Managing Director, Policy

AI will upend work as we know it. Breakwater Initiative is a new, action-oriented policy shop with a single north star: finding the very best ideas to support workers through AI's economic transformation and laying the groundwork for an economy that enables people to have purpose, agency, and the ability to thrive. We do not study the problem from a distance.

We conceptualize, test, and scale the ideas, institutions, and models that will shape the future of work and our social contract.

Our work spans three pillars: building the big ideas, policy agenda, and public infrastructure to support a response commensurate with the moment; testing new approaches and scaling what works; and engaging ordinary people in building an affirmative vision for what comes next. We are fiercely independent and nonpartisan: responsible to the public interest, not beholden to any lab, party, or private interest.

That independence is the basis for the broad public trust this work demands.

Breakwater is in its founding phase, currently operating as a fiscally sponsored project of RF Catalytic Capital, Inc. This is a rare opportunity to build an institution from the ground up at a moment when the questions it tackles are among the most consequential in American economic and civic life.

The Opportunity

Breakwater Initiative seeks a Managing Director, Policy to lead its policy function, whichseeksto turn the best policy ideas into popular,widely supported positions. Reporting to the CEO, the Managing Director will buildthe policy team andserve as Breakwater's senior-most policy expert,developing ourhigh-impact position sand ensuring that they are rigorous andwell-groundedinbest-practice and experience.

The remit is expansive. Breakwater's agenda spans the full economic footprint of AI: labor, tax, economic and industrial policy, the safety net, and questions of ownership. The right person need not be a deep expert in all of these but brings real depth in several and the range to engage credibly across the rest — and can hold their own with the bestexpertsand officials in the field, synthesize competing inputs into a clear point of view, and rigorously develop the strongest ideas intoconcreteproposalstoadvance prosperity and agency for workers in an AI world.

The org chart is flat, the strategy is evolving, and some days the most important work will not appear on any job description. The right person is energized by thatand is comfortable exercising discretion and judgement in uncertain situations, collaborating with others as needed.

This role follows a hybrid schedule and is required to be in the office Monday through Thursday.

Key Responsibilities

Leading The Policy Function

• Serve as the senior-most expert running Breakwater's policy function and a trusted authority on its agenda, positions, and analysis.
• Set the direction,strategy and priorities of the policy team, translating a shared vision into an executable agenda and holding the team to it.
• Anticipate risk, develop contingency plans, and make sound judgments about where to invest the team's time and resources for the highest impact.
• Own the quality, coherence, and timeliness of everything the policy team produces, ensuring Breakwater speaks with rigor and a single, credible voice.

Developing the Agenda

• Lead the development of Breakwater's policy agendas, documents, and positions, from framing the questions through to finishedproductsbuilt to move the conversation and public opinion.
• Identify and synthesize the strongest thinking from across the field — academic research, practitioner input, and ideas from everywhere — into clear, defensible positions,distinguishing genuinely novel approaches fromthe status quo.
• Lead the tracking and synthesis of the federal and…