Senior Program Manager

Senior Program Manager

Fully Onsite/In Person

Anticipated deadline to submit application: Wednesday November 19, 2025 at 12:00pm CST . Position may close early if application limit is met. Apply promptly for full consideration

The Opportunity

This position oversees the daily operations of a local site’s vocational program, ensuring fidelity to the program model and focus on continuous improvement. Includes leading the local team to meet program milestones, recruit participants and support participant progress, and manage participant-related data to inform decisions and achieve impact.

Develops and trains team members to best support participants and manages the vocational portion of the site’s budget. Collaborates with local Social Enterprise leadership and team to support participants through transitional job training and workforce development.

As part of our mission, we strongly encourage individuals who have lived experience of incarceration or involvement in the justice system to apply for this role.

Who We Are

The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) provides employment services to people recently released from incarceration. Across the United States, 8,000-9,000 people participate in CEO each year, transitioning to employment that supports themselves, their families, and their communities.

What began as a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in the 1970s to address employment barriers facing the formerly incarcerated following release in New York City has grown into the leading reentry employment organization in the country, where over 30,000 formerly incarcerated individuals have secured full-time employment since 1996.

What You’ll Be Responsible For:

Program Operations

• Manage daily vocational operations at the local site and delivery of vocational services to participants, ensuring effectiveness of vocational model delivery
• Support and enhance the participant experience
• Collaborate with the Social Enterprise team including local Site Supervisors and Social Enterprise leadership to maintain cohesion and communication between teams in delivering services to participants
• Monitor and manage overall office administration, collaborating with internal teams to ensure CEO procedures and policies are implemented effectively and with fidelity 
• Maintain relationships with local parole and probation bureaus, district attorney offices, and other program referral sources
• Collaborate and support CEO’s Participant Resources department with building strategic partnerships and referral relationships with local organizations that provide holistic and complementary services for participants, such as housing, substance abuse, etc. 
• Troubleshoot incidents and challenges that arise, working in concert with CEO’s safety, Employee Experience, and Legal teams
• As needed, support CEO’s regional contracts team with data tracking and reporting
• Manage and ensure adherence to local site’s vocational budget including SNAP and other performance based outcomes, staff related costs, and vocational OTPS
• As needed, provide local presence and manage relationships with other community organizations in the reentry space
• Provide support as needed to CEO’s regional Investment and/or fundraising teams 

Program Performance

• Monitor and supervise site and team progress and effectiveness, ensuring compliance with all organizational policies and procedures
• Manage team in usage of CEO’s client relationship management system (CRM) to organize information, perform forecasting, and measure the performance of programming
• Evaluate the performance of all vocational program services and recommend areas to improve on an ongoing basis
• Manage the recording and tracking of data required by program management, grant contractors, and foundations by monitoring enrollment, case files, placement, and retention metrics 

Team Management Support

• Hire, supervise, and support a diverse, high-performing local team to serve participants and achieve our local program outcomes 
• Ensure ongoing engagement in learning on specific areas of program delivery, supporting staff in obtaining the necessary resources and training needed to successfully carry out CEO’s vision and mission 
• Build environment of collaboration, disciplined pursuit of goals, and inclusion by fostering communication, accountability,  and support across team members
• Coach and provide feedback to team members to drive employee performance, and support team in gaining access to resources in areas of individual and team development