About DataKind
DataKind builds scalable data and AI products to help organizations turn insights into action, make equitable decisions, and tackle complex social challenges. Founded in 2012, DataKind partners with organizations across education, health, economic opportunity, financial inclusion, and humanitarian response to deliver durable solutions that work in the real world. As both a product innovator and a movement catalyst, we set new standards in the social sector, empowering organizations to harness the full potential of data science and AI while putting communities first.
DataKind combines technical rigor, organizational expertise, and responsible innovation to design data and AI products that meet the needs of nonprofit and educational organizations. Our products integrate with existing workflows, strengthen staff capacity, and drive long-term impact. We combine community-driven innovation with high-quality product development to meet the moment and build the practical, accessible, mission-aligned resources nonprofits require.
Our work is shaped by a diverse ecosystem of partners - practitioners, philanthropists, technologists, and policymakers - ensuring solutions are innovative, grounded, and equitable. DataKind offers funders and partners a reliable, collaborative, and outcomes-focused path to impact. We co-design solutions, build organizational capacity, and ensure tools are adopted, trusted, and sustained.
DataKind delivers impact across sectors, from higher education to humanitarian response. Our tools, including Edvise, Ladder, Data Observation Toolkit, Fenceline, Humanitarian Data Insights Project, and Colandr, are designed to be accessible, aligned with real-world workflows, and backed by evidence to track what works.
Our approach advances priorities such as equity, accessibility, and responsible AI - while generating insights that extend beyond individual organizations and inform broader change. Partnering with DataKind enables organizations to act with confidence today and scale responsibly tomorrow.
Learn more about DataKind at https://www.datakind.org/
The Opportunity
DataKind is seeking an entrepreneurial, mission-driven and business-focused Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to join the organization in the midst of an exciting and pivotal stage of growth and evolution. Over the past several years, the organization has matured its operations, strengthened revenue performance, expanded its global reputation, and is moving down a path toward a more scalable, product-oriented future. With strong momentum, significant philanthropic support, and a talented global team, DataKind is focused on sustained growth, broader market adoption, and sector-wide impact.
The next CEO will join an organization with a clear strategic direction and will be charged with moving the execution of that vision into high gear. They will bring operational rigor, market focus, systems thinking, and growth-oriented leadership to help DataKind evolve into a scalable, high-performing social impact technology organization while preserving the collaborative, mission-driven culture that defines DataKind today.
This is a unique opportunity for a hands-on leader to guide DataKind through its next phase of evolution as it diversifies revenue streams, strengthens product-market positioning, identifies opportunities across diverse social impact areas, scales AI-driven solutions, and expands its influence across the global ecosystem of organizations applying technology for impact. The CEO will play a critical role in shaping the organization’s evolution through innovation and experimentation into greater market traction, operational scalability, organizational alignment, and long-term sustainability.
The next CEO will also help DataKind navigate a rapidly evolving technology landscape in which AI and related technologies are fundamentally reshaping how data products are built, accessed, and used. This leader will help ensure DataKind remains forward-looking, differentiated, and responsive to emerging trends while continuing to develop practical, ethical, and mission-centered solutions that enable nonprofits to create meaningful social impact.
Candidate Profile
The ideal candidate will have the following professional and personal qualities, skills, and characteristics:
Strategic Execution and Organizational Leadership
The next CEO will be an execution-oriented leader who can translate vision into clear priorities, measurable outcomes, and organizational alignment. They will bring demonstrated experience building, growing, or leading organizations through periods of significant growth, transformation, operational evolution, and expansion, and be skilled at strengthening leadership structures, financial management, clarifying decision-making processes, establishing performance metrics and accountability frameworks, and fostering cross-functional collaboration across a dynamic and evolving organization. They will also establish strong and collaborative relationships with the Board of Directors, effectively leveraging board expertise while maintaining clear governance and operational boundaries.
Product Strategy & Scalable Growth
DataKind’s next CEO will bring a strong understanding of how mission-driven organizations, products, and platforms evolve from innovation and experimentation into scalable and sustainable enterprises. This leader will understand how to identify product opportunities, execute go-to-market strategies, evaluate commercialization and pricing approaches, identify scalable growth opportunities, assess how AI and data can drive meaningful change in different social impact sectors, and support the continued evolution of DataKind’s organizational and business model to include both traditional philanthropy and other revenue models. They will bring both strategic and operational insight into what it takes to scale product-driven work including building systems, partnerships, and business strategies while also ensuring DataKind remains mission-centered, adaptive, responsive to their social impact partners’ priorities and needs, and positioned for continued relevance within the evolving technology and social impact landscape.
