Director, Transformation and Strategy
6 days ago
Chicago
Job Description Job Title: Director, Transformation and Strategy Team: Office of the Chief Executive Officer Location: In-Person strong preference for Chicago (IL), also possible; Atlanta (GA), Newark (NJ), or New York City (NYC) Employment Type: Full-time FLSA Classification: Exempt Start Date: ASAP About Braven Braven is a national nonprofit that prepares promising college students to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation through a career-accelerating program. We work with higher education and employer partners to offer a life-changing experience that begins with a semester-long course for college students, followed by support that lasts through graduation. Together, our ambition is to help rebuild the middle class and revitalize the American Dream. To learn more, take a look at Braven’s Jobs Report. About the Role In order to achieve its ambition of serving 80,000-100,000 Fellows over the next decade, Braven is hiring a Director, Transformation and Strategy, to join the newly formed Transformation team. Transformation is charged with ensuring we see around corners and are prepared to maximize strategic opportunities in our future. Your role is to incubate and then hand off initiatives that are critical to our organization's success. You'll do the work of launching pilot projects, figuring out what should be consistent across the organization, and determining what has to be unique to meet the needs of the student population and/or local landscape to scale. You bring a broad toolkit: you will design and execute programs, articulate and assess the business case for initiatives, analyze data and learnings, and build the operational foundation that makes the initiative sustainable and scalable - and you thrive on this. While you don’t manage anyone directly, you will manage across many internal stakeholders, and your ability to move people toward shared outcomes without direct authority is critical to your success. You're energized by ambiguity, you take initiative before being asked, you think in systems, and you genuinely love figuring out what "cutting edge" means for an organization that is paving the way. You enjoy bringing structure to ambiguous problems without flattening the complexity, and you know when to slow down and define the question before rushing to answer it. This role calls for adaptability as Braven's transformation agenda evolves, and your scope will grow with it. To start, you will play a pivotal and dynamic role in deepening our career partnerships with universities, helping to explore and launch an evolution of our core model. Strong contributors here thrive in a startup environment where job descriptions are starting points, not ceilings, and are willing to roll up their sleeves to support whatever the mission needs. This is a small team culture where everyone pitches in, shares credit, and stays focused on student impact. This role is a part of the Office of the Chief Executive Officer and reports directly to the Head of Transformation. What You’ll Do Set Strategy and Own the Business Case (40%) • Develop and own Braven’s multi-year strategy for key pilot initiatives — synthesizing insights from program delivery, partner relationships, financial modeling, and student outcome data into a coherent, evidence-based framework, • Build and maintain the business case for key pilot initiatives as a scalable Braven offering: model unit economics, cost per student, and revenue potential across partner types; translate findings into recommendations for Braven leadership and, where appropriate, external stakeholders, • Establish consistent measurement baselines (including financial, programmatic metrics) so we can make data-driven decisions and meaningful comparisons over time and across pilot partners, surfacing ROI and risks/opportunities on an ongoing basis, • Gather updates from across the team and synthesize them into cohesive, well-structured presentations that reflect both progress and honest challenges, • Prepare materials, briefings, and talking points for board meetings — distilling complex program activity into clear, compelling narratives for a non-operational audience, • Develop a scalable program framework and multi-year roadmap that aligns with Braven’s mission and current model, and enables us to pivot towards new future opportunities, • Execute pilots, launching a suite of programming at initial partner sites, and assess what's working and build a clear framework for what can be replicated versus what needs to be redesigned for each new context, culture, and student population, • Define what should be consistent across pilot contexts and what must be adapted, honoring institutional differences while staying true to our model and principles, • Build authentic relationships with collaborating teams to understand their goals and constraints well enough to be a genuine thought partner (vs. a vendor), • Define how we partner effectively with internal and external stakeholders to strengthen relationships, increase efficiency, and ensure strong outcomes, • Build the operational scaffolding behind launch work — the checklists, timelines, communication templates, and handoff documents that make programs sustainable beyond your direct involvement, • Create and own project plans across program initiatives — timelines, milestones, cross-functional dependencies — and keep work moving forward with minimal oversight, • Conceive, design, and execute specific programs that get participants genuinely excited about the results, • Create and own the project plans behind our program