Program Manager, External Partnerships, Office of the Dean

Working at Yale means contributing to a better tomorrow. Whether you are a current resident of our New Haven-based community, eligible for opportunities through the New Haven Hiring Initiative, or a newcomer, interested in exploring all that Yale has to offer, your talents and contributions are welcome. Discover your opportunities at Yale!

Overview

The Program Manager for External Partnerships provides strategic leadership and comprehensive management of Yale School of Public Health’s external partnerships portfolio—stewarding existing relationships, leading engagement across faculty and administrative units, and owning the systems that make the partnership pipeline run smoothly and predictably.

Reporting to the Chief of Staff & Senior Strategist, this position is driving the development and execution of high-value partnerships, ensuring alignment across stakeholders, and translating relationships and commitments into sustained institutional impact.

In addition to managing the existing portfolio, the role carries a forward-looking mandate to grow the number and value of YSPH’s external partnerships and identify new opportunities for collaboration, funding and strategic engagement.  Working closely with leadership and faculty, the Program Manger identifies prospective partners, cultivates new relationships, and shapes the strategy and linkages to existing infrastructure that will allow the School’s engagements to scale over time.

The position exercises significant independent judgment and is expected to represent YSPH’s partnerships externally.

The role requires a professional who blends program administration, relationship management, and business development—ensuring that current partnerships thrive while laying the groundwork for future growth.

With a substantial degree of initiative, this position will conceive, develop, and implement partnerships, programs, and activities while supporting YSPH’s mission, strategy, and annual goals and objectives. Identify internal and external stakeholders to establish and steward relationships with to cultivate these partnerships.

Manages the day-to-day operations of YSPH’s external partnership portfolio, including the promotion, development, and support of intellectual exchange, requiring comprehensive understanding of both YSPH’s research, mission, and goals and the University’s administrative mechanisms that facilitate external partnerships.  Serves as the primary operational point of contact for designated partners, ensuring timely and professional engagement.

Develops, maintains, and continuously improves the partnership pipeline—establishing new or leveraging existing systems and workflows to track prospects, active partnerships, deliverables, renewals, and follow-up activities, and reducing friction across each stage of the partner lifecycle.

Ensures that program activities and partnerships operate within the policies and procedures of the University and YSPH, including the execution of formal agreements  (whether through MOU, contract, etc.).

Determines administrative workflows and executes across internal Yale stakeholders—faculty, research units, development, sponsored programs, and administrative offices—to drive implementation and route partner interests to the right people and ensure commitments are fulfilled accurately and on time.

Designs and executes partner-facing activities including meetings, site visits, workshops, sponsored projects, and engagement events. Defines purpose and programming for these activities, including agenda setting; oversees logistics.

Builds and maintains a CRM or tracking system for partnership data, generating regular reports on pipeline health, engagement activity, and partnership outcomes for leadership.

Develops strategic communication plans and materials for reports, presentations, briefing documents, proposals, and partnership materials that support both relationship management and new-partner cultivation. Build content for the website and other communications changes.

Serves as a steward of the partner relationship, anticipating needs, resolving issues, and identifying opportunities to deepen engagement and renew or expand existing partnerships.

Manages the development of new corporate partnerships by researching and identifying prospective partners, preparing outreach materials, and assisting leadership and faculty with cultivation and onboarding of new relationships.

Leads the strategy and leverages existing infrastructure for scaling YSPH’s external engagement, recommending and implementing improvements to processes, standard agreements, engagement models, and value propositions.

Ensures clear, consistent communication across partners, faculty, staff, and leadership, coordinating information flow and maintaining shared documentation.

Supports evaluation and continuous improvement of partnership operations, implementing administrative or programmatic adjustments based on partner and internal stakeholder feedback and program goals.

May represent YSPH in meetings and coordination activities with Yale partners and external collaborators, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Abilities

1. Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to manage multiple concurrent relationships and initiatives.

2. Strong interpersonal and communication skills with demonstrated emotional intelligence, professionalism, and comfort engaging external partners and senior stakeholders.

3. Proven experience managing relationships or partnerships across academic, nonprofit, public, or private sector settings.

4. Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, evolving, and entrepreneurial environment.

Preferred Skills and Abilities

1. Master’s degree in a related field and six years of related experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

2. Preferred experience may include partnership or account management, business development, corporate relations, consulting, healthcare, public health, or university-based program management. Interest in public health, cross-sector collaboration, and building programs from the ground up.

Principal Responsibilities

1. Oversees the advancement and growth of the program. Gives direction and leadership supporting the philosophy, mission, strategy, and annual goals and objectives. Assumes primary accountability for disseminating and publishing all program information to create public awareness and support of the program. 2. Works closely with leadership, internal and external colleagues, and community residents to further develop and implement strategic plans. 3.

Identifies, solicits, and cultivates community partnerships and collaborations to assist in the development and growth of the program. Develops the metrics to identify and measure the success of the program. Responsible for measurements of grant success and related evaluation. 4.

Assists in identifying and evaluating potential future funding sources, and contributes to the submission of grants and contracts supporting the program, including the annual submission and writing of all content areas and budgetary sections of grant applications. Develops and manages the program’s operating budget. 5. Develops the administrative infrastructure of the program.

Manages human resource and administrative functions of the program, including staffing and hiring, supervision, performance development, counseling and discipline, if warranted. Oversees and manages information systems, facilities, and space needs. 6. Investigates, identifies, implements, and oversees the maintenance of systems to gather, track, and report information to support the initiatives of the program. Tracks all program activities and regularly informs leadership of progress on each initiative.

Recommends structural or programmatic adjustments, changes or additions based on full knowledge of missions, goals, and objectives. 7. Initiates, designs, and manages the compilation of program communications; identifying outreach potential, and promoting philanthropic and collaborative support of the program. Contributes to the development and assists in the management of content on the program’s website and monitors all changes and additions to the editorial content. 8. May perform other duties as assigned.

Required Education and Experience

Bachelor's degree in a related field and four years of related experience or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Job Posting Date

10/15/2026

Job Category

Professional

Bargaining Unit

NON