Founded on the belief in the potential of all children and their right to an excellent education, Teach For America’s reach and impact have increased significantly in the last 28 years. In 1990, we placed 489 corps members in 6 regions. This year, our diverse network of 62,000 corps members and alumni are working toward educational equity in more than 50 communities across the country.
In February 2021, Teach For America will convene ~10,000 alumni, corps members, staff, students and partners to rally our community around the need and possibility for bold, systems- and community-level progress and to inspire each other to lead in new ways in order to achieve it. In planning the 30th Anniversary Summit we will draw lessons from previous five-year anniversary summits, but this event will be different. It will serve as a catalyst for a new era of our work, one with an increased priority on accelerating the impact of our alumni in order to ensure vastly better outcomes for children in communities across the country.
As Vice President, 30th Anniversary Summit, you will lead the design, planning and execution of this incredibly critical and pivotal event. In so doing, you will have the chance to consult leading thinkers, researchers and experts; collaborate with leaders from within and outside of our community; and build and empower a team of event design and operations staff. Ultimately, you will help set a new course for our work, ensuring that 10,000 members of our community leave feeling even more hopeful and urgent about achieving One Day and inspired to think and act in new ways to make much greater progress in the decade ahead.
The ideal candidate for this role will be motivated by the opportunity to shape the experience of the Teach For America community at this critical juncture. The VP, 30th Anniversary Summit (30AS) will:
- Lead stakeholder involvement in the planning for the 30AS, including alumni, students, corps members, organizational leaders, staff, and external constituents (30%)
- Manage and empower a 3-4 person team of event design and operations experts to ensure the event achieves its purpose and goals (40%)
- Oversee (and in some cases perform) project management to ensure all aspects of the effort are moving forward successfully and there is tight coordination with other organizational initiatives and activities as needed (10%)
- Design and implement an effective budget strategy that optimizes opportunities for earned revenue to ensure the event is affordable and delivers a strong return on investment (10%)
- Manage conference planning vendors, event vendors and other partners to ensure a well-integrated operation leading to and during the 30AS (10%)
- Experience successfully leading diverse teams to set and achieve ambitious goals in the context of complex, multi-layered projects
- Exceptional management skills, specifically a track record of leading diverse teams to set and achieve ambitious goals in the context of complex, multi-layered projects
- Knowledge of the education and education policy landscape, including the influential leaders and thinking currently shaping it
- Superior strategic skills necessary for setting vision and direction for an event of this scale
- Entrepreneurial and self-starter mindset
- Superior communication and relationship-building skills, including an ability to invest, influence and align senior leaders and stakeholders with diverse interests and ideas
- An ability to lead (and thrive) in environments of change, ambiguity and uncertainty, demonstrating the sound judgment, flexibility, resourcefulness and maturity necessary
- Deep belief in our mission and core values and demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion
- It is preferred, though not required, that the person in this role have previous experience with any or all of the following: human-centered design practices preferred, collective leadership approaches, large-scale event planning
Work Demands
- Ability to travel for team meetings, design sessions and other organizational engagements 2-3 times per quarter
- Ability to travel for extended periods of time, including over weekends, especially to D.C. and as the Summit nears
- Ability to work long hours on the weeks and days leading to the Summit and during critical sprints of planning and execution