Chief Executive Officer

The Underline is transforming the land below Miami’s Metrorail into a 10‑mile linear park, urban trail, and public art destination. Friends of The Underline (FUL) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a culture steeped in entrepreneurship and innovation and committed to the mission of transforming safety and mobility and improving public health, environment, and community by building and programming The Underline as an extraordinary public space in Miami’s urban core.

The FUL Board of Directors is seeking a CEO to build on the organization’s extraordinary success since its founding in 2014 by grassroots biking and walking advocates and Founder Meg Daly. The Board is in search of a leader who can continue to build and shape the enterprise with strength, clarity, vision, and imagination while expanding on excellence, to maintain the momentum of The Underline's vision and success and empower the organization with fresh ideas for funding and strategic direction. The successful candidate will provide strategic leadership and management direction to capitalize on FUL's strengths and culture of innovation. They will harness the human and financial resources of the organization to achieve FUL's goals and aspirations.

FUL's CEO must demonstrate a strong history of superior management skills in both staff and board relationships as well as a high level of social and emotional intelligence, creativity, a design sensibility, a strong level of ambition, and critical path thinking with a record of getting things done.

Neither FUL’s Founder or Board could have forecast The Underline's speed of delivery and successful trajectory, whose whole far exceeds the sum of its parts. Enjoyed by more than 1.5 million visitors in 2023, over 9 million annual visitors are expected to enjoy The Underline upon completion in 2026. 

As the future phases of The Underline come online, FUL is focused on continuing its decade of innovation, inspiration, imagination, and sustained excellence. This involves seeking public and private funds to maintain, operate, and program the physical space at first-class levels. For this critical work, the CEO will leverage an extraordinarily visible project that enjoys a tremendous sense of community ownership and goodwill while traversing and enhancing varied communities, existing fundraising efforts with high levels of activity across giving levels, a well-connected and activated Board, and a rapidly growing and evolving South Florida region that embraces philanthropy.

While FUL will consider a broad range of backgrounds, the ideal candidate will have the following qualifications/experience:

• Commitment to the mission and values of FUL as well as passionate and thoughtful about creative urban placemaking.
• Demonstrated success in institution-building; able to engage and expand stakeholders and the base of support. Experience working directly with a board of directors is important. Preference for experience working at the forefront of change in transportation, environment, and urban community development initiatives.
• Demonstrated success in private fundraising.
• Superb verbal and written communication skills with the stature, demeanor, and comfort level to serve as a highly visible and public-facing ambassador of FUL in community, cultural, and civic environments.
• Strong organizational, analytical, and project management skills.
• Track record of effective team management and agility in toggling between strategic leadership and hands-on execution; ability to lead and motivate staff and stakeholders at all levels with clear goals and shared accountability. Experience leading, recruiting, evaluating, and developing professionals and contributing to the ongoing fostering of a results-oriented, multiracial/multicultural workforce. Experience managing budgets and revenue forecasts.
• Values-driven and committed to personal and professional development. Elevates institutional goals and values beyond personal gain, ensuring efforts are mission-focused and quality driven. Unimpeachable integrity and commitment to the highest standards of professionalism.
• Confident, emotionally intelligent, servant leader with a solutions-oriented mindset. A sense of humor and perspective, and a penchant for transparency, consultation, and collaboration.
• Culturally competent with respect to issues such as racial, cultural, religious, sexual, and gender identity with the interpersonal skills and sensitivity to develop and sustain impactful relationships with an array of diverse constituencies.

Connecting & Elevating Community 

The Underline recognizes, represents, and celebrates the unique fusion of cultures that make Miami one of the most diverse cities in the world.

We proudly create this park in partnership with the community and an unwavering commitment to be a safe and accessible public space for all who visit, regardless of race, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or socioeconomic status.

Our programs, attractions, and experiences are inspired and influenced not only by the rich diversity of today, but also in honor and tribute of Miami’s ancestral past and with an enthusiastic vision for a racially and culturally inclusive future.

As we reclaim, reinvigorate and regift the cherished land beneath the Miami Metrorail back to and on behalf of the entire community, we will continue to listen to and learn from the voices and lived experiences of our neighbors, and to center our current and future policies and investments around equity, fairness, and inclusivity.

FUL has retained the DSG Fundraising & Advancement Practice of the Diversified Search Group to assist in this confidential search process. Inquiries, nominations, and applications (current resumes and cover letters) may be submitted via the following link – https://talent-profile.diversifiedsearchgroup.com/search/v2/20453 – or directed to:

Gerard F. Cattie, Jr.
Managing Director and DSG Fundraising & Advancement Practice Leader
Diversified Search Group
The Chrysler Building, 405 Lexington Avenue, 49th Floor, New York, New York 10174
[email protected] | 212.542.2587