Open MIC is seeking a Deputy Director to help manage the organization and lead its growth.  

About Open MIC:

Open MIC works to foster greater corporate accountability in the media and technology sectors. Our primary tool is shareholder engagement. Working with sustainable investors, we aim to increase corporate transparency and accountability and to expose and address the ways in which tech products and services may be threatening civil and human rights, enabling government surveillance, exacerbating discrimination, or facilitating censorship.
Our efforts focus on issues such as the spread of hate speech and misinformation/disinformation online, the sale of biometric technologies like facial recognition, and the dramatic growth of surveillance technologies marketed by leading tech companies. Across our work, we coordinate with racial justice, civil and human rights groups to ensure that shareholder advocacy efforts align with the concerns and needs of frontline communities most impacted by the tech industry’s harms. Founded in 2007, Open MIC has led high-visibility shareholder campaigns at virtually all of the leading tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Verizon.

Position Summary:

This is a meaningful moment for Open MIC’s growth as an organization: more than ever, policymakers, grassroots organizers, tech workers, and investors are challenging tech companies’ role in enabling racism, perpetuating surveillance, weakening labor protections, harming small businesses, and more. At the same time, investors are increasingly using their platform to apply needed pressure on tech companies to change policies and practices that enable harm.
Open MIC is hiring a Deputy Director to help manage the organization and lead its growth.  The Deputy Director will play a key role at Open MIC by helping to identify and prioritize critical social justice concerns posed by an increasingly powerful and consolidated media and technology landscape; leading shareholder advocacy campaigns; organizing shareholder education efforts; managing organizational relationships; and building organizational capacity.
The Deputy Director will also support the Executive Director in charting a path for future growth of Open MIC, maintaining existing funding relationships while developing new ones, representing the organization publicly, and managing financial and administrative responsibilities in conjunction with Open MIC’s fiscal sponsor, the Tides Center.
We are looking for a driven, organized, and adaptive organizational leader who is well versed in media and technology issues and who can work collaboratively with colleagues to increase the impact of our shareholder advocacy campaigns while at the same time representing Open MIC to investors, social justice organizations, the media, funders, and the public. Open MIC works with investors who have both shareholder value and social impact in mind, including investment firms, pension funds, foundations and faith-based investors. The Deputy Director will convey concerns about corporate behavior from a lens of social harm as well as through a lens of business risk. 

The Deputy Director will work in close collaboration with Open MIC’s small team.  We are a remote staff based in New York. We are ideally looking for someone based in/near New York City or Washington, D.C., or someone who is able and willing to travel on a semi-regular basis to meet in person with the team (when it is safe to do so).  

The Deputy Director is a full-time, exempt position that works a 35-hour work week. Salary scale range is $75,000-$90,000, depending on experience. Compensation is commensurate with experience. Position includes excellent benefits including medical, dental and vision.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Executive and Administrative (30%)

• Assist the executive director with strategic planning and coordination of Open MIC’s staffing plans, programs, projects, and policy positions
• Communicate organizational goals and operational plans across staff, partners and donors 
• Work with the Executive Director to secure and increase financial support for Open MIC
• Liaise with Tides Center, Open MIC’s fiscal sponsor

Shareholder Engagement (50%)

• Develop and implement shareholder campaigns to increase corporate accountability at companies in the U.S. media/tech sector, including by drafting shareholder resolutions, participating in company dialogues, identifying opportunities for coalition building with civil rights, advocacy, and tech worker partners, and managing relationships with organizational partners
• Assist in shaping the direction and scope of Open MIC initiatives
• Coordinate with Open MIC colleagues to produce materials that raise awareness among impact investors of critical media and technology issues, including by writing reports framing the business risk of these issues, and organizing and presenting on informational webinars.
• Build/maintain relationships with new/existing shareholder partners, including by identifying new partnerships, ensuring that partners are meaningfully participating in campaign work, connecting shareholders to social justice and advocacy partners working on tech accountability campaigns, and attending conferences and convenings 
• Stay up-to-date on key policy and news developments around Open MIC issue areas to inform the development of campaign strategy 

