Astera Institute seeks a senior executive to be the organization’s Vice President to rapidly scale the organization, its projects, people and facilities, in the process engaging world-class leaders across life sciences, biotechnology, AI, neuroscience, energy, and manufacturing. Founders Jed McCaleb and Seemay Chou have committed $3 Billion in philanthropic assets to this endeavor.

Astera is a new kind of research organization that operates outside the constraints of markets or academia, and is itself an experiment in how research organizations can move faster, take smarter risks, and create lasting public good. The Founders seek to redefine what a philanthropic engine can be by deploying their significant philanthropic capacity within their lifetimes in ways that change the trajectory of science, technology, and society. Plans are to annually deploy at least 5% of the endowment.

The Founders and their Division Leads believe that the best way to solve underexplored problems is to build things: to prototype, test, learn in the open, change rapidly as data and new ideas develop, and build again. The organization will rapidly expand from a headcount of 30 to more than 100, and within five years could have as many as 250 people working onsite and remotely. Current facilities in Emeryville, CA encompass 10 ,000 sq. ft. of space with a separate sublease of an offsite wet lab; future facilities could grow to approximately 50,000 sq ft, with onsite program and administrative offices, an event space, wet lab and vivarium.

The Vice President will collaborate with the Founders and Division Leads to prototype an organizational approach that builds, experiments and operates in a range of technical areas, with infrastructure shaped especially to enable rapid movement from concept to experimentation to impact at scale. Astera Institute will combine attributes of a philanthropic enterprise, experimental laboratory and practical business that rolls out products, services and solutions. Supporting Astera’s teams will be a finance and operations team managed by this Vice President who will have a coordinating, infrastructure delivery and customer serving relationship with Division Leads.

The VP’s team will initially have five staff (expected to grow to 10) and various subcontractors whose relationships with Astera might shift as the organization evolves. In addition to managing Astera’s financial and operating infrastructure, this Vice President works closely with the Founders and Division Leads to oversee the Residency Program for innovators.  Just as Division Leads shape their initiatives and share lessons learned with others, the Vice President will shape an environment that facilitates and speeds discovery while sharing lessons that inform national strategy in various areas of endeavor, influence policy, and shape how future philanthropies work. In other words, the person in this role will help design and scale an organization built to drive meaningful change while making its methods transparent. In the process, Astera will redefine how philanthropy can deliver “the future, faster.”

This Vice President must be comfortable with ambiguity, aligned to the Founders’ sensibility, highly collaborative, growth oriented, practical, and be strongly oriented towards transparency and open communication in service to mission. The complete position description can be found here and resumes can be submitted here.

For additional information or to apply, please contact Mark Oppenheim, Lisa Grossman, and Oscar Quiros at info[at]moppenheim[dot]com.