Director, Insights

Job Title: Director, Insights.

Team: Insights

Location: Hybrid in Chicago (IL) preferred, Atlanta (GA), Newark (NJ)

Employment Type: Full-time

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, Insights who will lead critical aspects of our organization’s data strategy and drive our organizational efforts to maximize the power of our data and insights. This role requires a visionary leader who has deep technical expertise and a passion for leveraging data to create social impact.

This role is on the Strategy team and reports directly to the VP, Insights.

What You’ll Do

Data Strategy and Governance (35%)

• Develop, recommend and implement a comprehensive data strategy that aligns with the organization’s mission and goals and meets the needs of key stakeholders. This includes:

• Partnering with other teams at Braven (e.g., Research, Design, External Affairs) to articulate what data we need to collect
• Centralizing and automating data collection methods in partnership with the Systems team
• Identifying and incorporating relevant external data sources
• Collaborating with the Systems team to ensure seamless data flow between systems and applications via scalable ETL pipelines and data infrastructure
• Overseeing the buildout of Braven’s suite of organizational Tableau dashboards based on a thorough understanding of stakeholder needs and expected behaviors
• Own the partnership with Braven’s Data Engineering & Salesforce teams to ensure that business needs are clear and are accurately translated into technical requirements. Ensure that the right work is prioritized and completed
• Implement and monitor data management and data governance practices to maintain high standards of data accuracy and accessibility
• Promote a data-driven culture by advocating for data-informed decision-making across all levels of the organization

Strategic Project Ownership & Stakeholder Management (35%)

• Independently design and lead high-stakes projects from conception through execution to support the execution of Braven strategy and improvement of Braven programming and services. Examples may include:
• Proactively identifying opportunities where data and analysis can add value to the organization
• Performing analysis to support multiyear strategic planning and large gift applications
• Performing analysis on staff hiring and retention for the People team
• Independently own and build relationships with key stakeholders across Braven (e.g., Executive Directors, C-Suite, One Braven leadership body) to define business questions and deliver insights that drive decision-making
• Communicate findings and recommendations effectively through reports, presentations, and storytelling tailored to organizational leadership, the board of directors, and external stakeholders, as needed

Advanced Analytics and Data Science (20%)

• In support of Braven’s research agenda and in close partnership with the Braven’s Research team, perform advanced analytics on large, complex datasets to identify trends, patterns, and relationships
• Apply data mining techniques to extract actionable insights from structured and unstructured data
• Develop, deploy, and optimize predictive models using machine learning algorithms (e.g., clustering, classification, regression)

Organizational Leadership (10%)

• Lead the Data Governance Council in partnership with the Systems team at Braven to enforce data governance policies
• Serve on other priority-driven strategic councils and working groups as needed
• Drive the development and adoption of analytical best practices across the organization
• Contribute to internal training initiatives to increase staff dat