Job Description

Head of Strategy, Impact & Transformation

The Head of Strategy, Impact, & Transformation is an integral part of the executive team, ensuring that KIPP DC's strategic plan translates from direction to results through disciplined execution, sound accountability infrastructure, and an organizational culture capable of sustaining transformation over time. The starting salary range for this role is $222,902-$256,869 This is a full-time role with occasional flexibility based at HDQ with an anticipated start date of August 1st.

About KIPP DC

For 25 years, KIPP DC has partnered with students, families, and the community to create joyful, academically excellent schools across the nation’s capital. Today, our network of 22 schools educate more than 7,500 students in grades PreK3-12, supported by 1,500 dedicated teachers, leaders, and staff.

Our work is grounded in five pillars–Academic Excellence, Joy & Sense of Belonging, Highly Effective Teachers and Leaders, Safe, Structured, and Nurturing Learning Environments, and Commitment to College Readiness–which ensure every student is equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to pursue success in college, careers, and beyond. Our schools combine high expectations with joyful, affirming environments that nurture academic success and personal growth for students and staff alike

As part of the national KIPP network, we share best practices and innovations while maintaining deep roots in Washington, D.C. Together, we strive toward a future without limits for our students, alumni, and community.

About the Team

The executive team is KIPP DC's senior leadership body, comprised of the school system's functional leaders who drive strategic direction, operational performance, and organizational health.

The Head of Strategy, Impact, and Transformation sits on the executive team and oversees a portfolio of functions that collectively own how KIPP DC measures progress, manages change, and builds organizational capability: accountability, equity and inclusion, and strategy and culture. These functions are the connective tissue of a high-performing school system.

Alongside this foundational work, the portfolio includes the direct programmatic functions responsible for measuring and deepening student impact, engaging families as essential partners in their children's education, and ensuring that every KIPP DC student develops the skills and confidence to pursue the path they choose — college, career, and beyond — and lead a fulfilling life in a more just world.

About the Role

The Head of Strategy, Impact, and Transformation serves as KIPP DC's senior executive accountable for making the school system's 2030 strategic plan executable and for building the organizational capabilities required to sustain improvement over time. This is a rare opportunity to shape a newly established portfolio at the cabinet level of a school system in the midst of a consequential transformation.

Location and Type of Work

Occasional flexibility (4 days per week onsite)

As a headquarters team that is focused on being responsive to our schools and meeting the needs of our students and families, we approach our work in a way that reflects these priorities. Schools operate in person and our students and families rely on us for in-person support, and this position will regularly provide on-site support to school teams, frequently partner with other headquarters teams, or regularly work in multiple locations.

Responsibilities
The percentages for each key responsibility are estimates, and other duties may be assigned. Flexibility and responsiveness are encouraged to accommodate organizational needs.

Enterprise strategy and execution (30% of time)

Lead KIPP DC's strategic planning and execution work, ensuring that the school system's priorities are coherent, sequenced, and translated into measurable results across all portfolios.

• Establish and maintain the systems and processes through which KIPP DC moves from strategic direction to execution, ensuring that portfolio priorities connect to enterprise commitments and that capacity planning is honest and coherent across the school system.
• Track strategic progress, surface misalignment between portfolio priorities and enterprise commitments, and bring timely, clear-eyed recommendations to the CEO before misalignment compounds.
• Evaluate proposed new initiatives against existing strategic commitments before resources are allocated, providing the CEO with an independent assessment of strategic fit, capacity impact, and sequencing risk.
• Ensure that the school system's operating rhythm — how leaders communicate, convene, and make decisions together — reinforces strategic direction and builds organizational coherence over time.
• Partner with the president & COO to ensure that budget alignment, headcount planning, and operational systems support strategic priorities.

Organizational transformation and change management (25%)

Build and lead KIPP DC's organizational change management function, ensuring that significant shifts in how the school system operates are managed with discipline and produce lasting results.

• Design and lead the school system's approach to change management, including the frameworks, systems, and practices that help the organization adopt new ways of working and sustain them over time.
• Build change leadership capability across the executive and senior leader levels, ensuring that leaders at every level of the school system can drive adoption within their portfolios.
• Monitor organizational culture as a strategic variable, identifying gaps between the culture the school system requires and the culture currently in practice, and leading efforts to close those gaps.
• Serve as the executive sponsor for cross-functional integration, ensuring that enterprise priorities receive coherent attention across portfolios and that coordination failures are surfaced and resolved.
• Ensure that organizational commitments made through planning and reconciliation processes are followed through, and that accountability for execution does not erode over time.

Accountability and impact infrastructure (20%)

Provide executive oversight of KIPP DC's risk, compliance, and impact measurement functions, ensuring that the school system has the infrastructure to know whether its work is producing results and to act when it is not.

• Provide executive leadership to the VP of accountability, who maintains a solid reporting relationship to both the Head of Strategy, Impact, and Transformation and the audit committee of the board of directors, with the audit committee relationship governing the independence of the compliance and internal audit functions.
• Oversee the development and management of an enterprise risk management framework that connects risk intelligence to organizational decision-making and supports timely, well-informed action.
• Ensure that KIPP DC's charter accountability infrastructure is operational, credible, and consistently applied, including the systems and relationships required to meet external accountability obligations.
• Own the measurement architecture that defines whether KIPP DC's work is producing results for students and families, ensuring that data informs organizational decision-making rather than accumulating in reports.
• Provide executive oversight of compliance, internal audit, policy, and risk management functions, ensuring they operate with appropriate independence, rigor, and relevance to the school system's strategic priorities.
• Advise the CEO and senior leaders on risk exposure, compliance obligations, and governance matters, providing frank assessments rather than reassurance.

