Description

About MTS

The Marine Technology Society (MTS) believes that advancements in the development and use of marine technologies are essential to support responsible and sustainable use of the ocean.

Founded in 1963, MTS brings together leaders across academia, government, and industry to exchange ideas, accelerate innovation, and build the workforce required for the global blue economy. Our members include engineers, scientists, technologists, policymakers, and educators working across the full spectrum of ocean and subsea technologies, ranging from offshore energy to dynamic positioning, ocean robotics to buoys, and many more.

Today, MTS operates as both a professional society and a platform for mission-driven initiatives. Alongside core programs in membership, publications, and events, our growing portfolio includes the MATE ROV Competition, the Ocean Enterprise Initiative, and Ocean Exchange — placing MTS at the intersection of technology, policy, and workforce development in a rapidly evolving ocean sector. MTS is actively expanding its reach into new geographies and funding relationships, positioning the Society as the go-to convener and capacity-builder in emerging blue economy markets worldwide.

The Role

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is MTS’s senior operational leader and the CEO’s primary strategic and execution partner. The COO is accountable for the performance, integration, and health of the organizational core — ensuring that the Society’s people, systems, programs, and finances are aligned and executing effectively to advance MTS’s mission, strategic priorities, and next stage of growth, while enabling the CEO and senior leadership team to focus on flagship verticals and external partnerships.

MTS is a strong, stable, and innovative organization at a genuine inflection point. The Society, along with a highly capable and motivated team of staff and volunteer leaders, has undergone five years of substantial change and evolution. We are actively refining organizational capacity to match the ambition of our community and our team, including investments in new partnerships, programs, and international expansion. The COO joins at a moment when sound judgment, steady leadership, and operational coherence are strategic assets.

This role requires both strategic leadership and functional execution. The COO sets direction and gets into the work, connecting and coordinating across a senior leadership team while staying close to all day-to-day execution.

This role includes the following essential functions and other duties as assigned:

1. Operational Leadership and Execution: Own the day-to-day operations of MTS's organizational core. Ensure that membership services, programs, the MTS Journal, sections & committees, events, grants & contracts, HR, and financial compliance are performing at a high level and improving consistently, aligned with MTS's strategic plan. Translate strategy into a clear operational roadmap and close the gap between strategy and execution.
2. Financial Management and Compliance: Oversee MTS's operating budget in close coordination with staff and the outsourced accounting function. Ensure strong financial discipline, transparency, and forecasting across all COO portfolio areas. Maintain compliance with all applicable regulations, including federal grant requirements (2 CFR Part 200 where applicable). Prepare and present financial reporting to the CEO and, as appropriate, to the Board. Ensure consistent delivery of financial clarity that equips the CEO, senior leadership team, and Board with the confidence to make aligned, informed, and timely decisions.
3. Revenue Growth and Business Development: Co-own MTS's revenue growth strategy with the CEO. Actively identify, originate, and pursue new funding and partnership opportunities across donations, grants, sponsorships, partnerships, and earned revenue. Contribute directly to pipeline development and represent MTS externally alongside the CEO and independently when appropriate. Bring the same rigor to evaluating opportunities as to pursuing them, ensuring that opportunities MTS pursues are strategically aligned, fully executable, and worth the organizational investment.
4. Team Leadership and Culture: Directly lead, develop, and inspire a team of 6+ staff and contractors. Shape the conditions for high performance, professional growth, and accountability within the team and across the organization. MTS's current team profile includes significant autonomy and tenure variation. Sustaining team capabilities while nurturing the growth of expertise and institutional knowledge that MTS's next chapter requires is a priority. Foster a collaborative and innovative work environment, leveraging team members’ expertise and strengths to energize performance, nurture individualized professional growth, and meet and exceed team objectives.
5. Programs and Member Value: Ensure MTS's membership services and legacy programs, including sections, committees, professional development, and the MTS Journal, evolve and continue to deliver meaningful value to members, partners, and the broader ocean technology community. Oversee program quality, innovation, and alignment with the Society's mission. Support the development of new programmatic offerings in close partnership with colleagues.
6. Cross-Functional Integration: Build the connective tissue that keeps verticals and operations moving in sync. Coordinate closely with flagship vertical leaders to ensure the organizational core enables and does not constrain their work. Promote shared ownership of outcomes and represent the whole organization's interests in every room. Serve as a relationship builder for the Society, initiating and thoughtfully navigating introductions across the MTS community and colleagues.
7. Governance, Leadership, and Board Relations: Support the CEO in Board engagement through preparation of materials, coordination of governance processes, and follow-through on Board-directed priorities. Ensure the CEO has up-to-date operational intelligence that the Board needs to govern effectively. Clearly define volunteer leadership pathways, taking a proactive role in developing and strengthening the leadership pipeline across all levels of the Society. Implement initiatives to identify, engage, and empower emerging leaders. Create an energetic and supportive environment that encourages active volunteerism, loyalty, and long-term commitment from members to sustain the Society's growth and impact.
8. Travel: Represent MTS at domestic and international conferences, partner convenings, and business development engagements, sometimes independently and sometimes alongside staff and board colleagues. Most travel will be planned well in advance, but some will respond to emerging opportunities, and flexibility with both is essential. Travel is estimated up to 15-25% annually.

