Description

Internal Job Title:     Transformation, Strategy and Communications Steward 

External Job Title:     Executive Transformation and Strategy Officer 

Heifer International is an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with disability.  

About Heifer International 

Heifer International is a global nonprofit dedicated to partnering with smallholder farmers to sustainably address hunger and poverty in their communities while caring for the Earth. Since 1944, we have helped more than 52 million families around the world break the cycle of poverty. We operate in 19 countries across Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including the U.S., working with small-scale farmers to achieve living incomes and ensuring that they have adequate food, housing, and other essential resources to lead decent and dignified lives.  

Our Values  

At Heifer, our work and culture are grounded in our twelve Cornerstones and six Cultural Guiding Principles, which reflect our deep commitment to dignity, fairness, and impact. These values shape how we lead, collaborate, and grow as an organization. We believe in Passing on the Gift, accountability, caring for one another, sustainability, gender and social inclusion, and environmental stewardship. We prioritize full participation, open communication, and continuous learning rooted in self-awareness and human-centered leadership. Together, we foster a culture of belonging and shared purpose that drives meaningful, lasting change in the communities we serve. 

The Organizational Context: A Global Ecosystem in Transformation 

Heifer is transforming toward an agile, adaptive, farmer-centered, locally led, and globally connected network organization. Over the past several years, the transformation journey has focused on redefining our Program Model, exploring and experimenting with an emerging operating logic, evolving our thinking about the Business Model, and grounding our shared values and ways of working in the 12 Cornerstones. 

Heifer is now moving from a predominantly design-focused phase toward shared language, experimentation, learning, and activation. The transformation spans multiple interdependent streams, including the Program Model, Operating Model, Business Model, Culture and Cornerstones, governance, experimentation and activation all forming a Regenerative Network Organization (RNO). 

As this work becomes increasingly distributed across countries, networks, ecosystems, functions and capabilities, transformation can no longer depend on a small central team to make change happen. Heifer is intentionally building the capability to transform itself: enabling people across the organization to experiment, learn, adapt, make decisions and activate the emerging model in context. 

This role is an amazing opportunity to contribute to a locally led, globally connected organization, being a member of a mission-aligned team, and the chance to reshape one of the world’s most respected development organizations. You will join an executive team that has the courage to be vulnerable on their way to building trust. You will receive proper support and onboarding to catch up with the transformation journey and support your journey towards belonging. 

Role Contribution 

The Transformation Steward provides executive stewardship of the next phase of Heifer’s transformation, protecting the integrity and coherence of the transformation while enabling it to evolve through experimentation, learning, and adaptation. 

Working closely with the CEO, Transformation Stewardship Committee, the Board of Directors, and distributed transformation capabilities, the Steward holds a whole-system view across Heifer’s emerging Regenerative Network Organization (RNO), organizational design, governance, human and cultural systems, and broader transformation portfolio. The role provides leadership to the Sr. Director, Integration and Adaptation and the Communications Team (Node), helps ensure that all these interconnected dimensions evolve coherently and that the conditions, resources, relationships, and decisions needed for transformation are in place for operationalization. 

The Steward does not own or execute all transformation activities. Instead, the role cultivates distributed transformation capability, shared stewardship, participation, and co-creation across Heifer—helping the organization build the capacity to continuously sense, learn, adapt, and transform itself. In this networked way of working, the role will make decisions jointly with the SC and TSC core teams and facilitate the decision-making process with those teams and key stakeholders. 

Job location: Global (Remote/Hybrid Possible), preferably in a country where Heifer has an office. Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, USA.

Key Collaborators 

Internal: TSC Core Team, the CEO, Transformation Stewardship Committee (TSC), the Board of Directors, Chief People Officer & People Department, distributed transformation capability leads and circles, Network and Node Leaders, and relevant functional and enabling teams. 

External: Local and organizational partners, Board members, transformation consultants and advisors, specialist capability partners, and other organizations engaged in locally led, networked and organizational transformation. 

Core Accountabilities 

1. Steward Transformation Architecture & Coherence 

Steward the integrity and evolution of Heifer’s transformation architecture and overall transformation portfolio. 

Maintain a whole-system view across the Program Model, Operating Model, Business Model, culture, governance, organizational capabilities, and other transformation streams all emerging as an RNO. 

Design for interdependencies and surface tensions, gaps, competing signals, and emerging implications that require attention for collective stewardship and decision-making. 

2. Enable RNO Operationalization 

Enable the translation of Heifer’s emerging RNO operating logic into organizational practice. 

Ensure coherence across organizational designs and structures, meta-systems, policies and processes, decision roles, governance, and fiduciary responsibilities. 

Connect emerging design choices with the capabilities, conditions, and safeguards required for responsible activation and operationalization. 

3. Enable Transformation Governance & Shared Stewardship 

Work closely with the Transformation Stewardship Committee, TSC and Node Leads to enable healthy transformation governance, shared stewardship, and collective decision-making. 

Surface enterprise-level choices, tensions, and barriers requiring stewardship while preserving appropriate distributed authority. 

Help mobilize the decisions, relationships, resources, and conditions needed for transformation to progress. 

Synchronize Heifer’s organizational transformation with the evolution of Board governance so the two journeys inform and reinforce one another while respecting their distinct roles, authority, and responsibilities. 

4. Cultivate Distributed Transformation Capability 

Build the conditions for transformation to be carried across countries, networks, ecosystems, functions, and capability communities rather than concentrated within a central team. 

Enable participation, facilitation, co-creation, experimentation, and shared stewardship across the organization ensuring countries receive resources, connections, support, and continuous feedback. 