initiatives while building timelines, setting milestones, tracking dependencies, and keeping cross-functional work moving forward, • Manage all logistics end-to-end: vision, venue, promotion, materials, execution, and follow-up with little hand-holding and strong attention to detail, • Design and run a data collection campaign to capture key outcomes, • Build the forms, trackers, and processes that make data collection feel easy for stakeholders — low friction, high compliance, • Synthesize findings into clear, compelling narratives for a wide variety of audiences — from student-facing summaries to Alignment Team briefings to board-level presentations, • Ensure data is actionable, not just reported; ensure reports are simple and useful, • Develop high-quality memos, briefings, and presentation materials for high-stakes meetings with external key stakeholders, • Document learnings from each launch in a way that makes the next one faster and smarter and we add to our institutional knowledge base, • Support the broader team in understanding what the data says about the outcomes, and implications for future decisions Requirements Minimum Requirements • Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent, • 7+ years of strong track record of managing multiple complex, cross-functional strategic initiatives and leading others to outcomes – including building or launching a new program, function, or business line from the ground up, • Exceptional ability to collaborate and work in cross-functional teams, • Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to draft clear, audience-appropriate communications quickly and with minimal direction, • Exceptional ability to synthesize information, identify what should stay consistent, and where adjustments are needed due to various contexts, • Demonstrated ability to move between strategic altitude and hands-on execution: you have set the strategy and built the business case, and you have also done the operational work yourself, • Track record of influencing and driving alignment across senior stakeholders — including organizational leadership — without formal authority, • Strong financial acumen: experience building business cases, modeling unit economics, and translating financial analysis into strategic recommendations for senior leaders, • Experience in the education or nonprofit sector, • Fluency in Asana, Trello, Salesforce, and Claude, Zoom, and Slack are ideal; ability to navigate myriad technology tools, • A genuine appreciation for and enjoyment of the dynamic, fast-paced energy of a college campus, coupled with an ability to connect authentically with diverse stakeholders, ranging from students to university leadership., • Demonstrated commitment to building strong and welcoming cultures that help to develop others, • Exemplification of Braven’s core values, • Experience that has informed your belief in Braven’s mission and has prepared you to work with, or for, Braven’s student Fellow population Please know that no one ever meets 100% of the preferred qualifications. If much of this describes you, we encourage you to apply. Work Demands • Ability to work in-person in Atlanta (GA), Chicago (IL), Newark (NJ), or New York City (NYC), • Authorized to work in the U.S. While the interview process may vary slightly, the general process will be: • Interview with Hiring Specialist, • Performance Task, • Interview with Hiring Manager Starting salary within the range is determined by role scope and qualifications, with new hires starting at the lower end to allow for growth with performance. Braven does not base compensation on individual candidate salary expectations and is committed to maintaining internal equity. The salary ranges, by geographic market, for this role are set forth $95,900-$118,900 in Atlanta, $101,200-$126,400 in Chicago, and $111,300-$139,100 in New York City and Newark. Salaries are based on a 50-hour work week. This is a full-time, regular, exempt, and benefits eligible position where you will be working at 100% capacity. Braven also provides competitive, comprehensive benefits, recognition, and career development. While Braven reserves the right to change benefits at any time, current benefits include: • Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (this is a minimum of 19 days per year), • Braven supports your path to parenthood and beyond with $25,000 in lifetime Carrot benefits for fertility, family-building, and hormonal health, • Match of your 401K contribution up to 5% of your base annual salary, starting your first full month, • Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium for employee and dependents, • 12 weeks of paid parental leave, • A one-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff Please note that Braven is firm in its compensation philosophy; therefore, only candidates who believe our total rewards package aligns with what they are looking for in their next opportunity are encouraged to apply. Location We gather in the office 3 days a week (Tuesday through Thursday) and work remotely 2 days a week (Monday and Friday). Therefore, this role requires teammates to live within commuting distance of one of our hubs: Atlanta, Chicago, or Newark. We believe in the magic, connection, and collaboration that happens when people work together face-to-face, and we believe in giving people flexibility to focus, balance personal priorities, and save themselves two commutes per week. Braven is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected factor. We encourage talented individuals of all backgrounds to apply.
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