Communications (20%)

• Synthesize major media/tech policy developments and issues by framing the regulatory, legal, financial, and reputational risk to companies, including by drafting website content and press releases, and working with Open MIC staff and consultants to create social media content 
• In coordination with Open MIC’s part-time communications consultants, identify and manage opportunities for greater visibility of Open MIC’s work and our issue areas to a broader audience of investors and partners
  
• Speak to press, develop relationships with reporters, and conduct outreach to press, as needed 

Education and Experience:

At least 5-10 years professional work experience 

At least 5 years experience working on research, policy development, and/or campaigning related to technology, Internet rights and media justice issues

We hope you will bring the following:

Demonstrated knowledge of current issues in the media and technology sectors and familiarity with the landscape of corporate accountability efforts surrounding these issues
Demonstrated commitment to racial and social justice and aligning advocacy work with the needs of frontline communities
Ability to build, nurture and sustain relationships in order to move work forward Organizational leadership experience, and/or an understanding of how nonprofits grow
Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex issues into digestible and relevant information for a range of audiences across sectors (finance, tech/media, nonprofit)Demonstrated skills in policy advocacy, community organizing, or campaigning to develop support for a specific issue or campaign
Familiarity with corporate social responsibility, impact investing, or corporate accountability efforts is a plus, but not required
Ability to lead and work collaboratively in a small organization
Familiarity with fundraising, including building new relationships with funders, writing grant reports, monitoring fundraising and budget for programs
Excellent research, writing and verbal communication skills
Ability to work remotely
Ability to travel locally (within/to New York City and Washington, D.C.) on a regular basis, as well as nationally on occasion
Sense of humor is appreciated!

Organizational Relationships:

The Deputy Director reports to the Executive Director of Open MIC and works collaboratively with all staff, as well as with shareholder partners, non-profit advocacy partners, vendors and contractors.

Physical Demands:

Ability to spend up to eight hours a day working on a computer and speaking on a phone.

Work Environment:

Open MIC currently operates as a virtual organization. The Deputy Director must be able to work remotely, managing their own schedule and workspace. Open MIC will provide a laptop. While on travel, work will most often be completed from hotels, partner and coalition offices, and conference facilities.

Open MIC, a project of Tides Center, is an “at-will” and equal opportunity employer. Applicants and employees shall not be discriminated against because of race, religion, sex, national origin, ethnicity age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender (including pregnancy and gender expression) identity, color, marital status, veteran status, medical condition, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law or ordinance. Reasonable accommodation will be made so that qualified disabled applicants may participate in the application process. Please advise in writing of special needs at the time of application.

How to Apply

Applications will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. Please send to jobs@openmic.org: 1) a resume or CV and 2) a cover letter (no longer than one page) that addresses these questions: 

1. What makes this job a good match for you?
2. In looking at Open MIC’s current or past shareholder advocacy, which issues and campaigns strike you as particularly compelling? Why?
3. Looking to the future, which issues in the technology and media sectors do you believe will raise serious social justice concerns? What role could Open MIC play in addressing those concerns?
   
4. What is one meaningful strength that you bring to your work that we would not know about just by looking at your resume?
   

How to Apply

Applications will be accepted through Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. Please send to jobs@openmic.org: 1) a resume or CV and 2) a cover letter (no longer than one page) that addresses these questions: 

1. What makes this job a good match for you?
2. In looking at Open MIC’s current or past shareholder advocacy, which issues and campaigns strike you as particularly compelling? Why?
3. Looking to the future, which issues in the technology and media sectors do you believe will raise serious social justice concerns? What role could Open MIC play in addressing those concerns?
   
4. What is one meaningful strength that you bring to your work that we would not know about just by looking at your resume?