Deputy Director - Housing Department

Hello, we’re Metro! Metro is dedicated to shaping a better future for the greater Portland region. The work the people of Metro do every day benefits the lives of the people who live here, today, and tomorrow.

Metro seeks a Deputy Director for the Housing Department to help advance the department's strategic goals and operational priorities. Reporting to the Housing Director, this position provides executive leadership for organizational strategy, departmental operations, workforce planning, budgeting, implementation of special initiatives, and cross-department collaboration.

The Deputy Director serves as a key advisor to the Director, helping to ensure organizational effectiveness, alignment with Metro priorities, and successful execution of department objectives. This position also serves as Acting Director when needed and plays a critical role in fostering a high-performing, equitable, and collaborative organizational culture.

The ideal candidate is a strategic, equity-centered leader with demonstrated success advancing organizational effectiveness, professional development, and systems change. They bring a strong grounding in diversity, equity, and inclusion principles, a track record of advancing structural change to ensure an inclusive and safe work environment. The successful candidate will possess the courage to navigate complex conversations, influence decision-makers, empower staff, and build trust across diverse stakeholder groups while fostering a culture of transparency, accountability, and collaboration.

This leader will be skilled at translating vision into action, balancing long-term strategic priorities with day-to-day operational needs, and guiding organizations through change. They will demonstrate curiosity, humility, emotional intelligence, and a commitment to learning and partnership.

As the Deputy Director you will:

• Lead the overall operations and organizational development of a complex department, ensuring programs, people, and resources are aligned with organizational priorities and long-term goals.
• Partner with the Director to develop and execute strategic priorities, departmental goals, and organizational initiatives, coordinating implementation across functions, programs, and stakeholders.
• Direct organizational planning, advancing equity in internal operations, workforce planning, workload prioritization, resource allocation, budget development, and fiscal stewardship to support effective and sustainable service delivery.
• Provide executive leadership for personnel management, including organizational design, leadership development, succession planning, performance management, employee development, and corrective action; coach and hold managers accountable for effective supervision, decision-making, and consistent application of management practices.
• Establish performance expectations and measures that promote accountability, operational excellence, continuous improvement, efficiency, quality, equity, and collaboration.
• Lead complex, high-priority, and time-sensitive projects and cross-functional initiatives, developing interdepartmental strategies that leverage existing work and advance shared organizational objectives.
• Develop and maintain effective partnerships with jurisdictional, coalition, community, and organizational leaders, and serve as a trusted advisor to elected officials and senior leadership on strategic, operational, and organizational matters.
• Foster a culture of accountability, professionalism, collaboration, innovation, and organizational effectiveness.

Attributes for success

• Experience advancing racial equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging through organizational and systems change.
• Demonstrated success in leading teams and/or departments within large agencies.
• Ability to build and maintain relationships with culturally specific organizations and communities in service of long-term systems change.
• Experience successfully leading organizational transformation and culture change.
• Experience in change management, strategic planning, and organizational development.
• Demonstrated ability to build consensus among leaders with competing priorities.
• Ability to break down organizational silos and foster collaboration.
• Ability to set clear expectations and holds themselves and other leaders accountable for results.
• Ability to make timely, sound decisions using data, judgment, and organizational priorities.
• Ability to develop managers who effectively lead people, solve problems, and deliver results.
• Ability to anticipate organizational risks and proactively implement solutions.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with disciplined execution.
• Experience creating systems that improve consistency, transparency, and organizational effectiveness.
• Ability to build trust through clear communication, sound judgment, fairness, and follow-through.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity without losing momentum or accountability.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

At Metro, we strive to cultivate diversity, advance equity, and practice inclusion in all of its work. This means attracting and empowering a workforce that is inclusive of a broad range of human qualities. Workplace diversity is both a moral imperative and a business strength, essential to providing quality support and services to our region. Metro’s goal is to hire, develop and retain highly skilled and talented individuals across all departments and programs who best reflect the diversity of our community.

Learn more about how Metro is advancing diversity

TO QUALIFY

We will consider any combination of relevant work experience, volunteering, education, and transferable skills as qualifying unless an item or section is labeled required. Please be clear and specific in your application materials on how your background is relevant.

Minimum qualifications

• Seven to ten years of specialized experience or operational management in area of responsibility, and
• A bachelor’s degree in the assigned program area or a related field, or
• Any combination of education and experience that provides the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the classification duties and responsibilities.

If this statement is true for you, then you may be ineligible to apply:

If you were terminated for cause during any employment with Metro, or resigned in lieu of termination, you may be ineligible for rehire for a minimum of 3 years.

Hybrid Telework

This position is designated as “hybrid telework” and is not fully remote. The successful candidate will be expected to work on-site as scheduled and must be available to report in person when requested or when to meet operational needs. As Deputy Director, it is expected that you are a reliable presence in the office for staff on a regular basis. The frequency of on-site work may change based on the needs of the organization. Employees must reside in Oregon or Washington to work at Metro. Please note, the designation of hybrid telework may be subject to change at a future time.

Like to have qualifications:

You do not need to have the following preferred qualifications/transferable skills to qualify. However, keep in mind we may consider them when identifying the most qualified candidates. Your transferable skills are any skills you have gained through education, work experience, including the military, or life experience that are relevant for this position.

• Experience overseeing operations within a complex public-sector, governmental, nonprofit, or similarly regulated organization, including responsibility for personnel management, budgeting, compliance, advancing equity and organizational performance.
• Ability to lead complex, multi-layered organizations through operational excellence, organizational effectiveness, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to manage multiple managers and developing strong leadership capacity throughout an organization.
• Experience building management systems that establish accountability, improve decision-making, and ensure consistent execution.
• Experience leading personnel management within a unionized environment, including performance management, employee relations, organizational change, and labor-management collaboration.
• Experience developing and implementing organizational performance measures, operational standards, and management dashboards.
• Experience managing complex budgets, administrative operations, compliance functions, and organizational risk.
• Ability to translate strategic priorities into operational plans with measurable results.
• Experience successfully leading organizations through significant organizational growth, complexity, and change.
• Experience building partnerships with local governments, housing providers, and community organizations.

SCREENING AND EVALUATION

The application packet: The application packet consists of the following required documents. Please ensure that you upload these documents in your online application. Make sure your application is complete, missing any part of these items could result in an incomplete application and will not be moved forward in the recruitment.

• A completed resume that includes these details for each employer:
  • Name of employer, working title
  • Dates of employment; including if the work was full-time or part-time your title,
  • Number of employees supervised.
  • Summary of your responsibilities
• A cover letter detailing your experience:
  • Leading complex operations and translating strategy into results
  • Guiding organizational transformation and culture change
  • Developing managers and staff towards a culture of alignment and accountability
• Work Sample:
  • Attach a work sample that demonstrates how you have communicated organizational direction, priorities, or expectations. Examples may include an organization-wide memorandum, strategic plan, presentation, staff announcement, policy directive, implementation plan, or other communication intended to provide clear direction to employees.
• Response to the supplemental question

The selection process: We expect to evaluate candidates for this recruitment as follows. The selection process is subject to change.

• Initial review of minimum qualifications
• In-depth evaluation of application materials to identify the most qualified candidates
• Consideration of top candidates/interviews
• Testing/assessments
• Reference check
• Background records check

COMPENSATION, BENEFITS AND REPRESENTATON

The full-salary range for this position is step 1: $180,694.15 to step 6: $230,617.33. However, unless a candidate’s qualifications justify, based on the Oregon Pay Equity Act requirements and Metro’s internal equity review process, the appointment will likely be made between step 1: $180,694.15 to the equity range step 3: $199,215.43.

This position is or is not eligible for overtime and is non-represented or represented. It is classified as a Deputy Director position. Classification descriptions are typically written broadly and do not include the specific duties and responsibilities of the positions. View the classification description.