Associate Director, Accelerator Operations

Braven • Atlanta, GA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Braven is a national nonprofit that prepares promising college students to secure a strong first opportunity after college graduation through a career-accelerating program. Braven is hiring an Associate Director, Accelerator Operations to own core tools and processes end-to-end and ensure operational readiness before launch of the Accelerator, Braven’s career-readiness credit-bearing course. This role will set strategy for their domain by designing systems a semester or two in advance, managing rollout plans, training regional teammates, and holding readiness gate authority. The Associate Director will oversee one to three operational domains that support the delivery of our Accelerator course. Domains are assigned based on the strengths the candidate brings and where the team most needs depth, and fall into four general areas: Academic operations, Program delivery operations, Student experience and compliance, and Operational systems and knowledge management. This role is on the Accelerator Operations team and reports directly to the Senior Director, Accelerator Enablement.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• 4-6 years of relevant professional experience in operations, program management, systems or data administration, or a closely related field
• Ability to work in-person in Atlanta (GA), Chicago (IL), New York City (NYC), or Newark (NJ) 3 days per week
• Access to internet
• Occasional evening and weekend support, concentrated around launch and program delivery windows (approximately 10 times per year)
• Occasional travel, approximately 2-3 weeks per year
• Authorized to work in the U.S.
• Braven doesn’t offer employment visa sponsorship

Nice To Haves

• Experience owning a tool, system, or process end-to-end as a product owner designing it, launching it, and remaining accountable for outcomes
• Demonstrated success driving adoption of a new tool or process across a distributed group of users, including the training and change management that leads to fidelity of use
• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent work streams with excellent personal organization and follow-through in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment
• Track record of using qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate how well a process is working and to identify improvements before problems escalate
• Comfort making and holding a defensible "not ready" call, with evidence, in front of stakeholders at different levels of altitude
• Strong functional expertise in process and QA design, data integrity, and documentation, with fluency in workflow systems such as Jira, Salesforce, Asana, Claude, Gemini, Slack, etc.
• Fluency using AI tools to reduce manual work in operational workflows, or clear appetite to build that capability
• Ability to solve moderately complex and ambiguous problems with a systems lens, and sound judgment about when to escalate
• Highly skilled at leading laterally, influencing peers and senior stakeholders across functions without direct authority
• 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 has prepared you to work with, or for, Braven’s student Fellow population.

Responsibilities

• Serve as product owner for the tools, processes, and protocols in your domain, designing them one to two semesters ahead of when they are needed
• Consistently consider where AI can be used to drive efficiency and effectiveness in our workflows
• Partner with multiple cross-functional teams to translate roadmap decisions into operational builds
• Roll out every tool and process you own with a documented adoption plan, a named support contact for every site, and a post-launch check-in
• Train and enable site execution teams through documentation, training, and wrap around supports
• Track adoption against an 80% fidelity standard, diagnose what is blocking it, and iterate, whether it’s a different tool, better training, or a simpler process
• Hold readiness gate authority for launches in your domain by defining what "ready" means, assess against it, and make the rollout recommendation
• Surface operational risk early, drive high-stakes issues to resolution, and document risk classification and mitigation when a launch proceeds without clearing the gate
• Oversee one to three operational domains end-to-end, accountable for how well each one serves the site teams and Fellows
• Continuously gather qualitative and quantitative data on what is working and what is not: audits, QA checks, user feedback, and adoption and fidelity data across sites, and act on what it tells you
• Look around corners: pressure-test whether today's systems will hold as we scale, and surface opportunities for improvement before the problems surface on their own
• Maintain current Standard Operating Procedures in Confluence for every process you own

Benefits

• Discretionary time off in addition to org-wide holidays and 2 week-long shutdowns in July and December (this is a minimum of 19 days per year)
• $25,000 in lifetime Carrot benefits for fertility, family-building, and hormonal health
• 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
• Monthly $75 reimbursement for cell phone or internet
• Access to funding for continued career development

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level