Head of People – Organizational Development

SPUN | Society for the Protection of Underground Networks

. Design and evolve SPUN’s organizational structure, including teams, roles, reporting lines, and leadership responsibilities .

Posted 10/15/2026full-timeRemote • New York • United StatesLeadWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and evolve SPUN’s organizational structure, including teams, roles, reporting lines, and leadership responsibilities
Anticipate future organizational capabilities and shape hiring approaches across levels
Assess organizational health and identify structural, capacity, or workflow friction
Work with the Operations Manager on people policies and processes across operating countries
Design operating rhythms, decision-making processes, and planning practices for a distributed team
Strengthen organizational knowledge capture and sharing across people, meetings, and time zones
Improve collaboration and handoffs among scientific, data science, policy, and partnership teams
Shape core tools and SPUN’s approach to AI adoption
Identify high-value AI use cases and required workflows, roles, and skills
Build AI fluency through training, peer learning, experimentation, and practical resources
Establish mechanisms for sharing AI experiments, practices, and lessons learned
Build a healthy, ambitious, and inclusive culture across a globally distributed organization
Create connection opportunities across time zones, disciplines, and teams
Design and facilitate retreats, team sessions, and leadership gatherings
Design onboarding focused on SPUN’s culture and ways of working
Develop approaches to recognizing team and individual achievements
Strengthen leadership and management capabilities as SPUN grows
Establish feedback, goal-setting, development conversation, and performance review practices
Develop progression pathways, including transitions from individual contributor to manager
Identify learning and professional development opportunities

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of experience helping organizations scale and build culture, trust, connection, and accountability
Experience ideally in organizations where people work remotely across time zones
Ability to shape strategy and build processes, frameworks, and systems hands-on
Curiosity about people, team dynamics, and organizational obstacles
Ability to advise senior leaders, challenge thinking, build credibility, handle sensitive information, and manage complex interpersonal situations
Experience leading adoption of new tools, technologies, or ways of working, including AI
Knowledge that lasting change requires training, change management, and confidence-building
Excellent communication with scientists, data scientists, policy and partnership specialists, and senior leadership
Excitement for SPUN’s mission and motivation to build organizational conditions for greater impact
Preferred: experience in a science, research, environmental, or impact-driven organization
Preferred: experience in a globally distributed organization across multiple countries and employment jurisdictions
Preferred: experience with multidisciplinary teams spanning science, policy, partnerships, and operations
Preferred: experience building career frameworks, performance systems, or development programs from scratch
Preferred: hands-on experience with AI tools and interest in organizational change

Benefits

Comp & perks

Benefits supporting health, well-being, growth, and balance
Benefits tailored to local laws across the globally distributed team
Inclusive environment where individuals can bring their authentic selves to work