Director, Operations and Systems Management

Job Title: Director, Operations and Systems Management

Team: External Affairs

Location: Hybrid in Chicago

Employment Type: Full-time

FLSA Classification:  Exempt

Start Date: ASAP

About Braven

Braven is a career-accelerating program that prepares promising young people—many of whom are people of color, from low income backgrounds, and the first in their families to attend college—to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation. 

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, we are helping to open up access to the American Promise, empowering a generation of leaders who mirror the diversity of our country.

To learn more, take a look at Braven’s Impact Report and 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, Operations and Systems Management who will build top-notch planning and systems, create the foundations for effective internal cross team partnerships, and ideate through the arcs of impactful learning and development. You will be a critical player in building joy and efficacy as the External Affairs team works to achieve an ambitious three-year scale (serve ~10,000+ new Fellows over the next three years), revenue ($~130M over three years), partnership (~2-4 new university partnerships per year / 15-30 new employer partnerships per year), and brand (become the thought leader in the college to career space) goals. In this role, you will support the External Affairs team, creating efficiencies across streams.  You are a leader in your own right and, importantly, enjoy operational excellence and excelling in work mostly behind the scenes.

This role is on the External Affairs team and reports directly to the Chief External Affairs Officer.

What You’ll Do 

 External Affairs (EA) Team Operations (50%)

• Create processes for team planning from annual External Affairs goal setting, to quarterly goal setting, to weekly tacticals and ad hoc strategy calls
• Develop agendas for External Affairs team retreats as well as moments where EA presents significant content to other members of the Braven staff (i.e. all team retreats, EA-regional retreats, etc)
• In full partnership with People & Operations team, create a streamlined process and approach for External Affairs led Learning and & Development for regions, and new External Affairs hires (e.g. leading fundraising training for Executive Directors in regions) 
• Define how we partner effectively with regional teams from developing and revising our annual approach to stream-by-stream gameplans, regional / central EA meeting structure, service level agreements, change management associated with operating model shifts that impact our regional relationships
• Operate as the External Affairs team Salesforce project manager, creating an aligned strategy and the corresponding processes to ensure streamlined and accurate record keeping, and auditing Salesforce for quality control as needed

Cross-Functional Project Management (45%)

• Collaborate with the Coordinator, External Affairs Operations to manage processes for cross-functional campaigns such as 1) annual holiday mailings to supporters, 2) annual jobs and impact report printing, release, and personalized email campaign, 3) Giving Tuesday campaign, and 4) large stakeholder events like the annual summit 5) migration to Jira and other platforms as needed
• Build best-in-class resources for attending conferences such as creating a plan for cultivating relationships at each conference to ensure the External Affairs team is maximizing opportunities at and around conferences
• Develop, manage, and continually update a scope & sequence of conferences and convenings, identifying who should attend and/or present, supporting outreach to external stakeholders who attend, ensuring proposals for speaking opportunities are submitted on time, registration deadlines are met, and learnings are captured and implemented

Other (5%)

• Other duties as assigned

Requirements

Minimum Requirements

• BA or equivalent degree 
• Minimum 5  years experience managing complex projects across workstreams and teams with a proven track record of results
• Minimum 1 year of Salesforce or equivalent CRM experience

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experienced system b