Senior Director, Quality Coaching – Technology Innovation and Impact
Strada Education Foundation · Washington, District of Columbia, United States · hybrid
USD 143,800 to 168,250 · period not stated
Full-time | Washington, DC | Reports to the Senior Vice President, Quality Coaching | Travel: 15–20%
Lead how technology can strengthen human-connected coaching
Strada Education Foundation's Quality Coaching team is working to expand access to quality education-to-career coaching. Its work is organized around three change drivers: Transition Coaching, strengthening guidance as learners move from high school into postsecondary education and employment; Postsecondary Education Quality Coaching, strengthening coaching within postsecondary institutions; and Statewide Quality Coaching Models, helping states expand access to quality coaching at scale.
Strada's Principles for Quality Education-to-Career Guidance emphasize outcomes, student agency, universal access, relationships, and the use of data and evidence. New technologies like AI offer cross-cutting capabilities that can strengthen these principles by expanding access and personalization, improving the use of labor market and outcomes information, and augmenting – rather than replacing – the human relationships central to quality coaching.
We are looking for a Senior Director who will lead Quality Coaching's Technology Innovation portfolio, building on Strada's existing research, investments, and partnerships to advance human-centered technology that augments human-connected coaching. The portfolio focuses on three key questions: (1) where and how technology can most effectively augment career coaching; (2) what quality standards and benchmarks should guide career navigation tools; and (3) what data systems and infrastructure are needed to support quality coaching at scale.
As a member of the Quality Coaching leadership team, you will also strengthen the entire portfolio by overseeing the team's Project Manager and providing strategic oversight for grants, impact measurement and learning, and teamwide project management. You will bring rigorous analysis, synthesis, and judgment to complex strategic questions and help translate strategy, evidence, and innovation into measurable impact.
What You'll Do
Lead Technology Innovation Strategy and Portfolio (60%) You'll develop and lead the strategy and portfolio that helps scale Quality Coaching's three change drivers. That means:
Develop and lead Quality Coaching's Technology Innovation strategy and portfolio, defining priorities and use cases, investments, partnerships, measures of success, and other pathways to scale.
Advance the Technology Innovation learning agenda by building evidence and actionable guidance about how technology can augment human-connected coaching and career navigation.
Determine the quality standards and technical benchmarks that should guide technology-enabled career coaching tools.
Understand the systems, data infrastructure, and appropriate roles for AI needed to support quality coaching at scale.
Assess the career navigation technology ecosystem and identify promising solutions, capabilities, gaps, and emerging opportunities, to help Strada determine whether to partner, invest, or discontinue approaches.
Translate research, investments, pilots, and field learning into practical frameworks and scalable approaches that help states, institutions, schools, and coaching organizations responsibly adopt and integrate human-centered technology.
Serve as Strada's Quality Coaching subject-matter leader on technology and AI, partnering across other departments (Research, Strategy & Innovation, and Impact Investments) and with external partners to advance shared opportunities.
Collaborate with Strada's Learner Engagement team to incorporate what students are saying about their lived experiences into the design, evaluation, and continuous improvement of tech-enabled coaching approaches.
Provide Strategic Analysis, Synthesis and Cross-Team Leadership (15%) Strong strategy depends on clear thinking and trusted relationships. You will:
Independently frame and analyze complex strategic questions, drawing on research, data, portfolio learning, and partner perspectives to identify patterns, risks, opportunities, and next steps.
Synthesize complex and incomplete information, shape initial responses to cross-functional and organizational requests, and drive issues toward resolution through clear options, tradeoffs, and decision-ready recommendations for the SVP, Quality Coaching and other senior leaders.
Contribute as a member of the Quality Coaching leadership team, identifying connections across the three change drivers and leading cross-functional priorities through influence, clear decision-making, and accountability.
Represent Strada with researchers, funders, policymakers, education leaders, and technology providers to share relevant learning through presentations, publications, partnerships, and convenings.
Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives through influence, establishing clear roles, decision rights, and accountability across internal and external partners.
Advance Impact, Evidence and Portfolio Execution (15%) You'll help make sure good ideas turn into measurable results. You will:
Provide strategic oversight for Quality Coaching's grants, contracts, and impact investments, working with cross-functional partners to strengthen portfolio coherence, grant development, implementation, learning, and decision-making.
Coordinate Quality Coaching's approach to impact measurement and learning, partnering with Research and initiative leaders to establish clear outcomes, learning questions, measures of success, and evidence-building approaches and to translate findings into decisions.
Manage and develop the Project Manager, Quality Coaching, providing strategic direction for teamwide project and portfolio management, annual planning, progress monitoring, grants coordination, budgets, and other operating systems.
Provide light-touch project management leadership across Quality Coaching, ensuring visibility into major priorities, deliverables, dependencies, risks, resource needs, and decision points while maintaining clear accountability with initiative leaders for substantive strategy and results.
Strengthen connections across the Quality Coaching portfolio by identifying patterns, shared learning, and opportunities that can improve execution and impact across initiatives.
Support Organizational Health and Culture (10%)
Serve as an integrator across Quality Coaching, connecting perspectives and work across initiative leaders and coordinating strategic follow-through on shared priorities.
Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing team culture grounded in Strada's board-approved principles, valued behaviors, and ways of working.
Contribute to Quality Coaching and organization-wide efforts to strengthen organizational health, employee engagement, collaboration, inclusion, belonging, and continuous improvement.
Support the development and success of colleagues through coaching, feedback, and knowledge sharing while contributing to shared accountability and collective success.
What Success Looks Like in Your First Year
You are advancing a coherent Technology Innovation strategy and portfolio across Quality Coaching's three change drivers, with clear priorities, use cases, intended outcomes, and pathways for testing, learning, adoption, and scale
You have generated actionable frameworks and insights addressing how technology augments human-connected coaching, quality standards and technical benchmarks for career navigation tools, and the systems, data infrastructure, and interoperability needed to support quality coaching at scale
You have strengthened impact measurement and learning across Quality Coaching through clearer outcomes, learning questions, measures of success, and synthesis of evidence to inform strategy, investment, adaptation, and scale
You have established effective oversight of Quality Coaching's grants and portfolio management, with clear visibility into major investments, priorities, deliverables, risks, dependencie