Director - Community & Programming
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About the Role
Job Purpose Rooted in Mina Zayed’s legacy as Abu Dhabi’s historic port and shaped by Sheikh Zayed’s enduring vision for progress, MiZa is an innovation-driven neighbourhood where bold ideas are shaped into transformative solutions.
Key Skills for This Role
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Job Purpose
Rooted in Mina Zayed’s legacy as Abu Dhabi’s historic port and shaped by Sheikh Zayed’s enduring vision for progress, MiZa is an innovation-driven neighbourhood where bold ideas are shaped into transformative solutions.
It is a place designed to address the complex challenges of Abu Dhabi and the UAE, generating both intellectual and material innovations not just for today, but for the future ahead.
MiZa is a multi-disciplinary ecosystem where the in-betweens of sectors are the starting point for entirely new possibilities, industries of the future that don’t yet exist.
The Head of Community & Programming is at the centre of directing MiZa’s future success
and is the architect of MiZa’s lived experience and relational ecosystem.
The role exists to translate MiZa’s vision into a human-first, relationship-led community, one where people feel a genuine sense of care, trust, and collective belonging, and where growth, innovation and value creation emerge because of strong relationships, not in spite of them.
This role ensures MiZa behaves like a community people belong to, not a landlord people transact with, while still delivering real capability, growth, and economic outcomes.
With oversight on all strategic direction for communities, programming and partnerships, you will develop MiZa’s tools to build trust at scale, enable collaboration and learning, and support tenants and partners as people, not just entities.
At its core, the role balances care and ambition, belonging and performance, relationships and results.
Programme Management
- Design, build and execute effective programmes across community, culture and business growth which achieve MiZa’s targets and mission in all 3 areas.
- Build and maintain a suite of key KPIs and OKRs to measure that success and show government and other stakeholders hard and soft outcomes proportionate to the investment in such programming and in line with Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s goals.
Ecosystem & Community Stewardship
- Act as the steward of MiZa’s human-first, relationship-led ethos
- Ensure community members consistently experience MiZa as caring, responsive, and invested in their success
- Build feedback loops that allow the community to shape MiZa’s evolution
- Safeguard against drift toward transactional or extractive dynamics
Business Capability Building
- Design and oversee MiZa’s business growth and capability building programming strategy that is aligned with MiZa’s vision and economies
- Ensure programmes are co-created, relevant, and respectful of people’s realities
- Balance ambition with care, and challenge with support to enable business growth
- Measure success and drive achievement of MiZa’s key goals in this area
Partnerships & Sponsorships
- Develop partnerships aligned with MiZa’s human-first ethos, adding value to MiZa’s people and ecosystem
- Secure funding that supports programming without compromising trust or integrity
- Build relationships and successfully connect business funders to businesses within the MiZa community
- Ensure partners add real value to MiZa’s people and ecosystem
Engagement & Belonging
- Foster a strong sense of collective identity and shared ownership
- Encourage peer-to-peer relationships rooted in trust and reciprocity
- Ensure engagement feels personal, relational, and authentic
- Build a community people choose to contribute to, not just consume from
- Steer cultural engagement and programming which adds true value to MiZa’s community; from residents to business owners and visitors alike
- Broaden the audience across all community streams, achieving penetration, recognition and positive impact way beyond MiZa’s physical borders
Qualification
Degree-level education or other suitable qualification in the likes of Strategy, Business, Community Development or a related field.
Experience And Competencies
- 10+ Years Proven track record in leading development of winning strategies and successful implementation of strategic initiatives which drive desired results
- A successful background in building cohesive and thriving communities
- Track record of delivery on programmes and initiatives despite budget, team and time constraints.
- Experience working on projects which require new ideas to be tested, rolled out, measured and then adapted.
- Exposure to business support, creation and/or related programming
- Exposure to partnerships and sponsorship, with an understanding of building successful collaborations off the back of them.
- Able to utilize a variety of digital tools and software to capture data and information, then translate and transfer that information into visually-led presentations which are suitable for senior management and leadership.
- Deep familiarity with UAE’s cultural and creative landscape
- A human-centric relational leader with high levels of empathy, clarity and accountability.
- Passion for place-making, creative and cultural environments, as well as innovation and collaboration.
- Exceptional writing, speaking, and visual communication skills.
- Able to work quickly and adaptably, with small direct and matrix-managed teams to drive results
- Able to plan, execute and deliver on projects with minimal oversight, delivering
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