Scope of Authority and Operating Model

Direct Ownership

• Membership and member services
• Sections and committees
• Events
• Programs and professional development
• MTS Journal
• Finance, compliance, and grants management
• HR and people operations
• IT and data systems
• Outsourced accounting coordination

Shared with CEO

• Strategic planning and execution
• Revenue development and growth
• External partnerships and funding
• Board and governance support

Cross-functional Partners (Reporting to CEO)

• MATE
• Ocean Enterprise Initiative
• Ocean Exchange
• Communications

The COO’s leadership approach is defined by four interlocking commitments:

• Co-Pilot: acting as a trusted partner in both strategy and day-to-day execution.
• Lead from the Middle: influencing and aligning peers across the senior leadership team without relying on formal authority over the full organization.
• Player-Coach: balancing executive leadership with direct contribution in a lean organizational environment where everyone rolls up their sleeves.
• Integrator: connecting strategy, operations, and programs into a coherent system that produces measurable and impactful results.

What Success Looks Like: The First Year

• MTS's operating rhythms are further refined and optimized — from budget cycles and financial reporting to goal setting, KPIs, and cross-team coordination — keeping pace with the organization's growing complexity.
• Core programs are healthy and growing, serving members, partners, and the broader ocean technology community with distinction, while generating the revenue margins that fund MTS's next chapter.
• Cross-functional alignment is a competitive advantage, with verticals and operations moving in sync and the senior team functioning with the cohesion and trust of a well-integrated unit.
• Staff are deepening their expertise and growing into expanded roles, building the institutional knowledge and bench strength MTS's ambitions require.
• New revenue streams and partnerships are initiated and advancing, including grant relationships, sponsorships, and strategic alliances that expand MTS's funding base and extend its influence.
• Organizational priorities move from plan to action with consistency and accountability, and the gap between strategy and execution is narrow and getting narrower.
• Financial visibility, discipline, and forecasting are meaningfully strengthened, giving leadership and the Board the clarity they need to make confident decisions and invest in growth.

Requirements

What you bring to the role

MTS is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. This position is fully remote and open to U.S.-based candidates; preference will be given to candidates residing in the contiguous United States, though we welcome applications from across all U.S. time zones.

Required:

• Ten or more years of progressive leadership experience in a mission-driven, innovation, nonprofit, or membership-based organization, with a track record that reflects real organizational complexity. The ideal candidate is someone who has navigated tough decisions, led through change, and earned their judgment the hard way.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to craft compelling narratives for diverse audiences, from grant applications and board reports to external thought leadership and public remarks.
• Demonstrated comfort representing an organization across the full spectrum of stakeholder engagement, from one-on-one conversations with donors, business leaders, and elected and appointed officials to podium appearances before large professional and policy audiences.
• Ability to operate fluidly at both strategic and hands-on levels, shifting from organizational vision to spreadsheet detail without losing effectiveness or energy at either end.
• Demonstrated success building and leading multi-functional teams across operations, programs, and stakeholders, with a leadership style that develops people, distributes ownership, sustains performance through change, and brings genuine thought partnership to colleagues and senior leadership.
• Strong financial acumen across the full operational cycle, including budget development and management, accounting oversight, financial reporting, and grants and contracts compliance — including familiarity with federal requirements such as 2 CFR Part 200.
• A proven ability to translate strategy into execution in lean, distributed organizations, where resources are finite, priorities compete, and results depend on judgment as much as process.

Strongly preferred:

• Deep familiarity with the dynamics of volunteer-driven, mission-centered institutions, whether as a staff leader in a professional society, trade association, or membership organization, or as a senior volunteer leader who has governed, chaired, or led at the committee or board level.
• Prior experience as a senior organizational leader — whether in a COO, Deputy Director, or comparable executive role in the nonprofit or association sectors, or at the Senior Executive Service level in a federal agency with relevant portfolio overlap — working in close partnership with a chief executive and sharing accountability for organizational performance and growth.
• A demonstrated appetite for business development and external engagement, including experience originating and closing funding relationships, partnerships, or earned revenue opportunities.
• Experience supporting or leading organizations through meaningful growth or transition, including the capability to build new capacity while sustaining existing commitments.
• Familiarity with federal funding environments, grant compliance frameworks, and the operational demands of managing government-funded programs alongside earned and philanthropic revenue.
• Background or genuine curiosity in ocean, marine technology, blue economy, or adjacent sectors, with enough fluency to speak credibly with our community and a genuine appetite to go deeper.

What we have to offer

• Base salary anticipated in the range of $165,000 to $185,000, commensurate with experience, plus a comprehensive benefits package. MTS is committed to compensating this role competitively and will structure an offer that reflects the seniority, scope, and the right candidate's experience.
• MTS staff work flexible hours and are fully remote.
• 403(b) retirement match up to 5%, vested immediately.
• 100% employer paid medical, dental, and vision for you (80% employer paid for dependents).
• 2 weeks paid annual leave, 2 weeks paid sick leave, and 11 paid holidays.
• $100 per month work from home stipend to help you succeed in a remote environment.

For confidential inquiries or to apply (current resume and 2pg cover letter), please contact chris.ostrander@mtsociety.org. Application review will begin May 28 and continue until the position has been filled.