and/or to generate buy-in for program enhancement. - Analyze and compellingly present findings and recommendations to agency staff at various levels. - Prepare and lead strategic planning implementation projects, including developing user-friendly tools and approaches (e.g., management structures, tracking systems, program guides, decision-making tools). - Proactively identify operational needs within the agency, and respond to requests for support around business process issues. - Act as a divisional and agency subject matter expert on facilitation techniques, session design, and public operations, providing consultations and developing/delivering trainings on these topics. - Assist the Director of Strategic Planning with select key initiatives. Strategic Planning staff learn and employ new skills or subject matter knowledge as projects require, and the Senior Strategy Specialist will have the opportunity to develop expertise and train others on techniques or approaches that expand and deepen strategic thinking and implementation practices at the agency. The ideal candidate will be expected to apply their professional experience in the New York City housing context to add to the team’s breadth of understanding and capacity. SOA colleagues and leadership will champion the professional development and growth of the Senior Strategy Specialist through individual guidance and support, including the joint creation of individualized goals and regular reflection on those goals with supervisors. Preferred Skills: - Ability to apply diagnostic and planning techniques to complex, cross-agency operations; specific experience with human-centered design thinking and/or similar techniques a plus. - Strong facilitation skills, and an ability to lead diverse groups of stakeholders through idea-generating and decision-making exercises. - Superior project management skills, demonstrated through professional project experience including proactively addressing challenges or roadblocks as they occur. - Excellent verbal and written communication skills, and an ability to articulate information and recommendations compellingly and persuasively in email, memos, and presentations. - Experience managing multiple complex projects, ideally in a public or nonprofit agency, with limited guidance from senior staff. - Interest in improving government practice and in devising solutions that streamline and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government services. Note: This position is eligible for remote work up to two days per week, pursuant to the Remote Work Pilot Program agreed to between the City and DC37. Qualifications 1. A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and two years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties described above; or 2. High school graduation or equivalent and six years of experience in community work or community centered activities in an area related to the duties as described above; or 3. Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least one year of experience as described in "1" above. Additional Information The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.