Director, Workforce Intermediary

Description

Background:

Tulsa Innovation Labs LLC (TIL) is a tech-led economic development organization headquartered in Tulsa, OK pioneered by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. The organization is responsible for catalyzing Tulsa’s leadership in advanced industries such as energy tech, advanced air mobility, virtual health, and cyber. We believe that by building a world-class tech hub in America’s heartland, we unlock opportunity for all.

The organization was founded in January 2020 and has already experienced significant momentum including its $38.2M Build Back Better Regional Challenge win and EDA Tech Hubs Designation that includes a $51M implementation award. Now, TIL is emerging from startup-phase and has established itself as a system hub and community leader, requiring additional emphasis on scaling-up operations and organizational capacity.

Position Summary:

The Director of Workforce Intermediary is responsible for mobilizing labor market stakeholders including employers, individual workers, government officials, and education, training, and other service providers in order to improve outcomes for employers and residents. 

This position is essential to the success of our Tech Hubs strategy, focusing on educational initiatives from K-12 to career transitions. The ideal candidate is a communicative and collaborative leader, capable of fostering team cohesion and a positive culture across our various stakeholders. The ideal candidate will possess a strong understanding of workforce innovation, with a focus on retention and the effective utilization of public and private funding to implement growth strategies and systems-level change.

Responsibilities / Essential Job Function:

The following functions represent the majority of the duties performed by the position. The description is not meant to be all-inclusive or prevent other duties from being assigned when necessary: 

• Build and maintain executive relationships with critical regional employers and workforce partners for the purpose of building an advisory board for the Workforce Intermediary function
• Collaborate with Marketing & Communications team to devise promotional campaigns that increase community awareness of advanced industries and careers therein
• Lead quarterly convenings of industry, education, non-profit, government, and workforce partners quarterly to discuss findings from LMO, data linking project, and industry promotion efforts to drive alignment
• Identify, characterize, and engage resources that provide talent and workforce support
• Build, direct, and manage a workforce intermediary based on best practices from other communities across the nation
• Work collaboratively with partner organizations to develop and deploy the labor market observatory function to provide data inputs to the workforce intermediary’s core body of work 
• Develop, build and execute program framework and related application process for a K-12 opportunity fund to drive engagement across the region from K-12 institutions
• Leveraging expertise, provide workforce, education, and industry partners with guidance on alignment and strategies to engage with other Intermediary programs and participants
• Establish and oversee resource metrics related to effectiveness and make recommendations and updates to senior leadership and stakeholders, using tools and support from the operations team
• Iteratively adjust and improve program effectiveness based on evolved information and learnings during implementation of initiatives
• Seek to create and strengthen relationships with our stakeholder communities
• Other duties as assigned

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree required; masters’ degree preferred.
• Minimum 10 years relevant work experience in workforce and talent support with a focus on program planning, business operations, and project management
• Demonstrated experience in securing funding for startup and scaleup enterprises and initiatives
• Demonstrated experience in providing and securing support for entrepreneurial initiatives
• Prior success building and developing a team
• Strong analytical and project management skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects and collaborate with team members
• Experience researching and analyzing innovation ecosystems and emerging tech fields
• Prior effective results designing and managing complex projects involving cross-sector stakeholders
• Strong interest in discourse around energy technology, startups, entrepreneurship, corporate innovation, and venture capital
• Existing network