We believe the effort for educational justice will be comprised of many local movements. Thriving local movements require grounded, deeply rooted, and empowered local teams and leaders. At Teach For America, we seek to empower our Executive Directors and teams to lead with an ethos that reflects deep partnership, understanding of their community, conviction and clarity on the implications of TFA’s unique contribution to realize the theory of change within each community, and an orientation towards constant learning.
With an aim toward delivering on Teach For America’s mission and breakthrough results in every region in their portfolio, the Regional Field Executive will use a blend of executive management and coaching, direct engagement with local communities, and partnership with local board chairs to build the capacity of their Executive Directors (and by extension their regional leadership teams). The Regional Field Executive will also work with a chief of staff and a cabinet of national partners to maximize learnings from our regions across the country. This new team member will join three other Regional Field Executives on the “Regional Ops” team who support TFA regions across the country. They will report to the Chief Operating Officer, Susan Asiyanbi.
The Senior Vice President, Regional Field Executive’s responsibilities include:
- Support a team of 12-15 Executive Directors to develop the leadership capacity of EDs, their teams, and their boards to realize local visions and breakthrough results
- Support change management during a major organization shift as our regions and national organization move toward operating as a learning organization
- Balance specific goals with long-term capacity development
- Coach Executive Directors, through situational leadership, to achieve their goals for our teachers’ effectiveness, alumni impact, staff development, fundraising, diversity and inclusiveness, culture and community, etc.
- Understand the needs of each region’s Executive Director, regional leadership team, and regional board in order for the region to thrive. Then, build and execute a plan alongside the Executive Director to support that progress
- Blend executive management, coaching, and macro-level strategy development to create a strong system of TFA regions with an affiliation to ONETFA
- Minimum 8-10 years professional work experience preferred, but not required
- A track record of exceptional coaching and management of a large and diverse team of executives
- A history of operating in the spirit of our Commitment to Diversity, and a strong understanding of the dynamics of race and class in America
- Experience getting results in complex environments when the stakes are high
- Exceptional management and coaching abilities, in particular: situational leadership, an asset-based approach to people support and strong executive coaching skills
- Cultural and Org-wide Leadership: a pattern of modeling a set of values for others through self-reflection, curiosity and exploration, and an ability to connect and empathize with people, and an orientation towards responsibility for the collective organization
- Strategic vision: The ability to identify key issues in complex educational, political and cultural dynamics, and then chart out potential paths forward
- An ability to lead with a commitment to the many dimensions of identity shared by our students and community members, including (but absolutely not limited to) race, income background, sexual orientation, language, gender expression, religion, and ability
- Vision and Results Orientation: an ability to understand the landscape, co-create a shared bold narrative and a theory of action to realize ambitious outcomes
- An interest in how social justice movements work, and a desire to join the broader efforts to pursue educational excellence and opportunity for all is a pre-requisite
Work Demands
- Because our work is community and classroom-based, it is important that the Regional Field Executive spends time with their teams and community partners to ground themselves in the context. Additionally, the Regional Field Executive will represent our regional teams in internal and external conferences. The nature of travel ebbs and flows dependent on the time of year and needs of the Executives across the portfolio (balancing remote coaching and/or being in the field alongside the Executive Director).
- Ability to travel 30-50% of time