Director, Academic Success

Job Title: Director, Academic Success

Team: Innovation Team

Location: Hybrid in Chicago, IL, Atlanta, GA, or Newark, NJ

Employment Type: Full-time

Start Date: July 2025

About Braven

Braven is a national nonprofit that prepares promising college students to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation through a career-accelerating program.

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, our ambition is to help rebuild the middle class and revitalize the American Dream.

To learn more, take a look at Braven’s Jobs Report.

About the Role

Braven is scaling rapidly to achieve its ambition of serving 80,000-100,000 Fellows over the next decade, and with that growth comes an exciting opportunity to strengthen our impact on student outcomes across the country. We’re hiring a mission-driven, results-oriented Director, Academic Success to lead a team responsible for ensuring college students enrolled in our course not only stay on track, but thrive.

In this role, you’ll oversee a team of 5-7 Managers of Student Success who lead the Braven Leadership & Career Accelerator (“Accelerator”) course across multiple higher education partners and who are responsible for grading, academic interventions, and managing volunteers. You’ll coach your team to analyze student data, implement targeted supports, and ensure every Fellow receives the feedback and scaffolding they need to succeed. You’ll also build the systems, tools, and learning experiences that enable consistent, high-quality execution across campuses, all while collaborating with cross-functional teams to elevate academic integrity and student achievement.

This is an ideal role for someone who thrives at the intersection of instructional leadership, operational execution, and student impact, and who is eager to shape the future of a growing national program.

This role is on the Innovation team and reports directly to the Managing Director of the Central Accelerator.

What You’ll Do 

Team Culture and Empowerment (30%)

• Manage, develop, coach, and empower Managers of Program Success across five steady-state higher education partnership sites
• Cultivate a culture of belonging, results orientation, curiosity, continuous improvement, and collaboration to drive program outcomes and a strong staff experience in line with Braven’s core values and core competencies
• Ensure your teammates have the right mindsets, collaboration structures, data review protocols, and student intervention strategies to drive outcomes with fidelity 

Program Oversight, Data Monitoring, Continuous Improvement (30%)

• Be accountable for student grades and course outcomes
• Develop processes to monitor student outcomes and grader management across all five sites, and support teammates to curate the right strategies and tactics to meet goals and sustain relationships with critical stakeholders
• Deeply understand the idiosyncrasies, policies, norms, and preferences of the campuses and regional teams’ Professor of Record appointed to the course
• Problem-solve issues that arise at each site, balancing student outcomes, customer service orientation, and the needs and interests of our regional teams on whose behalf we deliver the course
• In collaboration with the Product and Tech teams, build the requisite tools, processes, and systems to ensure quality execution of student intervention at scale across campuses
• Lead regular student performance reviews with Managers of Program Success, analyzing trends and developing intervention plans for students at risk of disengagement

Learning and Development for Grader Management and Data Fluency (30%)

• Build re-usable Learning and Development for Managers of Program Success to introduce, reinforce, and develop the right mindsets, skills, competencies, and practices to drive strong student outcomes 
• Establish a knowledge-sharing system for Managers of Program Success to document and exchange effective practices, case studies, and lessons learned.

Program Delivery Collaboration (10%)

• Ensure the Managing Director of Central Accelerator is equipped with org-wide trends, bright spots, and red flags in the world of Accelerator outcomes
• Advocate to and collaborate with other central teams to improve the entire program delivery apparatus and enable sustained success at scale through collaboration 
• Internalize the functions and goals of other teams and proactively communicate across teams to ensure you are equipping them to succeed
• Work with peers and the Managing Director to assess overall program outcomes and make decisions that optimize program quality, drive participant impact, and fidelity to achieve organizational outcomes
• Other duties as assigned

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelors Degree
• 5+ years of relevant work experience, including at least 2 years of staff management experience
• Proven leadership in multi-site or remote team management, with an ability to lead a distributed team across different universities and Braven hub offices
• Previous teaching experience and/or experience coaching professionals in an educational setting
• Skilled in quantitative analysis (reporting, forecasting), planning, and project management.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in higher education or working with university faculty and staff, ensuring alignment with institutional policies
• Experience implementing systems and ability to proactively identify need, think through options and intervene when necessary
• Exceptional communication, presentation and interpersonal skills and the ability to establish and maintain effective and collaborative working relationships with a wide range of people and personality types
• Proven ability to motivate and engender buy-in regarding programmatic outcomes
• A strong preference for experience working with historically under-served youth and under-resourced communities
• Ability to operate within a defined system or model, yet demonstrate appropriate problem-solving skills and creativity
• Demonstrated commitment to building strong and welcoming cultures that help to develop others
• Exemplification of Braven’s core values.
• Experience that has informed your belief in Braven’s mission and have prepared you to work with, or for, Braven’s student Fellow population.

Please know that no one ever meets 100% of the preferred qualifications. If much of this describes you, we encourage you to apply.

Work Demands

• Ability to work in-person in Chicago, IL or Newark, NJ, at least 3 days per week
• Travel up to 3-4 times a semester 
• Availability up to 3 evenings/week to support live programming.

Additional Requirements

• Authorized to work in the U.S.
• Braven doesn’t offer employment visa sponsorship

Application & Interview Process

While the interview process may vary slightly, the general process will be:

• Phone screen with Talent Team member
• Performance Task
• Interview with Hiring Manager
• Panel Interview with Key Partners
• Reference Checks

Compensation and Benefits

The salary for this position, which depends on prior work experience and our assessment of your demonstrated fit for the role, will likely be between $83,000-$103,700 in Chicago, IL or $91,300-$114,100 in Newark,NJ . This is a full-time regular, exempt, and benefits eligible position where you will be working at 100% capacity. Braven offers competitive base salaries based on the midpoint of the market among not-for-profit organizations of similar size, with opportunities for salary growth over time. We believe in compensating staff members fairly in relation to each other, their qualifications, and their impact on behalf of the organization, and take internal and external equity seriously. Given our commitment to equity, Braven does not negotiate salary offers; instead each salary offer is determined carefully using external and internal benchmarking. You will have an opportunity to discuss salary in more detail after you begin the application process.

Braven also provides competitive, comprehensive benefits, recognition, and career development. While Braven reserves the right to change benefits at any time, current benefits include: 

• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (this is a minimum of 19 days per year)
• Match of your 401K contribution up to 5% of your base annual salary, starting your first full month
• Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium for employee and dependents
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• A one-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff

Location

We gather in the office 3 days a week (Tuesday through Thursday) and work remotely 2 days a week (Monday and Friday). Therefore, this role requires teammates to live within commuting distance of one of our hubs: Chicago or Newark. We believe in the magic, connection, and collaboration that happens when people work together face-to-face, and we believe in giving people flexibility to focus, balance personal priorities, and save themselves two commutes per week.

Braven is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected factor.  We encourage talented individuals of all backgrounds to apply.