Equity and inclusion strategy (15%)

Provide executive leadership of KIPP DC's equity and inclusion function, ensuring that equity is embedded in organizational systems, practices, and decision-making rather than operating as a standalone program.

• Provide direct management and strategic direction to the chief equity and inclusion officer, setting priorities for the function and holding it accountable for measurable progress against the school system's equity commitments.
• Ensure that equity and inclusion considerations are integrated into strategic planning, resource allocation, and enterprise reconciliation processes rather than addressed separately after core decisions have been made.
• Serve as the executive-level voice for equity and inclusion with the CEO and, as appropriate, the governing board, translating the function's work into honest assessments of system-wide progress and remaining gaps

Build and steward external relationships in service of the portfolio (10%)

Build and steward the relationships and external presence required to ensure that KIPP DC's strategy, accountability, and transformation work is credible, connected, and informed by the best thinking available.

• Ensure that the board of directors has access to the strategy, risk, and impact information required to fulfill its governance responsibilities, including supporting the work of the audit, governance, and school and community affairs committees as relevant to the SIT portfolio.
• Maintain the relationship with the audit committee of the board of directors, ensuring that the committee has the information, access, and independence required to fulfill its oversight responsibilities.
• Represent KIPP DC with external accountability and regulatory bodies relevant to the SIT portfolio, including charter authorizers and compliance stakeholders, ensuring that the school system's external obligations are met with credibility and consistency.
• Cultivate and steward external partnerships and thought leadership relationships that strengthen the school system's capacity for strategy, accountability, and transformation, bringing insights and best practices back to inform internal priorities.
• Represent KIPP DC in KIPP network-level convenings and peer learning communities relevant to the portfolio, ensuring that the school system both contributes to and benefits from the broader network's knowledge and experience.

Requirements & Preferences

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 15 or more years of progressive leadership experience, including significant experience in a senior or executive leadership role with accountability for strategy, organizational change, or enterprise operations.
• Demonstrated experience managing across functions and through senior leaders, with a track record of developing and holding senior leaders accountable for results.
• Demonstrated experience leading organizational transformation in a complex, multi-site institution, including direct accountability for change management, implementation fidelity, and outcomes measurement.
• Excellent internal and external communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across an organization, with a governing board, and with external stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in education, public policy, business, organizational leadership, or a related field.
• Experience in systems-level or cabinet-level leadership with demonstrated results across multiple functions or a complex portfolio.
• Experience in a PreK-12 public education setting, urban charter school network, or similarly mission-driven organization serving historically underserved communities.
• Track record of building new organizational functions from a limited foundation, including developing systems, workflows, and team culture in the absence of established precedent.

Physical Requirements

• Must be able to travel to various KIPP DC school locations and other sites as needed.
• Must be able to use a computer and other standard office equipment effectively.
• Must be able to communicate effectively in person, by phone, and electronically.
• Must be able to work a flexible schedule, including some evenings and weekends.

Demonstrated Excellence in the Following Areas:

• Commitment to Students and Schools: Demonstrates commitment to education reform, believing in every child's potential for success and prioritizing students, schools, and the essential role of families
• Strategic Thinking and Problem Solving: Finds creative solutions to challenges that achieve broader goals of team and organization.
• Project Management: Sets a high bar for own work and supports others to achieve desired team outcomes.
• Communications and Influence: Demonstrates adept communication skills and influence to advance work by adjusting content and style.
• Teamwork:Contributes to a supportive team culture, fostering diverse work styles and maintaining a high performance standard
• Trust and Collaboration: Establishes and nurtures effective relationships with a diverse set of stakeholders to support the best outcomes for our work.
• Cultural Humility: Advances KIPP DC’s commitment to anti-racism by creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all stakeholders.
• Continuous Learning: Commits to continuous learning through feedback, self reflection, humility, and action.

Benefits & Compensation

KIPP DC offers an extremely competitive compensation and benefits package:

• The anticipated starting salary range for this position is $222,902-$256,869 At KIPP DC we strive for clarity, equity, and to be highly competitive. When determining salaries we look at benchmarks in the education and non-profit sector.
• KIPP DC offers a robust benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurances; various voluntary benefits; and employer paid benefits such as short term disability, long term disability, life insurance, and a membership to One Medical.
• KIPP DC also offers a 403(b) retirement account with a 3% employer contribution and a 3% match with vesting after three years.

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer

KIPP DC Public Schools does not discriminate against, or tolerate discrimination against, employees or applicants for employment on any legally-recognized basis or protected class including, but not limited to, actual or perceived race, color, national origin, immigration status (except as necessary to comply with federal, DC, state, or local law), religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, gender (including gender identity or expression), marital status (including domestic partnership status), genetic information, political affiliation, pregnancy, family responsibilities, personal appearance, veteran status, uniform service member status, status of being unemployed, status of victim a survivor of domestic violence, sexual offense or stalking, matriculation or any other protected class under federal, state, DC, or local law.

Click here or here to review KIPP DC’s non-discrimination policy and KIPP DC’s Title IX Coordinator’s contact information.

Please Note: If you encounter difficulties submitting your application or fail to receive a confirmation email after applying, kindly reach out to Danica Cunningham at danica.cunningham@kippdc.org Please include your name, resume, and specify the role you are applying for in your email. We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience caused.