Special Projects Lead (Founder's Office)

Special Projects Lead (Founder's Office)

Annual $130k to $170k

Who We Are

Tri-Sector Associates is a social innovation and advisory firm whose mission is to solve complex societal challenges by shaping funding systems to scale and sustain what works. 

To do so, we work at the intersection of government, philanthropy, and the private sector to design and structure new cross-sector collaboration models - including Pay-for-Success, blended finance, and mission-driven coalitions – which enable the most effective innovations to achieve the impact we need.

Our work has been recognised by the World Economic Forum, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Forbes, and the Oxford Government Outcomes Lab. We are supported by Temasek Trust, the Economic Development Board of Singapore, and leading philanthropists who believe in building an innovation ecosystem for Asia's next 50 years.

For more information, visit https://trisector.org/

Your Impact

Tri-Sector was set up as a platform to push the frontiers of how social impact is funded. We are constantly creating innovative new funding models, new initiatives, and new business platforms to drive that change. The Special Projects Lead exists to help drive our key initiatives and be a partner in building the firm that turns ambition into reality. 

You will work directly with the Founder to own a portfolio of firm-critical projects: translating complex, open-ended problems into clear workplans, driving execution across workstreams, and ensuring that nothing falls through the gaps on Tri-Sector's highest-priority initiatives. Your first and most significant project will be the Horizon Leadership Council - Tri-Sector's flagship philanthropic and thought leadership initiative, which you will support the Founder and Practice Leads end-to-end, from defining and strategising around 5-10 year impact missions, finding and aligning key funders and senior stakeholders around those missions, and mobilising resources across the firm to turn those missions into reality.

Alongside your portfolio of specific projects, you will shape and drive Tri-Sector's firm-building infrastructure: knowledge management systems, external communications, recruiting, and operational systems, in collaboration with the leadership team comprising the Founder, DCEO, and Practice Leads. This is a key leadership enablement role that helps to build the institutional capabilities that allow Tri-Sector's advisory practice to operate at its best.

This is an ideal role for someone with top tier professional services experience keen to influence leading senior stakeholders, learn first-hand how to build an impact business, and shape the frontier of impact funding in Asia as a thought leader while refining their professional services skillset.

What You Will Lead

1. Special Projects & Firm Building Initiatives

• Own and drive a portfolio of key firm initiatives from inception to outcome - bringing structure, rigour, and follow-through to cross-cutting workstreams.
• Act as the primary driver of the Horizon Leadership Council (HLC) together with the Founder and Practice Leads: positioning the HLC and its strategy, defining key outcomes and pathways to impact across long-term missions, cultivating key funders at the C-level, and aligning funders and potential project partners to the key missions.
• Support the Founder in building the business as a close partner – including attending key meetings, developing board-facing materials, creating firm strategy, designing new business lines, and mobilising resources as needed for the firm's growth.

2. Thought Leadership and Strategic Firm Operations

• Drive and shape Tri-Sector's external thought leadership for publication in our channels: LinkedIn, website, and newsletter, owning the content calendar and drawing key insights from across the firm to produce insight in collaboration with the Founder, Practice Leads, and project teams. The vision is for this function to eventually be supported also by a part time communications team member once it achieves scale.
• Support recruiting across the firm in collaboration with Practice Leads: job description and employee value proposition design, active networking and engagement with key talent communities, and supporting candidate pipeline management with the People & Operations Manager. 
• Own and refine Tri-Sector's knowledge management systems and consulting workflows, consulting processes, shared drives, documentation standards, templates, and institutional memory - so that the firm consistently achieves best-in-class standards and the team functions at peak efficiency.
• Oversee operational systems at a strategic level - ensuring the workflows, and internal processes are fit for purpose and evolving with the organisation's needs, supported by the People & Operations Manager.

