Director, Transformation and Operations

Braven • Chicago, IL

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. We work with higher education and employer partners to offer a life-changing experience that begins with a semester-long course for college students, followed by support that lasts through graduation. Together, our ambition is to help rebuild the middle class and revitalize the American Dream. Braven is hiring a Director, Transformation and Operations, to join the newly formed Transformation team. Transformation is charged with ensuring that we are seeing around corners and prepared to maximize the strategic opportunities in our future. The role is to take the ideas that matter most and make them real. You'll lead the design and execution of key transformation initiatives — currently AI adoption, market intelligence, and process innovation for quality at scale, three of our largest organizational risks at our current inflection point in growth. While you don’t manage anyone directly, you will manage across many internal stakeholders, and your ability to move people toward shared outcomes without direct authority is critical to your success. You're energized by ambiguity, you think in systems, and you genuinely love figuring out what "cutting edge" means for an organization that is paving the way. You enjoy bringing structure to ambiguous problems without flattening the complexity, and you know when to slow down and define the question before rushing to answer it. The person in this role thrives in a startup environment where job descriptions are starting points, not ceilings — willing to roll up your sleeves across whatever the mission needs. This role is a 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 strategic operations experience with the proven ability of managing complex projects and lead others to outcomes

Nice To Haves

• Exceptional ability to collaborate and work in cross-functional teams, ideally in a matrixed, cross-functional environment or scaling consulting or mission-driven organization
• 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 the most important thread, and move forward without needing every detail resolved
• Experience in the education or nonprofit sector, or in consulting
• Comfort and fluency with AI tools (e.g., Claude) and a curiosity about how technology can drive mission-aligned work; ability to navigate myriad tech systems (e.g., Asana/Trello, Salesforce, Zoom)
• Track record of operating in ambiguous environments and creating structure where little exists
• 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, Design, and Launch Special Initiatives (50%): Create strategic plans that translate vision into execution for special initiatives owned by the Transformation team (inclusive of multi-year roadmaps, short-term project plans, stakeholder communications maps, risk mitigation strategies, learnings from market intelligence, etc.). Synthesize insights and recommendations for senior leaders to guide ongoing strategy. Manage the execution of a wide variety of teammates towards success, adapting strategies and frameworks as needed. Initial projects within your scope will include ensuring we have enterprise-wide quality systems as we scale, and strong execution and enablement of our holistic approach to AI. Build internal buy-in with evolving and cross-cutting projects, meeting people where they are, and making the unfamiliar feel approachable, for any special initiatives. Serve as an internal resource for "what's possible" — translating data and ideas into practical, mission-aligned use cases we can actually act on. Embrace the reality that we're figuring this out as we go — and help the team feel steady while we do. Lead and influence cross-functional teams in a matrixed environment (i.e., teams will not directly report into this role) to bring initiatives to life, fostering a culture of excellence, continuous learning, collaboration, and innovation.
• Operations Infrastructure & Project Management (30%): Create and own the project plans behind our transformation initiatives while building timelines, setting milestones, tracking dependencies, and keeping cross-functional work moving forward. Turn big-picture organizational priorities into specific, sequenced actions with real owners and real deadlines, and follow up on them without oversight from your manager. Build and improve our team’s operating infrastructures while increasing process efficiency, developing new processes, and training others in these areas. Create lightweight but durable operating systems: the trackers, templates, and check-in rhythms that give a small team visibility into a lot of moving parts. Ensure these integrate with and streamline/simplify organizational processes, vs. create additional complexity. Flag risks and potential blockers early; bring proposed solutions, not just problems. Coordinate internal teammates and external collaborators toward shared goals — without relying on formal authority to get things done. Develop high-quality memos, briefings, and presentation materials to support executive-level decision-making and external stakeholder engagement. Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to enhance our nimbleness as we grow and ensure alignment with broader organizational strategic objectives.
• Research and Analysis (Market Intelligence) (20%): Develop and maintain systems for gathering and organizing strategic market intelligence so findings are accurate, accessible, and updated regularly. Ensure a variety of voices/stakeholders internally and externally, especially ones that might be overlooked or seemingly irrelevant, are incorporated. Monitor and analyze trends, regulatory changes, and technological advancements across sectors, including workforce development, AI in higher education, and employer expectations, to identify positioning opportunities and threats for Braven. Track what peer organizations, edtech organizations, university career centers, and employers are doing; codify what that means for our work, and identify white space where we can lead. Synthesize findings from articles, podcasts, research, newsletters, conferences, and partner conversations into crisp, actionable briefings for leadership and staff. Connect macro trends — including AI in recruiting, shifting employer expectations, and changing student needs — to near-term decisions Braven can make today. Lead efforts to identify, evaluate, and integrate AI tools and partnerships from a market intelligence and positioning lens, in coordination with Systems and Product. Translate complex data into clear strategic insights with actionable recommendations for senior leadership; deliver concise, impactful reports/presentations to key stakeholders. Serve as a trusted advisor to internal stakeholders on competitive positioning, offering recommendations grounded in evidence.
• Other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide holidays and week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year (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

What This Job Offers

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