Senior Director, Market Development

FUSE seeks an entrepreneurial leader who can help communities solve complex challenges by building long-term market strategies, mobilizing resources, and creating the conditions for high-impact executive fellowship opportunities.

This position is based in Los Angeles, California. The employee in this role is required to live within 50 miles of downtown Los Angeles.

FUSE operates as a distributed organization, but this role carries a residency requirement because its core responsibilities are presence-dependent. The Senior Director builds sustained, face-to-face relationships with government, philanthropic, and community leaders and maintains partnerships requiring regular on-site engagement with Los Angeles City and County agencies.

Los Angeles is the primary and most intensive market for this role because of its scale of opportunity, FUSE’s established relationships and contracting history, and its potential to serve as a proving ground for market development practices FUSE can adapt elsewhere. The Senior Director will also be responsible for a small number of select Western U.S. markets, applying established FUSE approaches to cultivate relationships and develop executive fellowship opportunities through a more targeted, streamlined model.

This role requires frequent local travel throughout Greater Los Angeles. Approximately 20–25% travel outside the Los Angeles area is expected, including periodic travel to select Western markets for partnership and opportunity development and national travel for organizational meetings and conferences.

This position offers a non-negotiable annual salary of $139,000 and robust benefits. More details can be provided upon request.

FUSE is a national nonprofit that increases the capacity of local governments to work more effectively for communities. We embed experienced private-sector executives in city and county agencies to lead high-priority projects spanning affordable housing, economic mobility, climate resilience, public safety, infrastructure, technology, and more. Since 2012, FUSE has led over 400 projects in 58 governments across 26 states, impacting a population equivalent to 1 in 10 Americans.

FUSE works with government partners and community stakeholders to design each fellowship around a high-priority local challenge, then conducts a national executive search for an experienced leader to spend one-two years embedded in the government agency. Executive Fellows bring at least 15 years of professional experience and lead complex work spanning strategy, operational improvement, coalition building, and implementation, with ongoing training, coaching, and support from FUSE.

FUSE’s long-term success depends on consistently generating high-impact executive fellowship opportunities in an increasingly complex funding environment. Government demand remains strong; the harder problem is helping communities identify viable pathways to fund and sustain that demand. The Senior Director, Market Development builds this capability by helping governments and community partners move ambitious ideas from vision to implementation.

Los Angeles will serve as the Senior Director’s primary and most intensive market, where they will be accountable for developing and advancing a multi-year partnership and funding roadmap connecting community priorities, potential fellowship opportunities, institutional partners, and diverse funding pathways—including municipal resources, state and federal grants, local philanthropy, and other sources. This work requires sustained, in-person engagement with government, philanthropic, civic, and community leaders.

Across Los Angeles and a small number of select Western markets, the Senior Director…