Director of Food System Planning

The Central Texas Food Bank seeks a Director of Food System Planning in Austin, TX, to lead the Regional Food System Council. This role involves developing strategies to enhance the regional food system, building partnerships with stakeholders, and fostering collaboration. The ideal candidate should have leadership skills and a strong understanding of food policy and planning. Responsibilities include overseeing initiatives, representing the council, and evaluating food system interventions.
Position Overview

Central Texas Food Bank is hiring a highly motivated and experienced strategic thinker to form and maintain a Regional Food System Council (RFSC) that focuses on developing regional food system priorities, building strategic partnerships, and informing strategies and policies to support a sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system. Through the RSFC, this position will oversee the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies aimed at improving and optimizing the regional food system in Central Texas. Building and maintaining collaborative and meaningful partnerships through a collective impact model is a core component of this position. The ideal candidate understands the grassroots perspective on food system and food policy efforts, while also approaches food system planning with a business/entrepreneurship mindset. Proven and demonstrated leadership, professionalism, and effective communication skills to achieve goals are necessary for this role.

Relationships

Reporting to the Vice President of Strategic Insights and eventually building a small team of direct reports, the Director of Food System Planning will collaborate with various stakeholders including government agencies, non-profit organizations, researchers, farmers, producers, distributors, retailers, and consumers. They will also work with local food councils and coalitions to support regional coordination and alignment across local food system initiatives. Internally, this role must nurture strong connections with colleagues on various teams to connect food system priorities to CTFB’s strategic initiatives and understand CTFB’s infrastructure capacity to lead food system solutions.

Your Responsibilities
• Lead the development of comprehensive strategies and action plans for enhancing the regional food system. This includes identifying key priorities, setting goals, and establishing measurable objectives.
• Build and maintain relationships with diverse stakeholders involved in the food system, including government officials, community organizations, farmers, food producers, distributors and manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. Facilitate collaborative efforts to address common challenges and achieve shared objectives through a Regional Food System Council.
• Represent the Regional Food System Council, both internally and externally. Communicate key messages, success stories, and challenges to diverse audiences through various channels, including presentations, reports, publications, and community events.
• Foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and skill development among stakeholders.
• Partner with the Research team to understand the current state of the regional food system, identify gaps, and assess opportunities for improvement, and establish mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the impact of food system interventions and initiatives.
• Stay informed about emerging trends, best practices, and innovations in food system planning and sustainable agriculture.
• Develop a high-performance team culture focused on leadership and accountability at all levels, continuous learning, collaboration, measurement, and goal achievement by modeling the way and enabling others to act.
• Set performance goals for team members that align to CTFB’s strategy and evaluate performance against goals on a regular basis.
• Effectively coach team members and provide supportive and developmental feedback to enhance performance. Ensure that team members develop the technical, leadership and professional skills necessary for success.
• Actively supports organization’s values, goals and objectives by leading by example
• Demonstrates support of organizational message without blaming other departments, leaders or providing personal opinions.
• Assist in the preparation of reports, data gathering, and completion of goals, metrics and deadlines.
• Commit to supporting CTFB’s mission, vision, values, and culture
• Perform additional duties as necessary and/or requested.

Working Conditions
• Hybrid Work Model Requirement: This position operates under a hybrid work model. You will be expected to work in the office at least two days per week and attend in-person meetings as required.
• Hours of Operation: The food bank is open Monday-Friday 8am-5pm, some evening and weekend hours may be required, especially during peak times, disaster response, or holidays, or to participate in food system related convenings.
• Environment: This position works in a typical office setting. There may be extended periods of sitting, standing and/or bending; listening, talking and/or visual concentration; writing and/or computer use. The position also requires working independently and with others on a team.
• Travel: CTFB serves 21 counties in central Texas and often requires same-day travel between counties, using a personal vehicle, CTFB passenger fleet and possibly occasional out of town travel for meetings, special events or meeting for some positions.