Director - Sustainability & Community Impact Systems, Operations & Controls

American Express is seeking a Director for Sustainability & Community Impact Systems, Operations & Controls in Jersey City, NJ. This role involves leading operations and systems for community impact and sustainability functions, managing budgeting, reporting, compliance, and vendor management. The director will collaborate with various internal teams and report to the VP of Community Impact. Ideal candidates should be organized, dynamic, and skilled in relationship building.
At American Express, our culture is built on a 175-year history of innovation, shared values and Leadership Behaviors, and an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities, and colleagues. As part of Team Amex, you'll experience this powerful backing with comprehensive support for your holistic well-being and many opportunities to learn new skills, develop as a leader, and grow your career.

Here, your voice and ideas matter, your work makes an impact, and together, you will help us define the future of American Express.

The American Express Corporate Affairs & Communications (CA&C) team is a strategic function that works to enhance and protect the continued strength of the American Express brand through public relations, social media and content, colleague communications and corporate sustainability (CS).The Corporate Sustainability (CS) team is hiring a Director, Sustainability and Community Impact Systems, Operations and Controls to report to the Vice President of Community Impact.

This role will be responsible for leading and enhancing systems and operations across the community impact and grantmaking and sustainability functions of the Corporate Sustainability team. This is an exciting role working closely with a global program team, business units and enterprise functions.

The director will have responsibility for day-to-day operations within the American Express Foundation and Corporate Sustainability team, which oversees platforms for Amex colleagues, non-profit partners and communities across the world. The Director will oversee a team responsible for departmental budgeting activities, financial and impact reporting, risk and compliance linked to grantmaking and sustainability processes as a subject matter expert, audit readiness, and vendor management, working closely with VP's heading the Community Impact and Global Sustainability functions.

The candidate will report to the VP, Community Impact, and interact closely with the Head of Corporate Sustainability & Foundation President, VP of Global Sustainability, Community Impact program officer and internal and international business units within American Express including finance, procurement, operational risk, compliance, payments, legal and executive office teams.

The ideal candidate must be a dynamic, solutions-oriented, highly organized, creative and flexible individual, with strong attention to detail and who is comfortable working with ambiguity and complexity. The ideal candidate will have a track record of building strong relationships, leading and operating in a dynamic environment, being resourceful, and precise.

How will you make an impact in this role? Operations, systems support and relationship building

Serve as Amex Foundation and corporate philanthropy operational backbone and systems knowledge holder, to ensure all relevant staff can access training on workflow, systems and best practices across grantmaking, including international market and CSR governance leads in global markets (i.e. India).Proactively engages with internal stakeholders including Corporate Affairs and Communications Finance Director, Third-party lifecycle and vendor management (TLM), Communications, Legal, Tax and Compliance a subject matter expert who can field queries with your team from business and market corporate sustainability colleagues and provide guidance or adapt systems in response, to ensure compliance across the key relationship holder, with your team, for vendors that support Foundation systems, platforms and processes, including Smart Simple, Benevity (shared with the Director of Colleague Engagement) and taxation contractors.

Oversee third party vendor management and onboarding for Corporate Sustainability in collaboration with TLM, compliance and regulatory and risk management functions to ensure effective and timely performance, vendor training completion, execution, and upgrades.

Sustainability and Impact Operations, Finance support and Controls Enhancement Lead day-to-day operations for Corporate Sustainability team including: team project budgets, long-range budget planning including for the Amex Foundation, oversight…