Senior Director, Impact Strategy

Job Title

Senior Director, Impact Strategy

Job Description Summary

The Office of Impact Strategy leads the company’s global commitment to inclusion and community impact. The Senior Director, Impact Strategy is a senior inclusion leader who turns enterprise priorities into action, working alongside business leaders, the People Team, Legal, Technology, and Risk. Most of this work happens through partnership. The Senior Director earns trust, brings a clear point of view, and works with functional owners to embed inclusion into how the business makes decisions, develops talent, and adopts new technology, including AI. The role carries real accountability for outcomes, delivered through influence, credibility, and shared ownership rather than direct authority.

The ideal candidate combines deep inclusion expertise with sound business judgment and the ability to turn broad priorities into practical, lasting results for people and the business.

This role reports to the Chief Impact Officer.

Job Description

Role Purpose

Help ensure the way we hire, develop, advance, and work creates real opportunity for everyone. Partner with business and functional leaders to find where our practices can be strengthened and build the habits that make them work well for all. This role is supported by external consulting expertise and team analyst support.

Making Our Practices Work for Everyone

• Set enterprise direction for practices, processes, and workplaces that work for everyone, and turn priorities into action with business and functional partners as co-owners across regions.

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, offering a thoughtful point of view on how to broaden access to opportunity, especially as the business evolves.

• Partner with leaders to find opportunities to improve business practices, team environments, and organizational processes, and co-develop solutions that open up access.

• Connect this work to business goals so it is understood as a driver of performance.

Opportunity, Employee Experience, and Responsible AI

• Partner with the People Team to make sure talent and employee experience processes work well for everyone, including hiring, development, performance, promotion, succession, retention, and manager capability.

• Lead the assessment of our practices for people with disabilities, including accessibility and accommodation, and partner with the People Team and the business to strengthen what’s working, address gaps, and act on opportunities to broaden access.

• Partner on the development of workforce development pathways that open doors to careers for skilled trades professionals, working with business, People, and external partners.

• Use workforce and talent data to identify where access to opportunity can be broadened and bring evidence-based recommendations to process owners and leaders, respecting functional ownership and decision rights.

• Serve on the AI Council and help ensure our use of AI works well for everyone at every stage, from intake to ongoing monitoring, setting clear expectations with functional owners.

Influence and Change Leadership

• Lead cross-functional initiatives in a global, matrixed environment, bringing partners together around shared goals and next steps.

• Build trusted relationships across functions and regions and influence outcomes without direct authority, using practical recommendations, sound business judgment, and clear presentations to senior leaders.

• Help leaders build this thinking into existing ways of working, and encourage early consideration of how change will affect different groups of employees.

• Define and track KPIs for adoption, capability, process improvement, and organizational impact, and share progress openly with partners.

Additional Responsibilities

Indigenous Reconciliation

• Lead the company’s Indigenous reconciliation efforts in Canada and align them with efforts in Australia, working with regional leaders and partners and evolving the approach as requirements and expectations emerge.

Capability Building and External Perspective

• Shape the learning strategy with Learning and regional partners, co-create tools and resources that help leaders and managers apply fair, open practices every day, and track external trends, best practices, and regulatory developments, turning them into clear recommendations.

• Build external partnerships and networks for perspective, benchmarking, and thought leadership, and represent the company in selected external or client-facing opportunities.

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MS, or related) preferred.

• 10+ years leading inclusion, HR, talent, organizational effectiveness, or related initiatives within a complex global organization.

• Deep knowledge of inclusive practice, access to opportunity, and emerging workforce trends.

• Track record of leading cross-functional initiatives and organizational change in a matrixed environment, and of influencing senior leaders without direct authority.

• Skilled relationship builder who handles sensitive issues with discretion and credibility.

• Strong business judgment, with the ability to tie this work to business needs and use data to make practical recommendations.

• Excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills.

• Experience assessing and improving practices for people with disabilities, and/or building workforce development or skilled trades talent pathways, a plus.

• Experience applying an inclusion, equity, or responsible AI lens across the AI lifecycle (vendor selection, design, deployment, monitoring), partnering with technology, legal, and other teams on bias testing and risk assessment and acting on the findings, a plus.

• Commercial real estate, professional services, legal, or similarly complex global industry experience preferred.

Cushman & Wakefield also provides eligible employees with an opportunity to enroll in a variety of benefit programs, generally including health, vision, and dental insurance, flexible spending accounts, health savings accounts, retirement savings plans, life, and disability insurance programs, and paid and unpaid time away from work. In addition to a comprehensive benefits package, Cushman and Wakefield provide eligible employees with competitive pay, which may vary depending on eligibility factors such as geographic location, date of hire, total hours worked, job type, business line, and applicability of collective bargaining agreements.

The compensation that will be offered to the successful candidate will depend on factors such as whether the position is covered by a collective bargaining agreement, the geographic area in which the work will be performed, market pay rates in that area, and the candidate’s experience and qualifications.

The company will not pay less than minimum wage for this role.

The compensation for the position is: $ 187,000.00 - $220,000.00

Cushman & Wakefield is an Equal Opportunity employer to all protected groups, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. Discrimination of any type will not be tolerated.

In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA), if you have a disability and would like to request an accommodation in order to apply for a position at Cushman & Wakefield, please call the ADA line at 1-888-365-5406 or email [email protected] . Please refer to the job title and job location when you contact us.

INCO: “Cushman & Wakefield”