Director, Advisory and Capacity Building

One Million Degrees • Chicago, IL

2d • $84 - $92 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Advisory and Capacity Building is responsible for ensuring strong execution, learning, and partner experience across ACB’s portfolio of national partnerships. This role emphasizes strategic project management, partnership building, and organizational capacity, while translating data, partner feedback, and on-the-ground learning into practical, equity-centered tools and supports that advance program effectiveness, scale, and sustainability. The role reports to the Principal, Advisory & Capacity Building, overseeing our national expansion and collaborates closely with internal stakeholders and college partners.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree required; relevant master's degree preferred.
• Five to eight years of relevant professional experience in program or project management, with a successful record of accomplishment supporting multi-partner strategic relationships and contributing to innovative projects.
• Demonstrated experience with K-12 education, higher education, and/or workforce spaces through working with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Demonstrated orientation for centering the student experience in program design is requisite
• Proven ability in project management, including setting and maintaining detailed project plans to coordinate teams around complex, long-term initiatives, and goals
• Strong analytic, writing, and facilitation skills
• Proficient practice with issues of diversity, specifically around race, class, gender, ability, and equity in the workplace.
• Effective storytelling that is honest and represents diversity, equity, and inclusion in all its forms.
• Prioritizes diversity and inclusion considerations when making strategic decisions and relationships that advance the mission.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and collaboratively—candidates should be self-motivated and comfortable within a virtual working environment, and enthusiastic team players open to feedback and collaboration.
• Excellent organizational skills and keen attention to detail, with demonstrated ability to prioritize work and manage time on multiple projects and tasks to meet deadlines.
• Cultural humility: ability to work effectively with diverse staff/team, students, and campus/community partners building trusting relationships with a broad cross-section of audiences.
• Educational Equity: Relentless drive to close equity gaps in education and passion about serving students, including a total belief in the potential of all scholars to succeed and excel.

Nice To Haves

• Some background directly engaging with and serving students is desired.
• Comfort with making decisions within defined parameters combined with an ability to work collaboratively with a variety of external stakeholders.
• Experience with product management, launching new bodies of work or startup organizations a plus.
• Demonstrated expertise in the domain of technology and artificial intelligence.
• Familiarity with project management approaches and methodologies (such as Agile, Scrum, or traditional waterfall methods) and experience using project management tools for planning and tracking work.
• Knowledge of best practices in product development, operational infrastructure, and human-centered design is a plus.
• Experience maintaining consistent operational systems or project management for large-scale projects or portfolios.
• A learner: Curious, eager to learn and innovate, with an orientation toward “failing forward” and experimentation
• A hustler: Highly motivated by keeping many balls in the air to expand OMD’s impact
• A visionary: A bold, outcome-focused approach that is informed, data-driven and empathetic to the needs of the student population.
• An ambassador: Proud to represent OMD in the national conversation about higher education and workforce
• A strategic thinker: Contributes to thinking about the future of the organization; weighs diverse inputs to inform strategies; identifies innovative opportunities when relevant

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic project management and advisory tool development for the One Million Degrees and Complete College America NEXT (National Expansion and Transformation) initiative, supporting five community colleges in TX, OH and LA implement OMD’s evidence-based programming on their campuses. This will include designing, refining, and deploying tools that support program implementation, scale, and sustainability.
• Partner closely with colleges and internal teams to translate learnings into practical, equity centered resources that strengthen institutional capacity and student outcomes.
• Systematically collect partner feedback across all ten ACB partner colleges and oversee ACB’s knowledge management approach.
• Lead the ongoing refinement, versioning, and organization of toolkits, resources, and partner facing collateral to ensure quality, usability, and alignment across the ACB portfolio.
• Identify opportunities to codify learnings and improve how ACB shares and packages its work.
• Serve as the primary project manager for evaluation and data collection efforts with the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab (IEL) and internal OMD stakeholders.
• Coordinate timelines, deliverables, data-sharing processes, and communication to ensure high-quality evaluation execution aligned with pilot goals and partner expectations.
• Design and facilitate a community of practice for participating colleges, creating structured opportunities for shared learning, peer exchange, and problem solving.
• Develop agendas, curate content, and synthesize insights to strengthen cross college collaboration and field level learning.
• Support the Senior Director, Program Operations in maintaining and strengthening case manager support infrastructure across all ten partner colleges.
• Contribute to coordination, alignment, and continuous improvement of systems that enable effective coaching and student support.

Benefits

• Full Health Benefits – Provided for all full-time employees, including medical, dental, and vision. OMD pays 100% of individual’s basic monthly health premium and 80% dependent coverage.
• Employee assistance program, which offers confidential emotional support, work-life solutions, legal guidance, financial resources, and more.
• Retirement Benefits – For full-time employees, OMD matches retirement contributions up to 4% of total salary.
• Generous Paid Time Off Policy – OMD has 12 paid holidays and offers up to 15 days PTO in year one; in addition to two weeks paid time off for winter break.
• Compensatory time for designated duties performed outside of normal work hours.
• Monthly cell phone and internet reimbursement up to $50/month.
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents.
• Professional Learning Opportunities – OMD supports employee development in areas relevant to professional and organizational goals and will pay for training such as workshops and conferences as agreed upon by the employee and supervisor.
• Hybrid Work Schedule – Currently one in-office day required per week; other days can be remote (in-person day set by you and your manager), and additional in-office days may be needed based on organizational priorities.

What This Job Offers

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