Executive Director, Strategic Innovation, Greenhouse

College Board - Office of the CEO - Greenhouse

Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office).

Role Type: This is a full-time position

About the Team

Greenhouse is an innovation team focused on tackling complex and persistent challenges in education. As a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization, College Board’s mission is to clear a path for all students to own their future. We serve 7 million students each year and partner with thousands of member institutions to expand access to higher education and support college and career readiness. Through Greenhouse, we are investing in building scalable, sustainable, and human-centered solutions that can drive meaningful progress in education.

Despite decades of effort across K-12 and higher education, major challenges persist. Student outcomes have remained largely unchanged in key areas; chronic absenteeism has increased, and fewer than 40 percent of community college students complete a credential within six years. At the same time, institutions face growing pressure from shifting demographics, questions about the value of postsecondary education, and the rapid impact of emerging technologies like AI. Greenhouse exists to take on these challenges directly by identifying high-impact opportunities and developing solutions that can improve outcomes for learners, particularly those underserved by existing systems.

Our team brings together a unique mix of product leaders, engineers, and service designers, many of whom come from startup environments and public service. We operate in small, cross-functional teams with a shared commitment to human-centered design, rapid learning, and building alongside the users we serve. As a team, we value curiosity, candor, and shared ownership, and we are continuously shaping how we work as we build new solutions and contribute to broader innovation across College Board.

About the Opportunity  

As the Executive Director, Strategic Innovation, Greenhouse, you are an innovative and driven product, design, or engineering leader who will drive our work focused on community college transfer success. You will directly manage a cross-functional team and guide collaboration across stakeholders to increase successful two-year to four-year student transfers, reduce the administrative burden of articulation, and minimize excess credit accumulation for learners, with the goal of building a new product or service that supports student success. You bring an end user-focused and organizationally aware mindset, using curiosity, learning agility, and creative problem solving to shape solutions that drive meaningful impact for the students and institutions we serve.

Leveraging your background and experience, you’ll drive best practices and methods to help our new portfolio and new product development thrive, leading your team through ambiguity and clarity of focus. You will spend the majority of your time working closely with your team to understand the problem space, guide discovery, and move from concept to pilot and scale, while also serving as a key thought partner to Greenhouse leadership. You build strong, productive relationships and influence across stakeholders, communicate effectively at all levels, and create an environment where teams are empowered to do their best work. You will report directly to the General Manager, Greenhouse.

As a leader, you will embody College Board’s manager expectations by aligning priorities, roles, and goals, optimizing team performance, hiring and developing top talent, and unlocking your team’s potential through coaching and growth opportunities.

In this role, you will:

Develop strategic plans and vision (40%)

• Collaborate with the Greenhouse General Manager and other key stakeholders to identify and prioritize high-impact opportunities within the educational landscape that will drive significant change and advance educational equity and access

• Conduct comprehensive discovery research and analysis to understand user needs, key trends, and the educational landscape, ensuring a user-first approach to create a detailed product roadmap

• Establish processes and timelines to evaluate ideas, determine viability, and iteratively test and scale new programs and services

• Determine quarterly and annual performance metrics through which to evaluate the product/program development cycle and employee performance and progress

Lead Product Development (40%)

• Spearhead the ideation, design, and development of the new product from concept to launch, ensuring alignment with College Board’s mission

• Foster collaboration with cro