ABOUT TED
TED is on a mission to discover and spread ideas that spark imagination, embrace possibility, and catalyze impact. Our organization is devoted to curiosity, reason, wonder, and the pursuit of knowledge — without an agenda. We welcome people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world and connection with others, and we invite everyone to engage with ideas and activate them in your community.
ABOUT THE AUDACIOUS PROJECT
The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding platform that invites visionary changemakers to imagine their boldest ideas to solve the world’s most urgent challenges.
Housed at TED, the nonprofit dedicated to the belief that ideas change everything, Audacious works to surface ideas that are breathtakingly ambitious yet achievable and brings together a community of philanthropists to unlock the funding needed to make them real. Each year, Audacious selects a cohort of extraordinary leaders from around the world — visionaries with proximity to the problems they're solving, and bold plans to shift systems, lift up communities, and contribute to a healthier planet.
Since its launch in 2018, Audacious has helped to catalyze more than $8B for over 70 projects across a range of issue areas. Rooted in TED's belief that ideas can come from anywhere, Audacious focuses on the strength of the idea and the team behind it, not a fixed issue area. Funded projects span science, climate, technology, health, social safety net and justice.
Job DescriptionRole Description
The Managing Director, Discovery and Insight leads Audacious's global search for ambitious ideas and changemakers — finding, testing, and building the case for the ideas and leaders most worth backing each funding cycle. This role owns end-to-end curation, application, and diligence activities, ultimately leading to recommendations for the cohort of finalists selected annually.
The Managing Director's work is centered on: a strategy informed by continuous learning about systems-level impact and Audacious' unique role within it; deep collaboration with applicants, donors, and partners nurtured over time; and leadership of a strong team to sustain the work.
Each year, the Discovery and Insight team conducts a global search to identify nonprofit ideas that are:
● Innovative and offer a unique approach to a significant problem with the potential to shift the status quo or the system they operate within
● Proximate & Community-Oriented in leadership and decision-making structure (i.e., led by those who intimately understand the problem/opportunity, incorporating impacted communities in decision-making, led by someone who has direct experience in/with the community served)
● Approaching an inflection point or needing a significant capital inflow to catalyze a differentiated level of impact that they haven’t received support for yet (rather than support for ongoing operations)
● Thoughtfully ambitious ideas that both inspire and convince — have an exciting, breakthrough vision (‘inspire’), clear outcomes, and evidence that the idea will have a significant and concrete impact (‘convince’)
Key Responsibilities
1. Set and evolve the sourcing and curation strategy.
● Advance sourcing and curation strategy for each cycle, forming a clear point of view on where Audacious should be learning, looking, collaborating, and why, ultimately carrying that strategy forward across cycles
● Develop a “future-oriented” approach by monitoring and anticipating emerging trends and innovations that Audacious actively engages with or responds to
● Actively capture insights and lessons learned to refine and improve Audacious's sourcing and curation activities annually
2. Lead selection and diligence.
● Apply the sourcing and curation strategy to identify the ideas most worth Audacious's attention - deciding what advances into the application stage, and bringing along multiple stakeholders and inputs along that decision-making process
● Lead diligence on selected organizations, rigorously testing readiness, viability, and fit within Audacious's portfolio
● Build the recommendation — evidence, rationale, and risks included — that carries an idea into finalist selection
3. Cultivate and steward the partners who bring ideas to Audacious.
● Surface strong ideas by building genuine, ongoing relationships with social sector leaders, including funder and intermediary partners (incl. sourcing networks, collaboratives, and others)
● Steward key partner relationships by developing a deep understanding of each stakeholder’s goals, priorities, and aspirations
● Maintain stakeholder relationships continuously, within and across cycles, to ensure trust and rapport among all actors
● Represent Audacious's point of view in the field, using that standing to draw the most ambitious organizations and ideas toward the platform and to create richer opportunities for sector collaboration
4. Build and nurture a team that explores the frontier of audacious social change.
● Lead the Discovery and Insight vertical and its resourcing strategically, matching capacity to where the real work sits and bringing in the right technical expertise when needed
● Develop people who can source, diligence, and hold partner relationships credibly in their own right — building a team of strong practitioners so Audacious's discovery capacity grows beyond any single person
● Effectively steward relationships and actively collaborate with key Audacious partners (e.g., The Bridgespan Group) with whom we partner year-round
QualificationsCareer and Functional Experience
Essential
● A leader who has set strategy in fast-paced, entrepreneurial environments, and who can hold their own in rooms both with ultra-high net worth individuals and issue experts and with their own team, making consequential decisions grounded in clear principles and with conviction
● Strong generalist fluency across geographic, social-change and innovation domains with the maturity and credibility to engage experts across them
● Experience building and developing teams, leading change management efforts, and operating through influence across a senior leadership group
● Access to, and standing within, networks across the social-change and social-innovation ecosystem
Strongly Preferred
● Familiarity with multiple models across the sector — funder-collaborative platforms and other philanthropic sourcing and investment mechanisms
● Experience in multinational and culturally diverse organizations
Personal Characteristics / Culture Fit
● Strong mission orientation, high integrity leadership, alignment with Audacious’ values
● Creative, team-oriented, and collaborative, willing to pitch in where needed
● Intellectually curious; a quick study who stays current on social change and emerging trends in philanthropy, and can lead on ways to evolve our work
● Confident without certainty; decisive without rigidity
● Judgment to lead through influence rather than ownership
What Success Looks Like
● A strategy that evolves as the world does — growing sharper and more grounded cycle over cycle — because someone owns its development and can hold key decisions steady even when stakeholder interests pull in different directions
● A clear, evolving sense of what belongs in Audacious's portfolio — built from what selection and diligence have taught, not assumed upfront
● A network of donors and partners who stay engaged and where relationships are nurtured from inception, and where trust, learning, and respect are built over time
● Recommendations reaching the Executive Director hold up because the diligence, learning, and collaboration behind them are real and rigorous
Additional InformationThe deadline to submit an application for the Managing Director, Discovery & Insight role is August 19, 2026, at 11:59 pm EST.
TED Conferences LLC is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We invite all qualified candidates to apply online with their cover letter and resume.
Skills Required
- Proven experience setting strategy in fast-paced, entrepreneurial environments and making high-stakes decisions
- Generalist fluency across geographic, social-change, and innovation domains with credibility to engage experts
- Experience building and developing teams, leading change management, and operating through influence across senior leadership
- Access to and standing within networks across the social-change and social-innovation ecosystem
- Familiarity with funder-collaborative platforms and philanthropic sourcing/investment mechanisms
- Experience working in multinational and culturally diverse organizations
What We Do
TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world. TED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. On TED.com, we're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers — and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, both online and at TED and TEDx events around the world, all year long. In fact, everything we do — from our TED Talks videos to the projects sparked by the TED Prize, from the global TEDx community to the TED-Ed lesson series — is driven by this goal: How can we best spread great ideas?