Strengthen Heifer’s internal capacity to continuously transform itself and reduce dependency on individual transformation leaders. 

5. Steward Human & Cultural Transformation 

Ensure culture, mindsets, behaviors, leadership practices, capabilities, and ways of working evolve alongside structural and operating-model changes. 

Partner with People Department, Human Potential & Culture, and other capabilities to embed transformation readiness as an ongoing organizational discipline. 

Help create the human and relational conditions required for distributed leadership, agency, accountability, and regenerative ways of working. 

6. Integrate Learning, Sensing & Adaptation 

Embed learning, sensing, and adaptation into transformation stewardship so emerging evidence continually informs the evolution of the transformation. 

Define meaningful indicators through co-creation of transformation progress and organizational health and assess whether Heifer is increasingly becoming locally led and globally connected, farmer-centered, agile and adaptive, regenerative and networked. 

Use evidence and learning to challenge assumptions, inform adaptation, and identify where additional stewardship and/or intervention is needed; share with teams how their learning has influenced decision-making and collectively determine if changes are working in practice.  

7. Build Heifer’s Long-Term Transformation Ecosystem 

Help shape the longer-term ecosystem of capabilities Heifer needs to continuously adapt and transform. 

Connect transformation, organizational development and design, culture and human systems, governance, learning, and other enabling capabilities into a coherent organizational capacity. 

Build toward a future in which transformation is increasingly embedded in how Heifer operates rather than dependent on a central transformation function. 

Shared Accountability 

Transformation is a shared organizational responsibility, not the accountability of one role or team. The Transformation Steward works collectively with the Transformation Stewardship Committee, CEO and Node Leaders to provide whole-system stewardship while enabling transformation to remain distributed. It means: 

Stewardship & Direction: The Transformation Stewardship Committee collectively provides direction, makes enterprise-level transformation decisions and creates conditions for progress. 

Distributed Activation: Countries, networks, ecosystems and functions activate, experiment, learn and adapt transformation in their contexts. 

Specialist Capabilities: Learning & Experimentation, Integration & Effectiveness, Governance, Human Potential & Culture, and Narrative & Facilitation each contribute distinct capabilities to the transformation system. 

Transformation Steward: Holds the whole and connects the system by maintaining a working view across the portfolio, identifying dependencies and trade-offs, and bringing key choices to the appropriate decision-making groups. The role cultivates the conditions for distributed transformation and helps ensure collective stewardship is informed by what is emerging across Heifer. 

Critical Capabilities 

Core 

• Systems thinking and engineering 
• Transformation leadership 
• Distributed and network leadership 
• Strategic and organizational coherence 
• Relationship building and cultivation 
• Executive judgement and influence 
• Commitment to locally led development 

Behavioral 

• Humility, resilience and self-awareness 
• Listening and presence 
• Cultural agility and sensitivity  
• Boundary navigation 
• Stewardship Capacity Building 

Technical 

• Enterprise transformation and organizational design 
• Strategy development and execution 
• Organizational effectiveness 
• Executive communication and facilitation 

Candidate Profile 

• Master's degree in MBA, strategy, public policy, organizational development, or related field. 
• At least fifteen (15) years of experience in strategic leadership roles, including transformation and organizational change, strategy, operating-model evolution plus at least eight (8) years of people management and working with senior executives and governing bodies in complex organizational environments  
• Experience leading or stewarding major transformation across distributed, international, networked, or federated organizations. 
• Experience working in global, multicultural contexts—preferably in international development, philanthropy, networks, or federated systems. 
• Background/knowledge in enterprise-level communications. 
• Proven record of accomplishment in collaborating with senior leadership and stakeholders to build strategic alignment and leading major organizational transformation. 
• Strong grasp of systems thinking, adaptive strategy, organization design, strategy development and execution, and shared and distributed leadership models. 
• Exceptional communication, facilitation, and relationship-building skills. 
• Commitment to locally led development, equity, and regenerative systems. 
• Ability and willingness to travel internationally, potentially up to 30% 

Preferred 

• Experience or familiarity with living system principles 
• Experience working with local communities and front-line employees 
• Proficiency in other languages is a plus 

How to Apply 

Applications should consist of: 

1. A concise response of no more than two pages in total to the following two questions: 

• Tell us about a time you have led or stewarded a significant organizational change. This can be any type of change, including strategy, new technology, new structure, or ways of working. What did you learn from this that you will draw from in this role?  
• How can you demonstrate your proven commitment to fostering a sense of belonging and modeling distributed leadership within a network organization as a leader? 

2. An up-to-date resume; and 

3. Names and contact details of three references (although references will only be approached at the final stage of the process, and only with your express permission). 

Application deadline: EOB November 6, Friday

Position and Compensation Details 

This is a full-time, global role with a flexible base location. However, it will require significant international travel up to 30%, including time spent at Heifer International’s head office in Little Rock, Arkansas, and in the 19 countries where we operate. Compensation for this role will be determined based on the candidate’s location, experience, and qualifications, with a commitment to fair and equitable pay that reflects both local market standards and the value brought to the position. Please indicate your salary expectation on the Application Form. Employment is contingent on satisfactory references and background checks. 

As a global employer, Heifer International is committed to the well-being of our staff and offers competitive, locally relevant benefits tailored to each country’s context. Our Total Rewards package supports diverse employee needs and promotes long-term engagement. We are also committed to inclusive recruitment practices—if you require this document or the application process in an alternative format or need reasonable adjustments for any stage of the process, please contact us at [email protected]. Heifer is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, welcoming qualified applicants from all backgrounds and identities.