Operations / Administration Vice President, Partner Success Team
Job Description
About the opportunity
Springboard Collaborative invites talented and passionate candidates to apply for the position of Vice President of Partner Success. The VP of Partner Success will be responsible for leading a rapidly growing team of diverse and talented full-time and part-time staff to deliver consistently excellent program results with thousands of students and parent-educator teams across the country and throughout the calendar year. The leader in this role is responsible for ensuring that Springboard Collaborative programs: 1) put students on a path to read on grade level by 3rd grade, 2) equip parents to lean in as their children’s first literacy coaches and 3) support teachers to engage parents much more authentically in the process.
We ask all of this in a context of rapid growth and on the heels of significant programmatic iteration to meet the remote learning needs of pre-k to 4th grade students through COVID-19. Our Partner Success team needs a leader who can simultaneously drive toward immediate results, make decisions about the future with clarity and conviction, and honor the learning and experiences of everyone involved – students, families, teachers, partners, and our own team members.
A successful candidate will be a tenacious and values-driven leader of people and teams, an equity warrior, an outstanding integrator, and a data-driven manager.
The VP of Partner Success will report to the President and work as part of the Leadership Team at Springboard. This is a great opportunity to support an entrepreneurial team in maximizing the impact of a rapidly growing organization.
Diversity is more than a commitment at Springboard Collaborative—it is the foundation of what we do. We are fully focused on equality and believe deeply in diversity of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and all the other fascinating characteristics that make us different.
We believe that these diverse communities must be centered in our work. Hence, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or who are members of other marginalized communities.
Who we’re looking for:
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- Tenacious and Values-Driven Leader of People and Teams: You pursue goals with tenacity, especially when those goals stem from a belief that systemic inequities in reading skill and parent engagement must be disrupted and reversed. You’re a values-driven leader of people and teams. You consistently predict and consider the implications of your actions and your team’s actions, and work toward alignment between stated values and outcomes.
- Equity Champion : You respect and honor the role of parents and families, particularly in the context of marginalized communities in the United States. You believe that the opportunity and achievement gaps in early literacy are a manifestation of opportunity gaps caused by systemic racism and classism with long-term consequences in the lives of children, and you act with conviction to support family-educator teams to provide opportunities so that students can read on grade level by 3rd grade. You consistently spot and mitigate the roles of racial bias as a systems leader.
- Outstanding Integrator: You are able to take a variety of programs and programmatic components and lead efforts to build a coherent and sustainable path to long-term impact with our partners. You recognize the strengths of programs and leaders and are able to find paths forward that honor our strengths and directly address our weaknesses. You work thoughtfully and collaboratively with other members of the Leadership Team to ensure that all of our collective work adds up to extraordinary impact and experiences for students, families, and educators.
- Data-driven Manager: You use data and primary source information to guide your leadership, management, and decisions. You help your team prioritize direct information from families and teachers in the program. You seek and review authentic work samples from your team rather than relying on anecdotal evidence. You use relevant details to inform your understanding of the big picture.
How you’ll accomplish this:
Leadership
- Actively contribute to Springboard’s Leadership Team, collaborating with other departmental leaders to co-create strategy and lead the organization towards executing that strategy.
- Communicate vision and purpose such that departmental members understand and support the vision and the strategy
- Coach and develop team leaders to bring out their best and augment their success
- Integrate team functions and consider other functions across the organization in order to make strategic programmatic decisions; collaborate with leaders from other Springboard departments to think strategically short and mid term (3 months, 6 months, 9 months out)
- Lead change management in a rapidly growing entrepreneurial organization; support and lead team members through change
- Model behavior; establish and nurture team norms and culture that align with organizational values
- Inform upward and across; ensure other departments and Springboard Leadership are informed of programmatic progress and challenges
- Develop and maintain relationships with partners, peers, departmental members, and other departments
Management
- Support team decision-making, delegation, quality management, planning, priorities, problem-solving, productivity, information flow, and productivity
- Focus team on key priorities/projects; ensure planning and milestones are on track
- Develop and improve processes for smooth coordination of work within and across departments
- Hold first line managers accountable for their team’s work; support their management of their teams
- Plan and facilitate weekly Partner Success Leadership Team meetings, weekly one-on-ones, and daily team check-ins
- Conduct end-of-summer reviews for functional leaders on Partner Success Team
- Enable strong hiring and onboarding of team members within all departmental functions
Program planning, implementation, and coaching
Springboard’s Partner Success Team has five program functions. The VP of Partner Success is responsible for supporting all five functions:
- Program design: program planning in coordination with summer and fall partners
- Program management: program implementation (direct management) of Springboard Summer, Springboard’s flagship program
- Program coaching: program coaching of site-based Program Leaders implementing Springboard Learning Accelerator (SLA), Springboard’s light-touch, plug-and-play program
- Teacher professional development: Teacher training for all summer and fall programs
- Community support: Direct support of families participating in Springboard programs
Within each of these sub-functions, the VP of Partner Success will be responsible for programmatic outcomes:
- Deliver the program such that partners meet KPIs; identify and use leading indicators to measure performance and adjust course to best support partners
- Maintain persistence in the face of highly complex and/or adverse circumstances
- Align departmental sub-function plans with company-wide strategy and operational processes
While this description is meant to provide a comprehensive overview of the responsibilities of the VP of Partner Success, we are seeking candidates who demonstrate flexibility and can adapt to evolving needs in an entrepreneurial environment.
Required skills, qualifications, and characteristics:
- Minimum of a B.A./B.S.
- 10+ years of total experience with two of three:
- Manager of individual contributors
- Manager of managers
- Served on an executive team
- Strong leadership and management skills, with experience managing individual contributors, managing managers, and leading complex functions
- Proficiency in basic computer applications (Word, Excel, Google Suite) and ability to learn new systems
Desired skills, qualifications, and characteristics:
- Experience in the K-12 education or nonprofit sectors
- Teaching experience, educational sales, or fundraising–extra points for intersectionality!
- Salesforce and Asana experience
Compensation
This is a full-time, exempt position offering benefits and a salary within the range of $150 – $200k, commensurate with Springboard Collaborative’s VP-level compensation band.
Benefits
At Springboard, we feel it is important to take care of our employees, which is why we offer a competitive benefit package. Some of these benefits include:
- 4 weeks annually, prorated from the date of hire
- 11 paid holidays, federal election day, birthday holiday, and two floating holidays according to Springboard’s Paid Time Off Policy
- Dental, vision, life insurance, and short and long term disability insurance are 100% covered by Springboard
- Cash Stipend available to those who waive healthcare coverage from Springboard
- Annual technology allowance
- Annual Professional Development allowance
- Twelve weeks paid parental leave for those employed for at least six months
Location
Springboard Collaborative’s headquarters office is in Philadelphia, PA. Although applications are welcome from any location, preference will be given to candidates who live in or are able to commute to Philadelphia. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all Springboard Collaborative offices are closed for the time being.
About Springboard
Children typically spend 75% of their waking hours outside of the classroom, yet our education system does shockingly little to capture instructional value from that time. Parents’ love for their children is the single greatest—and most underutilized—natural resource in education.
Springboard Collaborative has cracked the code on activating and equipping low-income parents to teach at home. Since launching 8 years ago, we have grown Springboard’s reach from 40 to nearly 15,000 students across 22 cities and 700+ schools. Amidst rapid growth, Springboard consistently delivers best-in-class results. Students average a 3-4-month reading gain during each 5 or 10-week cycle, closing the gap to grade-level performance by more than half. Weekly family workshops average 91% attendance. Springboard’s work has recently been featured by Forbes, NPR, and the New York Times.
