Director, Workplace Experience

College Board•New York, NY

4d•Onsite

About The Position

The Director, Workplace Experience leads workplace experience across College Board’s New York City, Reston, Virginia, and San Juan, Puerto Rico offices. The role sets standards for safe, welcoming, service-oriented environments that support employee connection, collaboration, and the College Board mission. The Director leads Assistant Directors and their teams, works with senior leaders, and ensures consistent operational excellence across locations. The New York City office is the flagship hub, with high attendance on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and frequent retreats, board meetings, and visitor activity. This is a visible, hands-on leadership role that includes supporting on-site operations and modeling a service-first approach. The Director manages team priorities, goals, staffing, vendor relationships, budgets, reporting, workplace platforms, physical security, and emergency protocols. The position stewards the in-person experience from arrival to departure, ensures reliable facilities and meeting support, and uses attendance, spending, usage, service, and satisfaction data to guide decisions. The role reports monthly to the SVP and Talent and collaborates with the Talent Leadership team and partners across the organization. The position is based on-site in the New York City office five days a week, with occasional business travel, including travel to other College Board offices when needed.

Requirements

8–10 years managing teams in a high-volume, service-driven environment such as hospitality, workplace experience, corporate services, or events, including experience leading supervisors or managers.
Hospitality-forward, service-first mindset and willingness to take on any work needed by the role.
Demonstrated ability to drive performance and growth through high expectations, timely evidence-based feedback, and coaching.
Track record of delivering a consistent, high-quality in-office experience in a hybrid setting with significant day-to-day attendance variation.
Experience managing vendors, contracts, property management, and building teams; enforcing documented service standards and resolving escalations independently.
Confidence engaging senior leaders and executives, advocating for operational needs, and exercising sound judgment amid competing priorities.
Budgeting skills and a data-driven approach, including analyzing and presenting attendance, spending, and survey data and developing recommendations.
Comfort with workplace tools such as Robin or similar booking platforms, Slack, and AV systems.
Strong expertise in facilities operations, including contracts, insurance requirements, building security, and emergency protocols.
Sound judgment when handling confidential information.
Ability to travel 3–5 times a year to College Board offices or on College Board business.
Ability to lift up to 50 lbs, stand for extended periods (up to four hours at a time), and occasionally bend, reach, or kneel to complete job duties.
Passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work.
Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, willingness to experiment with and adopt AI-driven solutions, and ability to learn and apply digital tools independently and proactively.
Clear and concise written and verbal communication skills.
Learner’s mindset and commitment to growth, welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving.
Drive for impact and excellence, including solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing effectively, and improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.
Collaborative and empathetic approach, including working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to shared success.
Authorization to work in the United States.

Responsibilities

Lead and manage the five-person Workplace Experience team across New York, Reston, and San Juan.
Define priorities and goals aligned with College Board’s five-year plan, set SMART goals, track progress, and adjust based on feedback and results.
Coach team members and maintain clear role charters, ownership, backup, and support lines.
Build staffing and vendor models that flex with higher attendance on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Collaborate as a member of the Talent Leadership team, safeguard confidential information, and advance College Board’s mission.
Travel to Reston and San Juan when an on-site presence is required.
Own the New York in-person experience for staff and visitors, from arrival to departure.
Be present on the floor on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to greet people, anticipate needs, resolve problems, and help with furniture moves and room setups.
Coordinate retreats, board meetings, and VIP visits with the team and event planners.
Serve as the senior escalation point for building management, security, and executive stakeholders.
Set programming direction, prioritizing core workplace services before events.
Ensure health, safety, and emergency protocols are in place across all three offices.
Establish policies for physical security and access control, space management, meeting support, and building and equipment standards.
Coordinate with technology colleagues to clarify responsibilities and ensure equipment in cubicles and offices works.
Oversee special programs and projects operating through the New York office, including archive and records initiatives.
Steward the budget across all three offices, review variances, and make investment decisions using attendance, usage, and satisfaction data.
Manage vendors, building management, and maintenance teams, enforcing service standards.
Work with Procurement on vendor contracts and establish documented SLAs and quarterly performance reviews for key vendors.
Partner with the Office of the CEO, Finance, and IT on priorities that depend on the on-site experience.
Build and maintain a unified cross-location dashboard covering measures such as attendance, spend per attendee, room usage, request volume and resolution time, and satisfaction.
Use regular baseline-setting pulse surveys and check-ins to generate reporting and insights.
Benchmark workplace and hospitality operations.
Report monthly to the SVP and Talent on attendance, spending, survey results, service levels, and vendor performance, and provide actionable recommendations.
Own workplace platforms such as Robin, Jira, and Datawatch and use them to create executive-ready utilization reports that guide decisions and support colleague safety.