Executive Director

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Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the posting end date above.

Leadership Position Profile

Prepared by Bird Dog Recruitment and Consulting, LLC | September 2026

The Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust seeks an exceptional executive leader to serve as its Executive Director and lead one of Oklahoma's most distinctive public institutions.

Created by a vote of the people of Oklahoma in 2000, TSET is entrusted with converting the certified earnings of the state's tobacco settlement endowment into strategic grants that improve the health and well-being of Oklahomans. Through statewide programs, community grants, research, and evidence-based initiatives, TSET works to and create lasting improvements in the health of Oklahoma communities.

The Executive Director reports to the TSET Board of Directors and serves as the organization's chief executive, strategic leader, and principal administrative officer, responsible for translating the Board's vision, policies, and priorities into effective strategy, disciplined execution, and measurable results.

This is more than an administrative leadership position. The Executive Director must lead at the intersection of public policy, public health, government, grantmaking, organizational management, and Board governance, and must understand how to operate effectively within a politically complex environment while preserving TSET's institutional integrity, credibility, statutory responsibilities, and long-term mission.

The successful candidate will bring exceptional executive judgment, political acumen, strategic thinking, financial stewardship including a comprehensive understanding of the financial statements of TSET, communication skill, and relationship building ability, equally comfortable advising a governing Board, leading a professional staff, engaging senior state leaders, working with public and private grantees, evaluating grant proposals, and representing TSET before diverse constituencies across Oklahoma.

TSET's founders built this organization twenty-five years ago in the truest entrepreneurial sense, establishing its systems, its credibility, and its impact largely at the same time it was already operating. Today, TSET enters a different season: a mature institution with a substantial endowment, an established track record, and significant resources to direct toward growth and innovation. The next Executive Director will need real leadership maturity: the ability to assess what the Board of Directors of TSET wants the Trust to become, recognize what has earned its place, and lead the organization through thoughtful renewal where it is warranted, bringing the same resourcefulness that built TSET together with the institutional discipline this next chapter demands, including an assessment of the necessary cultural changes to accomplish the future direction of TSET

TSET is a constitutionally protected public trust and, at the same time, a state agency, a grantmaker, a public health institution, and a steward of tobacco settlement certified earnings, governed by an appointed Board of Directors. By constitutional design, only the certified earnings on the Trust's investments, may be spent, and those earnings are directed toward clinical and basic research and treatment efforts in Oklahoma for the

purpose of enhancing efforts to prevent and combat cancer and other tobacco-related diseases, cost-effective tobacco prevention and cessation programs, and other health related initiatives.

Bird Dog Recruitment and Consulting, LLC kim@birddogrecruitment.com | 785.640.8868 | Topeka, Kansas

The State of Oklahoma is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of genetic information, race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, or disability.

Current active State of Oklahoma employees must apply for open positions internally through the Workday Jobs Hub.

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