3. Select Client & Project Delivery

• Contribute to select client-facing workstreams alongside the Founder, supporting project delivery on engagements where founder involvement is central.
• Apply structured problem-solving and analytical skills to live client challenges - including research, stakeholder synthesis, and deliverable preparation.
• Build familiarity with Tri-Sector's core methodology: outcomes-based financing, Pay-for-Success structures, blended finance, and cross-sector coalition design.

How You Will Grow

TSA is intentionally designed as an accelerator for high-potential talent.

We cross-train team members across the core disciplines of modern social innovation:

• Strategy consulting (problem structuring, analysis, storytelling)
• Financial modelling & innovative finance (catalytic capital, blended finance, market structuring)
• Philanthropy and donor advisory
• Government policy and public sector transformation
• Evaluation, outcomes measurement, and data analytics
• Ecosystem and coalition-building

You will work in small, elite teams that prioritise feedback, coaching, and rapid development. Because TSA is lean and fast-moving, your learning curve will be significantly steeper than in a large institution.

Many of our alumni go on to leadership roles in philanthropy, consulting, big tech, venture building, or start their own initiatives - while others accelerate directly into leadership roles within TSA.

About You

Core Competencies

• Strategic and analytical rigor: You can break down complex problems into clear analytical steps, and apply a high standard of critical thinking and strong attention to detail to getting to the right answer 
• Resourcefulness and relentlessness: You are able to find and mobilise resources to address the diversity of new initiatives, and continuously invent to find solutions for any problem faced.
• Clear, compelling communication: You synthesise complexity into concise, well-crafted written, verbal, and visual narratives that drive alignment and action.
• Execution and planning excellence: You take ownership of timelines, coordinate across busy stakeholders, and make things happen without constant supervision, ensuring consistent quality under pressure.
• Sound judgement and ownership: You take proactive ownership of outcomes, make well-reasoned decisions under uncertainty, and know when to act independently or seek input.
• Collaboration and team enablement: You strengthen team performance by supporting others, organising work effectively, and engaging in respectful, constructive challenge.
• Integrity and continuous development: You act with integrity, accountability, and humility, actively seek feedback, and invest in your own growth while living TSA's values.

Experience Indicators

• Minimum 4 years of experience in consulting, strategy, programme leadership, or a similarly analytical and delivery-oriented role - with a track record of taking ownership of complex workstreams and seeing them through.
• Demonstrated ability to structure ambiguous problems: you can take an open-ended brief, break it into its component parts, and produce a clear plan with measurable milestones.
• Strong written communication skills: this role requires drafting funder materials, institutional narratives, and board-facing documents to a high standard.
• Strong senior-level stakeholder management skills: this role will require significant interfacing with C-level stakeholders 
• Prior exposure to fundraising, donor engagement, or institutional partnership development is an advantage. 
• Prior exposure to the social impact, philanthropy, government, or development finance sectors is an advantage but not required.

Why Tri-Sector

Frontier Work

You will build solutions that the field has not yet tested at scale. You will work on catalytic models and deploy innovative finance that changes how social impact is funded.

High-Exposure

You will partner directly with government agencies, nation-level institutions, philanthropies, multilaterals, investors, and leading ecosystem actors.

Cross-Sector Mastery

You will be trained across a rare combination of strategy consulting, innovative finance, philanthropy advisory, evaluation, and policy design.

High-Growth

You will take on accelerated responsibility, lead client relationships early, and progress quickly based on performance. Small teams = high visibility.

Mission-Driven

You will join a team that is as relational and supportive as we are analytical and ambitious. We are grounded in purpose, values-guided, and mission-driven. We care about the people we serve and the people we work with.

Sustainable Pace

You will operate in an environment that recognises we run marathons, not sprints. We are in it for the long haul, so we offer a healthier pace than traditional consulting while maintaining a high bar.

High Firm Influence

You will contribute to our intellectual property, methodologies, culture, and organisational growth. As a young, ambitious firm building an innovation ecosystem for Asia, your ideas will directly influence how TSA evolves.