Director, Program Innovation

Braven • Newark, NJ

3d • 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 a Director, Program Innovation to join the newly formed Transformation team. This team is charged with ensuring Braven is prepared to maximize strategic opportunities in the future. The Director, Program Innovation will turn the ideas that matter most into reality by incubating and handing off initiatives critical to the organization's success. The primary focus is the programmatic design and execution of an expanded partnership pilot with a higher education partner. This role has no direct reports but requires the ability to move people toward shared outcomes without formal authority. The ideal candidate is energized by ambiguity, thinks in systems, loves figuring out what "cutting edge" means for an organization, and enjoys bringing structure to ambiguous problems. This role will play a pivotal role in deepening career partnerships with universities, exploring and launching an evolution of Braven's core model. Responsibilities include running pilot projects, determining organizational consistency, and deciding what needs to be unique to meet student population and local landscape needs for scaling. The role requires designing and executing programs, translating research and strategy into holistic career experiences, analyzing data, and building sustainable and scalable programmatic foundations. This position thrives in a startup environment where job descriptions are starting points, not ceilings, and is willing to contribute wherever the mission needs them. This role is part of the Office of the Chief Executive Officer and reports directly to the Head of Transformation.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent
• 5+ years of strong track record of managing multiple complex, cross-functional strategic initiatives and leading others to outcomes including building or launching a new program, function, or business line from the ground up

Nice To Haves

• Exceptional ability to collaborate and work in cross-functional teams
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to draft clear, audience-appropriate communications quickly and with minimal direction
• Exceptional ability to synthesize information, identify what should stay consistent, and where adjustments are needed due to various contexts
• Demonstrated ability to move between strategic altitude and hands-on execution: designed a program or pilot from a blank page, and also done the operational work yourself
• Track record of influencing and driving alignment across senior stakeholders, including organizational leadership, without formal authority
• Experience with program or instructional design; know how to translate research and strategy into an experience that actually works for the people going through it, and iterate quickly based on pilot data
• Track record of operating in ambiguous environments and creating structure where little exists, requiring constant iteration and resourcefulness
• Experience in the education or nonprofit sector
• Fluency in Asana, Trello, Salesforce, Claude, Zoom, and Slack is ideal; ability to navigate myriad technology tools
• A genuine appreciation for and enjoyment of the dynamic, fast-paced energy of a college campus, coupled with an ability to connect authentically with diverse stakeholders, ranging from students to university leadership
• 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

• Lead execution and iteration of high-potential strategies emerging from Braven’s org-wide strategic exploration work, likely starting with alumni engagement and talent/employer-pathway pilots, with AI-centered pilots as a likely third.
• Test and refine quickly at the first pilot site and future full-suite partner sites: assess what’s working, and build a clear framework for what can be replicated versus what needs to be redesigned for each new context, culture, and student population.
• Partner closely with the Director, Transformation and Operations on sequencing and dependencies, ensuring pilot work and broader partnership build stay coordinated.
• Gather updates from across the team and synthesize them into cohesive, well-structured presentations reflecting both progress and challenges.
• Prepare materials, briefings, and talking points for stakeholder meetings, distilling complex pilot activity into clear, compelling narratives.
• Conduct ongoing landscape research on peer institutions, employer partners, and edtech players, translating findings into pilot hypotheses.
• Define strategy for a fully embedded career experience at scale, inclusive of Braven’s existing program model, evolved for the next stage of partnership.
• Translate pilot vision into program frameworks, decision documents, and design principles that make it a buildable, staffable entity.
• Conceive, design, and execute specific pilots that excite students, alumni, and partner stakeholders.
• Lead team-wide debriefs after every pilot to identify what worked, what flopped, and what to try next, feeding insights back into the overall design.
• Manage pilot logistics end-to-end: design, promotion, materials, execution, and follow-up with minimal hand-holding and strong attention to detail.
• Bring market intelligence into pilot design, tracking what similar institutions are testing in alumni engagement and early-career talent pathways, and translating into hypotheses.
• Create and own project plans across pilot and program-design initiatives, including timelines, milestones, and cross-functional dependencies, keeping work moving forward with minimal oversight.
• Lead and influence teammates in a matrixed environment, as pilot execution and program design will be deeply collaborative.
• Design and run a data collection campaign to capture key outcomes.
• Build forms, trackers, and processes to make data collection easy for stakeholders, ensuring low friction and high compliance.
• Synthesize findings into clear, compelling narratives for various audiences, ensuring data and reports are actionable and useful.
• Develop high-quality memos, briefings, and presentation materials for diverse audiences, from students to board members.
• Support the broader team in understanding data outcomes and implications for future decisions.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Opportunities for salary growth over time
• Competitive compensation based on role scope, qualifications, and impact, with annual growth based on performance
• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (minimum of 20 days per year)
• $25,000 in lifetime Carrot benefits for fertility, family-building, and hormonal health
• 401K contribution match up to 5% of base annual salary, starting the first full month
• Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium for employee and dependents
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• One-month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff

What This Job Offers

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