Senior Manager, People Operations

Position description

Position Type: Full-time, Salaried, Exempt

Location: Flexible (remote; preference for the DMV area); Must be eligible to work in the U.S. now and in the future.

Salary Range: $82,400 – $92,700

Closing Date: Jan.19, 2026

Candidates will be reviewed on a rolling basis. The position will remain open until we have a sufficient pool of diverse candidates who meet the job requirements, at which point we may pause the review of new applications before the stated deadline. Please understand you may not be contacted for several weeks after you apply.

Ideal Start Date: 2-4 weeks after offer

About the Center for Disaster Philanthropy

CDP began in 2010 with the goal of pioneering the practice of strategic disaster philanthropy. Since then, it has grown in its ambition, envisioning a world where the impact of disasters is minimized through thoughtful, equitable and responsive recovery for all. CDP has a $40 million budget and a team of more than 30 staff members working remotely across the U.S.

CDP is a trusted partner, expert, and authoritative resource, helping hundreds of individuals, foundations, and corporations boost the impact of philanthropic giving in response to disasters and humanitarian crises by supporting equitable recovery and addressing the root causes of vulnerabilities worldwide.

• In 2020, CDP was a featured nonprofit for the 14th Annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.
• CDP has earned Charity Navigator’s Four-Star Charity rating and Candid’s Platinum Transparency seal.

As an organization grounded in racial and intersectional equity, our team members are deeply committed to strengthening communities that are most vulnerable to disasters due to systemic inequities. We are guided by our values of integrity, boldness and innovation, humility, and empathy in all we do in pursuit of our mission.

Bottom line: We aspire to walk the talk of anti-racism and to treat each other and our partners in ways that inspire trust, creativity, learning and care.

Be a part of our fast-growing team that offers countless ways to help communities thrive. Join us!

Responsibilities & Duties

The senior manager, people operations is a new position at CDP. This role will interact with a broad range of internal and external constituents and play a key role in supporting our mission.

Reporting to the director of people, culture, & belonging, the senior manager, people operations will help advance CDP’s people strategy by managing the implementation of organization-wide people initiatives, ensuring alignment between strategic priorities and day-to-day people operations. By helping to develop and scale consistent human-centered systems, processes and policies, this position helps foster an equitable, efficient and engaging employee experience.

As a fully remote workforce, CDP prioritizes employee engagement and relationship building in service of a collaborative culture rooted in equity. To this end, in-person team retreats are scheduled throughout the year in different regions of the U.S. This role will be expected to attend 2-3 retreats per year, which average 3-5 days of travel.

The successful candidate will display the following traits:

You are a service-oriented and proactive HR professional who can balance translating strategic vision into operational excellence. You are confident but curious, analytical yet empathetic, approachable yet able to coach and develop others, and able to balance the consistency of process with the nuanced and unique needs of people.

You are skilled at navigating ambiguity with composure and creativity. You are a detail-oriented self-starter with strong capacities in prioritization and interpersonal communication. You have exceptional project management skills and the ability to discern between what is important and what is urgent. With your skills, you can ensure a consistent experience for anyone at CDP across all phases of the employee lifecycle.

Primary responsibilities include:

The senior manager, people operations will manage most aspects of human resources operations tasks related to recruitment, hiring, onboarding, compliance and performance management within the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) platform (TriNet), as well as serve as a champion for the organization’s culture of inclusion, accountability and learning.

The senior manager, people operations, is an active member of the finance and operations (FinOps) team, under the newly named People Operations (PeopleOps) function. This is a strategic business function that focuses on optimizing employee performance and engagement, integrating HR processes, and aligning them with CDP’s goals. It goes beyond traditional HR by emphasizing a human-centric employee experience, data-driven decision-making, and fostering a positive and inclusive workplace culture.

This role requires the ideal candidate to maintain and enhance the current systems of recruitment, onboarding and performance management while working collaboratively across the team, as well as cross-functionally, to translate the strategic goals of the People function into actionable daily practices and interactions.

