Chief Strategy Officer & Chief of Staff

Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Of Staff

One Million Degrees (OMD) seeks a strategic, data-informed, operationally experienced, and innovative Chief Strategy Officer & Chief of Staff (CSO / CoS) to serve as a strategic partner to the CEO and executive leadership team in shaping and advancing organizational strategy. This individual will lead strategy development and execution oversight while also managing key cross-functional initiatives, organizational data analytics, executive communications, and board engagement. The CSO / CoS will play a pivotal role in aligning the organization's vision with actionable plans, while fostering a culture of equity, excellence, innovation, and belonging, and ensuring that leadership priorities are effectively implemented. Collectively, this work will ensure the organization is positioned to meet growing needs, expand its reach, and deepen its impact on scholars' economic mobility nationwide.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned leader who thrives in fast-paced environments, embraces change, and brings a strategic mindset to scaling organizations. Grounded in OMD's commitment to social and racial justice, the CSO / CoS will lead with vision, collaboration, and integrity, building on OMD's strong history while partnering with the CEO to set the vision to dramatically scale OMD's impact. This is a unique opportunity for an accomplished, strategic executive leader to join a mission-driven, rapidly scaling organization and help transform the lives of students nationwide.

Specific duties and responsibilities include :

Strategic Planning & Execution :

Lead the development and execution of the organization's long-term strategic plan, in close collaboration with the leadership team, board, and staff. Lead the annual planning process to guide the leadership team to translate long-term vision and strategy into near-term measurable strategic priorities, performance targets, and operating plans. Facilitate management routines across the leadership team to ensure robust shared planning, progress monitoring, learning, continuous improvement, and innovation. Conduct market, policy, and impact analyses to inform strategic decisions, keeping an eye on relevant external trends and their potential implications for OMD. Identify opportunities for innovation, partnerships, and growth in collaboration with leadership team. Identify and mitigate strategic risks that could impact the organization's ability to achieve its goals.

Performance Measurement and Strategic Data Analytics :

Guide organizational data analytics team to meet planned and ad hoc data needs of the organization, maximizing use of our analytics resources. Establish and monitor metrics across departments, programs, and initiatives to measure the effectiveness of key strategies and overall organizational progress, ensuring a robust set of summative indicators to allow for quarterly, semesterly, and annual evaluation and reflective planning, as well as early indicators to monitor progress and inform action daily, weekly and monthly. Build dashboards, tracking systems, and expectations to support formative and summative data-informed practice, including team-wide data-informed learning and continuous improvement planning routines. Manage external partnerships that support research and evaluation regarding OMD's work as we advance our efforts as an externally validated, research-backed nonprofit organization locally and nationally. Determine optimal use of internal vs. external analytics and evaluation resources. Partner with CEO and Program team to develop innovative data tools to serve as foundational infrastructure products in our work with college partners.

Board Engagement :

Lead quarterly board meeting planning, partnering with CEO and board leadership to define meeting objectives and agendas. Ensure high standards in executive leadership team preparation for all board materials and agenda items, effective executive leadership team management of board committee meetings, and effective communications with the board before and after quarterly board meetings. Ensure strong knowledge management and document retention for all board meetings. Partner with CEO, board leadership, board governance committee, and Chief Advancement Officer to develop future vision of the board to support OMD's rapid expansion.

Leadership Team Effectiveness :

Serve as strategic advisor to the CEO. Organize recurring leadership team meetings, in collaboration with CEO. Oversee monthly and quarterly all-staff meetings, in collaboration with CEO and Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives. Ensure coordination across leadership team members to meet organizational objectives. Ensure success of executive office manager, and partner with Chief Finance & Operations Officer to ensure in-person office operations meet organizational needs.

Organizational Engagement and Culture :

Guide Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives to develop and execute a staff engagement strategy that fosters culture that balances rigor, seriousness, and excellence with joy, celebration, and belonging. Co-create and implement an organization-wide culture strategy that reinforces OMD's core values, strengthens leadership practices, deepens team alignment, and celebrates staff contributions across roles. Guide development and execution of organizational diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility (DEIA) and racial equity plans, in collaboration with our Equity Council and staff across OMD. Lead and develop a high-functioning team that embodies a culture of service excellence and achieves performance expectations.

Drive Key Organization-Wide Strategic Initiatives :

Support the CEO in overseeing a range of strategic priorities to advance OMD's mission and organizational strength. Supervise Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives, who leads organization strategic priorities including organizational engagement and culture development; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives; and advancing an organization-wide learning agenda to ensure the organization promotes a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and knowledge sharing. Support leaders throughout the organization on inter-departmental initiatives while developing consultative working relationships. Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications and Requirements :

Bachelor's degree required, and Master's degree preferred in business, education, or related field.

Proven experience as a Chief of Staff, Chief Strategy Officer, or senior strategy leader in a nonprofit or mission-driven organization, and 7+ years of management experience.

Strong strategic thinking skills, deep experience leading strategic planning in large and complex organizations, and adept at setting long-term goals, forecasting future needs, and navigating ambiguity.

Demonstrated experience overseeing organization-wide strategy execution, translating multi-year and annual plans into near-term implementation milestones, and facilitating progress monitoring and continuous improvement routines to ensure success.

Strong analytical skills; experience supervising analytic staff and guiding teams in data strategy and data-informed practice, and in using data to drive continuous improvement and guide organizational decision-making.

Creative problem solver who can simplify complexity and overcome obstacles to achieve goals.

Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to adapt strategies as the organization grows.

Exceptional project management skills, with the ability to shape and guide complex initiatives from design to execution while keeping stakeholders aligned; Balances collaboration with decisiveness to drive progress efficiently.

Experience working closely with a Board of Directors and shaping board engagement efforts.

Budget management experience.

Exceptional team leadership abilities; a skilled coach and facilitator who develops high-performing, mission-driven teams.

Strong collaborative spirit, embodying a team player and enterprise success-focused mindset, and the ability to build trust and work across functional teams to achieve organizational goals.

Strong communication skills and executive presence with diverse internal and external audiences.

Maintains clarity and composure in high-stakes moments, and demonstrates political astuteness and the judgment needed to manage complexity.

Demonstrated success in organizational engagement, culture building, and leading change.

Demonstrated experience leading organizational equity initiatives, and champions diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging in organizational practice and culture.

Leads with empathy, respect, integrity, and authenticity.

Passionate about OMD's mission to advance economic mobility, and motivated to address systemic inequities and support student success.

Compensation & Benefits :

Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $175,000 - $200,000 plus annual bonus eligibility.

Full Health Benefits Provided for all full-time employees, including medical, dental, and vision. OMD pays 100% of individual's basic monthly health premium and 80% dependent coverage.

Employee assistance program, which offers confidential emotional support, work-life solutions, legal guidance, financial resources, and more.

Retirement Benefits For full-time employees, OMD matches retirement contributions up to 4% of total salary.

Generous Paid Time Off Policy OMD has 12 paid holidays and offers up to 15 days PTO in year one; in addition to two weeks paid time off for winter break.