Associate Director, Program Success

Braven • Chicago, IL

2d • $62,700 - $78,300 • Hybrid

About The Position

As Braven scales its centralized-course model to serve more BravenFellows across an expanding portfolio of higher education partners, the Manager, Program Success plays a critical role in ensuring a high-quality course experience. This individual is responsible for managing a pool of part-time Graders. You will reinforce Braven's ever-evolving grading strategy and systems to ensure strong alignment with academic policies and campus-specific norms. Additionally, this manager serves as the primary point of contact for our volunteer career coaches, whom we call Leadership Coaches (LCs) during the term, responding to questions, escalating challenges, and ensuring they feel connected and supported. This highly collaborative role blends execution, coaching, and quality assurance to help deliver an exceptional experience for both Fellows and those who support them. This role will be on the Innovation Team’s Central Delivery Team and report to the Director of Accelerator Success.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree
• Proven ability to analyze academic data to identify trends and proactively address student learning needs through direct intervention or by delegating tasks.
• Authorized to work in the U.S. Braven doesn’t offer employment visa sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

• At least 3 years of work experience in a related field
• Experience managing and supporting part-time staff or volunteers, including the ability to delegate effectively and provide clear, constructive feedback.
• Strong interpersonal and coaching skills, with the ability to support and mentor volunteers and facilitators, including those with significantly more experience or seniority.
• Exceptional customer service skills, with the ability to communicate clearly, patiently, and professionally with students, staff, and volunteers.
• Excellent organizational and analytical skills with the ability to create, operationalize, and manage project plans, meeting milestones and deadlines, and a focus on using data and metrics to drive decisions and measure performance
• Excellent relationship builder with the ability to find common ground, build consensus, and strengthen collaboration among diverse stakeholders.
• You exemplify a customer service mindset.
• Comfort with a high level of ambiguity and the ability and desire to work in an ambiguous environment
• Comfort using collaboration and data tools like Google Suite, Salesforce, Slack, and Jira (or similar systems)
• 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

• Supervise and support a pool of part-time Graders for the Braven Leadership and Career Accelerator course, including onboarding, quality assurance, and feedback cycles.
• Collaborate with Program Facilitators and Manager, Academic Success, to implement volunteer support and accountability structures, including coaching for underperforming LCs.
• Co-design and lead grader training cycles and communities of practice (regular peer learning groups) to ensure grading consistency and alignment with Higher Education Partnerships standards.
• Provide escalation support and intervention for Graders struggling to meet expectations and coordinate closely with others to ensure high-support LCs get what they need to influence student outcomes in the course.
• Ensure rubric adherence and grading turnaround times are met across all sites and sections.
• Implement periodic audits of feedback quality and ensure clarity and alignment to learning objectives.
• Manage grading performance dashboards and share trends and insights with the Central Delivery Accelerator (CDA) leadership team.
• Support struggling students through a tiered academic intervention framework, including direct student engagement, communications, and supports, tracking, working with higher education partner intervention systems, and contacts
• Partner with the Manager, Academic Success, and Centralized Delivery of the Accelerator teammates to maintain a high-quality, joyful volunteer experience through consistent communication, resources, and recognition.
• Track volunteer engagement, issues, and performance in systems like Salesforce, escalating to appropriate teammates when interventions are needed.
• Lead targeted coaching sessions for struggling LCs and contribute to onboarding and training.
• Partner with cross-functional CDA teammates to build and refine scalable systems that support grader and volunteer success.
• Share insights from grading and LC data to inform product, training, and course design improvements.
• Document and socialize best practices by actively participating in Braven’s knowledge-sharing ecosystem.

Benefits

• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and three team-wide, week-long shutdowns in Spring, Summer, and Winter (this is a minimum of 24 days per year)
• Braven supports your path to parenthood and beyond with $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 the health insurance premium for employee and dependents
• A one-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees