Policy Partnerships & Convenings Lead, Central Policy

About the role

We are seeking a new member of our Central Policy team to build and lead the Partnerships and Convenings function. This function is responsible for policy strategy with a wide range of multinational civil society organizations, industry actors, and other third parties, along with the events through which policy relationships are built and sustained. You will manage a team comprising both Policy Partnerships and Policy Events experts. Your charge is to make the sum of that work strategically coherent, globally scalable, and accountable to Anthropic's policy goals.

The Central Policy team sits at the operational heart of Anthropic's policy function — distinct from government relations and communications, but essential to enabling both. We focus on building the systems, resources, and scalable programs that empower our broader policy team to succeed. You'll work closely with our federal affairs, state and local affairs, international affairs, national security, policy communications, and research teams.

This is a builder's role as much as a manager's. You and your team will be tasked with standing up credible partnership and events programs at speed. This function will serve as a bridge between a wide range of Anthropic's teams on one side, and third-party policy stakeholders on the other. Successful candidates will demonstrate a track record of operational and policy excellence.

Anthropic is equal parts research lab, policy think-tank, and technology startup. We care deeply about the safe development of AI systems, and we build partnerships with other policy actors through proactive, opinionated, substantive policy conversations. Success in this role requires being a trusted partner both to cross-functional colleagues and external actors.

This role requires approximately 25% travel, including international travel to priority regions and travel to Anthropic offices for alignment and planning sessions.

Key responsibilities

• Own Anthropic's global partnerships strategy, coordinating across internal teams to translate the company's policy campaigns into a coherent, rigorously tracked portfolio of coalitions, alliances, memberships, and third-party relationships across regions
• Scope and execute policy partnerships programs, including in regions of the world where Anthropic is newly expanding its footprint and relationships, vendors, or precedents may not yet exist
• Manage the policy events portfolio, including Anthropic-hosted tentpole programs and Anthropic's presence at partner conferences
• Build and maintain relationships with key third-party stakeholders, including civil society, academic, and private-sector leaders, and represent Anthropic and its policy positions directly in those settings
• Create and maintain the systems that track, measure, and optimize the partnerships and convenings portfolio, including how the team reports impact to Anthropic's leadership
• Manage, develop, and retain a small team: setting priorities, clarifying scope, and holding a high bar for judgment and execution
• Build the playbooks, templates, and delegation model that allow regional policy teams to execute partnership and event programs consistently without central bottlenecks

Minimum qualifications

• Have directly managed people doing substantive external-facing policy work, and can point to colleagues whose careers advanced under you
• Have stood up credible programs in unfamiliar markets on compressed timelines — entering a country or region with no existing relationships and producing meaningful policy outcomes quickly
• Excel at cross-functional project and program management, with a proven track record managing complex programs spanning research, policy, legal, and communications teams with competing priorities
• Are comfortable making judgment calls in ambiguous situations — able to synthesize incomplete information from multiple teams, identify blockers, and drive decisions when strategic direction is evolving
• Exercise sound judgment on prioritization, managing stakeholder expectations with clarity and directness, including when the answer is no
• Understand U.S. federal, state, and local policy dynamics and can orient quickly in new jurisdictions
• Are comfortable with budget ownership and financial accountability

Preferred qualifications

• 12+ years of experience building and leading partnerships efforts at leading technology companies, advocacy organizations, or government, including 3+ years managing high-performing teams
• Track record of effective, information-rich advocacy with third-party and policy audiences
• Experience building and leveraging coalitions, including industry and civil society stakeholders, to inform and influence policy actors
• Experience working with communications teams to craft media and messaging campaigns for policy
• Ability to hold a high bar on events — know the difference between a convening that moves policy and one that merely happens
• Experience educating policy audiences about AI/ML or other complex technical topics
• Experience leading policy or partnerships work outside the United States, particularly in markets where a company is establishing its first presence
• Experience in high-growth technology companies, or as an early functional hire building a team from one person to several