Fundraising, Partnerships & Sector Leadership
The CEO will serve as an inspiring ambassador for DataKind and will bring demonstrated executive-level fundraising experience and the ability to cultivate strategic partnerships across philanthropy, technology, nonprofit, government, and global social impact sectors. This leader will be comfortable serving as a visible external representative for DataKind, elevating the organization’s profile through conferences, partnerships, publications, thought leadership opportunities, and broader industry engagement. They will possess the credibility and communication skills necessary to engage and bridge technical and non-technical audiences while helping to maintain DataKind’s contributions to shaping the future of the broader “Tech for Good” movement.
Technology, AI & Innovation Fluency
The ideal candidate, while not necessarily a technologist themselves, will bring strategic insight and intellectual curiosity around emerging technologies, with the ability to engage credibly and thoughtfully with technical teams, engineers, product leaders, funders, subject matter experts, nonprofit partners, and external stakeholders. This includes fluency in the opportunities and responsibilities associated with leveraging technology for social impact, including in areas such as AI, data science, responsible AI and tech governance, interoperability, data ethics, and AI readiness, as well as the context for technology applications in different sectors.
The successful candidate will help DataKind continuously evaluate and adapt its role within a rapidly changing landscape, understanding how technology organizations operate, innovate, and scale and ensuring the organization remains differentiated, future-oriented, and responsive to how emerging technologies are reshaping data access, analytics, software development, and decision-making across the social sector.
People Leadership & Culture
The CEO will be an engaged, emotionally intelligent, and visible leader who will balance long-term strategy with day-to-day operational leadership, ensuring that the team remains aligned, empowered and focused on measurable impact. This leader will guide change with transparency, empathy, and decisiveness, helping DataKind continue to evolve into a more mature, scalable, and high-performing organization while remaining deeply connected to its collaborative, inclusive culture grounded in accountability, curiosity, equity, learning, innovation, transparency, and impact. They will foster a culture of shared understanding, helping employees connect their work to broader organizational priorities and providing clarity around strategic decisions and organizational direction.
Examples of experiences that would help illustrate the qualities, skills, and characteristics described above include:
- Executive leadership experience within mission-driven, technology, nonprofit, social impact, innovation-focused, or product-oriented organizations.
- Experience leading through change, including growth, scaling, operational maturity, or organizational transformation.
- Strong understanding of AI, data science, digital products, and emerging technologies, particularly as they relate to social impact, responsible innovation, and the evolving technology landscape.
- Demonstrated success in fundraising, strategic partnerships, business development, revenue diversification, or commercialization strategy.
- A collaborative, entrepreneurial, mission-driven, and growth-oriented leadership style with a commitment to ethical technology and measurable social impact.
- Strong operational and financial leadership skills, including experience overseeing organizational planning, budgeting, performance management, and scalable systems development.
- Experience building high-performing, collaborative, transparent, and inclusive teams and cultures.
- Excellent communication, facilitation, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to engage diverse technical and non-technical partners and stakeholders.
- Experience within SaaS, enterprise technology, AI, digital platform, data, or product-development environments, particularly organizations navigating product-market evolution, commercialization, or scalable growth.
- Experience partnering with technical teams, engineers, product leaders, or data scientists within collaborative and fast-paced environments.
Compensation and Benefits/Location
Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $325,000 - $375,000. The exact salary that will be offered to the CEO will be determined based on a consideration of the successful candidate’s skills and experience and aligned with DataKind’s compensation policies. This role may be eligible for an annual incentive package, subject to Board approval. DataKind also offers a competitive benefits package, including health, dental, and vision coverage, retirement benefits, paid time off, and other benefits consistent with organizational policy.
DataKind is a fully remote organization, with most of the staff located within the United States and working in U.S. time zones. The CEO position is expected to be fully remote and based in the U.S., with the ability to regularly travel domestically and internationally.
Contact
DSG | Koya has been exclusively retained for this engagement, which is being led by Erin Reedy and Christy Farrell. Submit a compelling cover letter and resume by filling out our Talent Profile. All inquiries are strictly confidential.