Senior Project Manager, Exhibitions

How You’ll Contribute

The National Geographic Society headquarters, based in Washington, D.C., is undergoing a significant renovation project on its campus (called Museum of Exploration), which will be completed in 2026. Components of the new Museum will include a state-of-the-art pavilion entrance, auditorium, iconic photo gallery, exhibition space, immersive walk-through attraction, retail, food and beverage, education center, archives, tours, and exciting new event space. The capstone of the renovation is a one-of-a-kind nighttime experience in the courtyard.
In addition to this new on-campus experience, National Geographic Society has an existing business of touring exhibitions and immersive experiences that will be growing and expanding. The Exhibitions department is responsible for developing and bringing to life the exhibits and experiences at the Museum, as well as creating, developing, marketing, and selling our traveling exhibitions products.

The National Geographic Society Exhibitions team is composed of content developers, designers, producers, and project managers. This division is responsible for creating content for the Museum and running the traveling exhibitions program.

Reporting to the Director of Project Management (Exhibitions), the Senior Project Manager will lead major project areas, vendor relationships and manage our internal creative teams’ workflows and may manage up to three direct reports. This role will maintain timeline, budget, schedule and communications for internal Exhibitions team involvement in major projects with heavy immediate focus on the Museum project.

Your Impact

Your Impact

Responsibilities Include:

• Project Management (50%)

  • Manages concurrent projects with interdependent work streams utilizing a variety of project management tools and methodologies.

  • Coordinates submittal feedback to ensure clear direction.

  • Ensures projects are completed on time and within budget by developing and maintaining clear and detailed project schedules and budgets that have up-to-date estimates, costs, milestones and timelines.

  • Acts as a key interface with internal team members, stakeholders and leadership.

  • Creates internal work schedules and monitors interim deliverables. Attends and records internal scheduling meetings, track and report, open projects from start to completion.
    

• Communication (30%)

  • Represents the standards of NGS and supports the collaboration between the Creative and Operations teams' work on the Museum of Exploration project.

  • Work with the Director of Project Management and leaders to identify opportunities to improve organizational efficiencies, facilitation, and project management as well as workflow and solutions in support of increasing successful collaboration and communication.

  • Serve as liaison between vendors and creative staff to ensure clarity, transparency, quality and project progression.

• Production Coordination (20%)

  • Manage pre and post production project elements with the Exhibitions Team. Activities may include logistics, travel media management, releases and permits, organization of media assets and contracts and other legal documentation.

  • Manage vendors supporting creative work and producing built environments from proposal through final project delivery through contracting, management, timeline, and budget responsibility.

What You’ll Bring

Necessary Knowledge and Skills

• Demonstrates competencies such as sound business judgment, facilitation, decision making, problem solving, and team building.

• Highly organized, self-starter, with superb communication and interpersonal skills.

• Experience coordinating complex teams and project schedules.

• Effective prioritization, deadline driven, attention to detail

• Capacity to work independently and in teams as required

• Resourceful and driven to find creative solutions

• Should be curious and eager to learn

• Solid understanding of the processes and workflows of media production, interactive production, exhibition installation.

• Strong attention to detail and ability to appropriately prioritize tasks

• Proficient in Microsoft and Google Office suites
  

Educational Background

Bachelor’s degree preferred. PMP Preferred.

Minimum Years and Types of Experience

7+ years of project management experience. Experience with public attractions, museums, experiential design or exhibit development required.

Supervision
Up to 3 direct reports

Salary Information

The National Geographic Society offers a competitive and holistic total rewards package. Our compensation structure and transparent pay philosophy are based on industry-specific market data for similar-sized nonprofit organizations.

The salary range for this position accounts for a wide range of factors including but not limited to organizational need; specific skill sets; experience and training; certifications; and more. At the National Geographic Society, individuals are typically hired at or near the starting point of the salary range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.

The salary range for this position is $90,200 - $95,000.

In addition, the National Geographic Society offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits package that includes, but is not limited to, medical, dental, and vision insurance; engaging and comprehensive wellness program; 401(k) retirement savings plan with matching contributions after 6 months of employment; flexible paid time off benefits with up to 22 days of paid annual leave per calendar year (15 days for new hires in their first year, prorated based on the number of pay periods remaining in the year) and 10 days of sick leave; 12 paid holidays and a paid winter break between December 25 and 31; paid parental leave, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility benefits; learning and development opportunities; Lifestyle Spending Account; pet adoption assistance and insurance; pre-tax transportation benefits with a generous employer subsidy; employer-paid life insurance and disability benefit; and a variety of National Geographic discounts and perks.

Job Designation

Resident - Our Resident category recognizes that certain staff need to be physically present at Base Camp to do their work. Some Resident staff must be at Base Camp every day to do their jobs, while others may only need to be physically present onsite some of the time to meet looming deadlines or to get work done and may require a unique schedule. As such, this category has been revised to provide maximum flexibility depending on what’s required for each individual role. The days Resident staff come into the office will be determined by their teams and workflow, and they should work with their supervisors to determine their specific schedule. And throughout the year, their schedule may be adjusted based on cyclical work cycles, deadlines, and/or ebbs and flows of work.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

We encourage you to apply even if your experience is not a 100% match with the position. We are looking for someone with relevant skills and experience, not a checklist that exactly matches the job description. We want to help you grow and in return, you help us grow into a stronger, more inclusive organization.