Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a new kind of philanthropy that’s leveraging technology to help solve some of the world’s toughest challenges – from eradicating disease, to improving education, to reforming the criminal justice system. Across three core Initiative focus areas of Science, Education and Justice and Opportunity, we’re pairing engineering with grantmaking, impact investing, policy work, and movement building, to help build an inclusive, just and healthy future for everyone.
Our Values
We believe we can help build a future for everyone.
- We aim to be daring, but humble: We look for bold ideas — regardless of structure and stage — and help them scale by pairing engineers with subject matter experts to build tools that accelerate the pace of social progress.
- We want to learn fast, but build for the long-term: We want to iterate fast and help bring new solutions to the table, but we also realize that important breakthroughs often take decades, or even centuries.
- Stay close to the real problems: We engage directly in the communities we serve because no one understands our society’s challenges like those who live them every day.
Our success is dependent on building teams that include people from different backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other’s assumptions with fresh perspectives. To that end, we look for a diverse pool of applicants including those from historically marginalized groups — women, people with disabilities, people of color, formerly incarcerated people, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or gender nonconforming, first and second generation immigrants, veterans, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Opportunity
Through its Ventures team, CZI invests in innovative companies around the world that are developing ground-breaking solutions aligned with CZI’s initiatives while building scalable, sustainable businesses. Our portfolio includes leading companies such as Age of Learning, Andela, Bridge International Academies, Brightwheel, BYJU’S, Ellevation Education, Handshake, MasteryConnect (acquired by Instructure), Newsela, Raise.me, Trilogy Education (acquired by 2U), and Varsity Tutors among others. Our Ventures team also led the acquisition of Meta for our Science initiative. While our primary focus has initially been on Education, Ventures is also exploring venture and Strategic Program Investments in our Justice & Opportunity program areas, and will look to develop an investment strategy in Science in the medium term. Ventures invests both as a lead and as a co-investor, and collaborates with leading traditional and impact investors to achieve our mission!
As our Senior Associate of Ventures, you will report to our Managing Partner of Ventures and be a vital teammate in conducting investment and financial due diligence, developing investment and impact theses, sourcing and screening new investments, as well as supporting our portfolio companies. Aside from applying rigorous business and investment analysis to making venture investments, you will also be regularly collaborating across the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative on strategic projects that cut across our impact investing, grant making, engineering and policy work to advance our overall mission. This will include partnering with program and technology teams across our initiatives on decisions to invest, grant, buy, build, and partner.
We are looking for a Senior Associate to support all aspects of the investment process to achieve our impact and business objectives, focused primarily on financial modeling, financial analysis, and valuation, and also on sourcing and screening new investments for our impact criteria as well as business potential, participating in meetings with existing and prospective portfolio companies, monitoring existing investments, and helping prepare materials to keep our founders and advisory board informed of our progress. Ideally, you have prior experience in financial and business analysis through venture capital, private equity / growth equity, strategy consulting, or investment banking.
The successful candidate will be excited to demonstrate their honed business and analytical skills to achieve our impact objectives while working closely with CZI’s other tools and strategies. The ideal candidate will care deeply about impact, especially through education, science, or strong communities, and preferably have knowledge in one or more of our initiative areas.
You will
- Assist in the execution of venture investments by sourcing new investments, executing diligence by building investment models and playing an active role in internal discussions related to investment decisions, and supporting portfolio companies.
- Develop investment and impact theses, a point of view and investment rationale, measuring results and driving learning.
- Work closely within our initiatives to understand strategic priorities and to serve as a resource in advising on invest, grant, buy, build, and partner decisions.
- Support acquisitions as they arise.
You have
- 4-6 years of work experience, including minimum 2 of years of investment experience – MBA preferred.
- Background ideally in venture capital or private equity / growth equity; otherwise strategy consulting and investment banking.
- Outstanding business and investment judgment, as well as strong analytical and problem solving skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and expertise with Microsoft Excel
- Comfort with ambiguity, as well as an ability to thrive in a fluid and fast paced environment.
- Poise and ability to collaborate with C-level entrepreneurs and fellow investors.
- Impact experience – expertly or in meaningful volunteer roles.
- Passionate about impact investing through education, science and/or justice and opportunity.
- Willingness to travel domestically and internationally (Up to 33%).
- Willingness to relocate to Bay Area.
IF interested, please apply here.
