Program Lead, Working Groups

About the Responsible AIxBio Collaborative

R-ABC is a new nonprofit working to make the world a safer place by reducing the misuse risk of AI-enabled biological tools. We do that by catalyzing and accelerating governance for AI x bio: bringing into being the standards and shared resources that don't exist yet. Our stakeholders are the world-leading frontier companies, platforms, and research groups building AI for the life sciences. We work with them directly, not around them. R-ABC was founded in 2026 and is still small.

Ryan Ritterson founded and leads R-ABC. He spent a decade at Gryphon Scientific running biosecurity and biosafety risk assessments, including work on gain-of-function research and the security side of AI-enabled biotech. He's published widely on biorisk and dual-use governance, and sits on NIST's AI Safety Institute Consortium and NTI's AIxBio Global forum.

About the Role

Responsible AIxBio Collaborative is looking for a Program Lead, Working Groups to strategically shape, manage, and run high-impact working groups focused on reducing risks from intentional misuse of AI-enabled biological tools. You'll own the working group workstream end to end: turning strategy into practical workplans, managing senior stakeholders, shipping high-quality outputs, and making sure the work generates real value for members and the broader field.

R-ABC is a small, new nonprofit, so this role is for someone who wants to be an early employee and can operate with the urgency, flexibility, ownership, and resourcefulness of an early-stage startup, while bringing the judgment, discretion, and credibility this work demands.

What You'll Do

Be an early employee at a new nonprofit

• Join early: Help build R-ABC from the ground up while we're still small, new, and moving fast.

• Move like a founder: Take ownership, solve messy problems, fill gaps, and drive progress even when roles, systems, or processes aren't fully defined yet.

• Adapt fast: Stay effective as R-ABC's structure, priorities, staffing, and operating model evolve.

• Think alongside the team: Partner with other early employees as we grow, pressure-testing priorities, improving how we operate, and turning emerging needs into action.

• Execute critical responsibilities: As a member of a small team, independently develop and execute critical early functions of this growing organization

Own the working group workstream end to end

• Turn strategy into execution: Translate R-ABC's strategic aims for the working groups into practical workplans, timelines, meeting structures, participant expectations, and deliverables.

• Drive follow-through: Keep commitments, dependencies, and next steps moving so working groups produce tangible outputs instead of becoming discussion forums.

• Get ahead of risk: Spot and address threats to member engagement, stakeholder trust, timelines, or workstream coherence before they become problems.

• Collaborate with outside experts: In the beginning, R-ABC will draw technical expertise from outside partners. Manage those relationships to produce high quality products.

Be the senior stakeholder interface

• Represent R-ABC: Engage directly with senior stakeholders from AI labs, biotech companies, platform providers, funders, policy organizations, and partner institutions.

• Earn trust: Show up prepared, discreet, credible, and respectful of participants' time.

• Bring sharp judgment: Lead productive conversations among organizations with different incentives, maturity levels, legal constraints, and technical perspectives. Manage dissenting views and steer the group without marginalizing participants.

• Deliver value: Make participation genuinely useful for members while advancing R-ABC's broader governance objectives.

Drive high-quality outputs and decisions

• Shape the materials: Produce the documents that turn working group input into usable decisions, controls, case studies, and synthesis products.

• Design for impact: Structure sessions so live time is used for judgment, debate, decisions, and alignment.

Who You Are

• You're mission-driven: You care deeply about reducing risks from intentional misuse of AI-enabled biological tools.

• You've led complex initiatives: You have significant experience leading multi-stakeholder work with senior external participants.

• You operate independently: You've shown you can exercise judgment and make progress in ambiguous environments without waiting for detailed direction.

• You know the AI/tech landscape: You have experience in or around AI, frontier technology, cybersecurity, platform governance, technical standards, safety, risk management, or emerging technology policy.

• You manage workstreams well: You bring strong program, project, or workstream management experience, including timelines, deliverables, meeting design, stakeholder follow-up, and cross-functional coordination.

• You communicate clearly: You have excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex input for busy decision-makers.

• You exercise discretion: You bring high professional maturity, discretion, and credibility when handling sensitive discussions and confidential participant information.

• You facilitate across stakeholders: You can guide productive conversations among stakeholders with different incentives, technical backgrounds, and levels of governance maturity.

• You thrive early-stage: You're comfortable working as an early employee in a lean, fast-moving nonprofit where priorities may shift, processes need to be built while the work is underway, and no task is too small if it advances the mission.

Nice to Haves

• Fast-moving technical environments: You're familiar with the culture, speed, and stakeholder dynamics of the AI or technology ecosystem.

• Biosecurity learning capacity: You can quickly develop working fluency in biosecurity concepts, dual-use risk, model governance, red-teaming, access controls, and related topics.

• Relevant network: You have existing relationships in AI, technology, biosecurity, synthetic biology, philanthropy, policy, or related communities.

What Success Looks Like

• Launch with confidence: Working groups begin with clear purpose, strong participant trust, and well-structured expectations.

• Deliver member value: Participants experience the working groups as a useful venue for peer learning and practical governance development.

• Produce real outputs: R-ABC delivers concrete working group products on schedule, including gap analyses, draft controls, pilot plans, case studies, and synthesis products.

• Generate useful intelligence: The workstream surfaces member priorities, implementation barriers, blind spots, and emerging governance needs.

• Free senior leadership: The Executive Director and other senior leads can focus more time on strategy because day-to-day execution is reliably owned.

• Move beyond convening: By the end of year one, the process has produced credible, participant-supported governance artifacts that can be hardened, scaled, and shared as public goods.

Salary and Working Arrangement

Compensation for this role is expected to range from $125,000-$185,000, depending on experience and qualifications

Responsible AIxBio Collaborative is fully remote with no offices. We provide an allowance for a home office setup or co-working space, whichever you prefer. We're open to candidates outside the US, though we have a slight preference for US-based for this role given the nature of the work. All else equal, we're happy to work across time zones for the right person.

Interview Process:

We know applying takes real effort, so here is what to expect.

• Application review: Our recruiting partner reviews every application.

• Screening conversation (20 minutes): A call with our recruiting partner covering your background, what you're looking for, and what this role involves day to day.

• Conversation with the Executive Director (30 minutes): A discussion with Ryan Ritterson, Responsible AIxBio Collaborative's founder, about the work, the field, and how you think.

• Facilitation Exercise: A live scenario reflecting the kind of session you'd run in this role.

• Final conversations: A conversation with a senior reviewer from Sentinel Bio, our founding funder, to bring an additional perspective into the decision.