Director/Senior Director of Data Strategy & Insights

Birmingham Promise•Birmingham, AL

4d•$80,000 - $126,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Birmingham Promise is seeking an experienced and entrepreneurial leader to serve as its Director/Senior Director of Data Strategy & Insights. This newly created leadership position will establish and lead Birmingham Promise’s first dedicated Data & Impact function. While the organization has existing staff, systems, and data-related responsibilities, this work has not previously operated as a standalone department with a unified strategy and structure. The Director/Senior Director will be responsible for bringing these resources together and building the people, systems, processes, and strategy necessary to effectively collect, manage, analyze, and use data across the organization. This leader will own data strategy, reporting, and decision support, ensuring the CEO, Senior Leadership Team, Board, funders, and other stakeholders have timely, accurate, and actionable information. The Director/Senior Director will assess Birmingham Promise’s current data capabilities and needs, develop the appropriate team structure, and build and manage a high-performing data team aligned with the organization’s evolving priorities. The role is also accountable for improving existing systems and setting the strategic vision for evaluation and data infrastructure. Where specialized technical expertise or rigorous longitudinal evaluation is required, this leader will determine whether needs are best met through internal capacity or external partners and will manage those resources accordingly. The ideal candidate is both strategic and hands-on: someone who can establish a long-term vision while also creating the systems, processes, reporting practices, and team necessary to make reliable data readily available today. This person anticipates needs, creates clarity, holds a high standard for data quality, and translates information into insights that strengthen organizational decision-making. This role reports directly to the CEO and serves as a member of the Senior Leadership Team.

Requirements

7+ years of progressively responsible experience in data strategy, analytics, research, evaluation, or a related field; experience in education, nonprofit, workforce development, or social impact strongly preferred
Demonstrated experience building, restructuring, or significantly strengthening a data function or team
Demonstrated success assessing organizational data needs and translating those needs into staffing, systems and processes
Experience hiring, managing, coaching, and developing data professionals
Strong experience with quantitative and qualitative methods and the ability to determine the appropriate level of rigor for different organizational needs
Experience working with senior leadership and translating complex data into clear, actionable insights for Boards, funders, program leaders, and other non-technical audiences
Strong project and change-management skills, including the ability to lead cross-functional work and establish accountability across teams
Proficiency with Salesforce, Power BI, Tableau, or similar platforms
Master’s degree in data science, statistics, public policy, education, social science, computer science, or a related field preferred; equivalent relevant professional experience will be considered

Nice To Haves

experience in education, nonprofit, workforce development, or social impact strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Build and Lead the Data & Impact Team (20%): Building Birmingham Promise’s first dedicated Data & Impact function requires the right combination of people, roles, systems, and expertise.
Assess the organization’s current and future data needs, capabilities, workflows, and staffing structure
Develop and implement a clear organizational structure for the Data & Impact function, including defining roles, responsibilities, and areas of accountability
Assess existing roles and responsibilities to recommend changes or realignment necessary to meet organizational data needs
Recruit, hire, onboard, manage, and develop data team members as needed
Establish clear goals, priorities, performance expectations, and accountability for the Data & Impact team
Determine when organizational needs are best addressed through internal staff, external partners or technology solutions
Develop a phased staffing and capacity plan that aligns team growth with organizational priorities and resources
Manage the Data & Impact budget, vendor relationships, evaluation timelines, and other administrative aspects of the function
Ensure compliance with applicable data privacy requirements, funder requirements, and reporting obligations
Build a collaborative data culture in which program teams understand their responsibilities for data quality, collection, and use
Create, Own and Execute Data Strategy (25%): Strong data strategy ensures we are measuring what matters and using data-derived insights to continuously improve outcomes for students.
Develop and operationalize a clear, organization-wide data strategy aligned to strategic priorities
Define and standardize key performance indicators (KPIs), benchmarks, and success metrics across programs
Establish a proactive reporting cadence for leadership and Board use
Create systems for using data to provide ongoing feedback and support to providers for the improvement of program practices
Partner with leadership to ensure data is used consistently in decision-making
Consolidate all current tools and practices for measuring impact to ensure consistent, high quality data collection and analysis
Work closely with team to build evaluation tools and create a strategic evaluation plan that measures progress and success against key metrics for both internal program improvement and external reporting purposes
Facilitate communication of policies, procedures, schedules and other logistics associated with external evaluation
Ensure all teams are collecting data consistently and correctly
Develop a phased roadmap for when it makes sense to add team capacity or outsource complex technical and evaluation work as the organization scales
Build Scalable Data Infrastructure (20%): Reliable, accessible data systems are essential to making informed decisions and reducing inefficiencies across the organization.
Provide strategic oversight of Salesforce and other core data systems, ensuring our data is accurate
Audit, streamline, and improve existing data systems into a more centralized, user-friendly ecosystem
Ensure leadership has timely access to critical data (dashboards, reports, etc.)
Establish and enforce data governance, quality standards, and documentation protocols
Set the strategic vision for infrastructure improvements and advanced technical builds, managing external vendors or consultants for complex implementation needs
Build capacity for and manage internal systems for conducting ongoing outcomes measurement and assessment
Lead Evaluation and Insights (15%): Research and evaluation help Birmingham Promise understand the outcomes of our work and opportunities to strengthen our impact.
Develop and maintain an organization-wide research and learning agenda aligned with Birmingham Promise’s strategic priorities, program model, and key questions about student educational and career outcomes.
Identify and prioritize research and evaluation questions that strengthen understanding of program effectiveness, student outcomes, and opportunities for continuous improvement.
Design and oversee practical evaluation approaches, including longitudinal strategies, that balance methodological rigor with the need for timely, actionable information.
Establish the vision and framework for Birmingham Promise’s research and evaluation efforts, determining which capabilities should be developed internally and when specialized external expertise is needed.
Lead Birmingham Promise’s research partnership with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and manage other research and evaluation partners, leveraging these partnerships to strengthen data infrastructure, data access and sharing, research capabilities, organizational use of data, and long-term internal capacity.
Manage a portfolio of research and evaluation initiatives, working closely with program teams to ensure findings are accurate, relevant, timely, and translated into actionable insights that inform program improvement and organizational decision-making.
Build the organizational capacity and foundational data infrastructure necessary to support increasingly rigorous research, including future implementation and impact evaluations.
Deliver High-Quality Reporting & Insights (20%): Data only creates value when it is clear, timely and usable by our team.
Own the production of Board-ready dashboards, reports, and presentations
Translate complex data into clear, compelling narratives for non-technical audiences
Ensure stakeholders can quickly access accurate, relevant information when needed
Partner with Communications to align data storytelling with organizational messaging
Support grant reporting and proposal development with accurate data and insights
Work with external stakeholders, including funders and partners, to assure best practices and transparency
Produce publications, presentations, research resources and briefing/white papers designed to inform the field and policy makers