Recruitment and hiring

• Manage the recruitment process, including finding and attracting qualified candidates through various channels like job boards and social media, in accordance with CDP’s equitable hiring practices guidelines.
• Manage the Application and interview process, from ensuring checklist items are completed to verifying that content aligns with CDP’s SOPs and competency framework.
• Ensure consistency across the compensation framework, career levels and job descriptions.
• Analyze recruitment data regularly to ensure demographic data is meeting equity goals and to utilize people analytics for additional strategic process improvements.
• Maintain a competency-based rubric and accompanying interview questions bank for hiring managers to use and reference. Assist in the development of competency/role-specific questions as needed.
• Manage standard operating procedures (SOPs) related to recruitment processes.
• Lead the discussion facilitation of hiring managers and interview panels following CDP’s equitable interview debrief process.
• Participate as an HR representative on hiring panels.
• Manage job offer communications.
• Manage the orientation process for new hires.

Compliance

• Ensure the organization complies with all applicable employment laws and regulations.
• Enforce, advise and implement HR policies and procedures.
• Track and support implementation of compliance trainings (e.g., anti-harassment, cybersecurity, etc.) and other PEO offerings.
• Become an expert user of TriNet to ensure CDP utilizes it to its maximum functionality.
• Generate custom dashboards and reports to support the People Function in becoming more data driven.

Performance management and organizational culture support

• Collaborate with the People Ops Manager to oversee administrative tasks related to performance management, including updating the performance and learning module in TriNet to track evaluations, goals and other documents within established deadlines.
• Train and assist CDP staff with the performance and learning module in TriNet, and provide guidance on content development as needed.
• Support the development and execution of performance accountability and separation processes.
• Provide recommendations for the employee handbook, policies and procedures.
• Support operational excellence and equity-aligned practices across the employee lifecycle.
• Understand and support the goals of the organization, performance objectives, etc., while helping enforce, explain, and teach policies and procedures in a people-centric way.

Other duties as assigned

• Serve on committees, panels and task forces at CDP as appropriate and as available.
• Represent CDP positively and professionally in meetings and other external engagements.
• Perform other duties and job-related tasks that may be assigned.

This position reports to the director of people, culture & belonging, but works in service of the whole organization.

Required qualifications and skills

• ≤ 7-10 years of progressively responsible relevant experience, and demonstrated thorough working knowledge and expertise in the human resources or people operations function.
• Strong working knowledge of multi-state employment law, benefits administration and HRIS/PEO platforms (TriNet or equivalent).
• Demonstrated experience developing and/or implementing scalable HR processes and systems.
• Exceptional communication, relationship-building and/or coaching skills.
• Experience in data-driven HR decision-making and/or process improvement.
• Commitment to racial and intersectional equity and to inclusive management practices.
• An in-depth knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite of applications.

Preferred qualifications and skills

• Nonprofit or philanthropic sector experience, including HR roles in remote or distributed organizations.
• Professional certification (e.g., SHRM-CP/SCP or PHR/SPHR).
• Familiarity with project management tools (e.g., Asana, Redbooth or similar).
• Experience with HR change initiatives or systems implementations.
• Ability to work remotely with minimal direct supervision.

Personal characteristics

• Commitment to the values intrinsic to CDP’s mission and strategy.
• Energetic and eager to tackle new projects and ideas.
• High tolerance of ambiguity and appetite to tackle issues constructively.
• A team player capable of cultivating productive relationships across teams.
• Sense of humor.

We welcome and encourage applicants with non-traditional career paths. If you don’t meet the qualifications outlined here, please apply and tell us how your experiences would equip you for the job.

CDP provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

In 2024, CDP awarded approximately $16 million through 78 grants to grantee partners worldwide, demonstrated thought leadership through webinars, blog posts, featured speaking engagements and other events, and served 20+ philanthropic partners through consulting efforts.

Application instructions

Please be sure to indicate you saw this position on geopolist.com