Institutional Innovation Program Director

University of Notre Dame • Notre Dame, IN

4h

About The Position

Advancing the goals of the University and Institutional Research, Innovation, and Strategy (IRIS), the Institutional Innovation Program Director (IIPD) serves the campus community and Notre Dame's mission by empowering cross-functional teams to assess complex problems, design practical solutions, and implement them at scale across the institution. To do this, the IIPD partners with the executive officers and University leaders on the institution's most pressing enterprise-level risks and opportunities, as well as with Notre Dame's colleges, schools, and divisions, to implement improvements in areas such as service delivery, process design, organizational structure, automation, and shared services.
These engagements range from targeted college, school, or divisional efforts to institutionally significant initiatives that cross the University and take shape through organizational evaluations, process improvement projects, and other special projects. Across all of these, the IIPD leads the work using Institutional Innovation's Assess-Design-Implement model, drawing on facilitation, analysis, stakeholder engagement, and change-management skills to advance validated solutions with institutional impact.
Because engagements are often complex and solutions groundbreaking, success in this role depends as much on how the work is led as on what is delivered: maintaining strong relationships, building momentum and buy-in, and staying unconditionally constructive throughout are critical to the IIPD's impact.
Institutional Innovation engagements are built around a core Assess-Design-Implement model, bookended by a scoping pre-phase that sets the work up for success and a transition into a sustainable solution. The Program Director is expected to lead and adapt this model to the scale and complexity of each engagement.

Requirements

• Bachelors Degree required
• Strategic thinker who enjoys solving complex, ambiguous problems
• Proven ability to lead and influence teams, drive change, and guide colleagues across a variety of levels
• Demonstrated commitment to advancing excellence and driving improvement, with a genuine willingness to embrace and drive change
• Strong project management, analytical, and decision-making skills, including comfort with analytical reports and numerical analysis
• Strong facilitation skills, with the ability to guide diverse groups toward shared solutions
• Ability to improve processes and steward University resources thoughtfully while elevating service quality
• Quick learner, able to absorb and apply new knowledge efficiently
• Outstanding oral and written communication skills, adaptable to audiences across all levels and areas of the organization
• Strong interpersonal skills and a collaborative, team-first approach, including sound judgment in complex situations and flexibility to contribute wherever needed
• A constituent- and University-oriented focus
• Genuine interest in, and growing knowledge of, the University's academic and administrative functions

Nice To Haves

• Masters Degree preferred

Responsibilities

• Lead complex, cross-functional engagements from scoping through sustainable implementation, often serving as the primary point of contact for senior campus partners and executive sponsors
• Design and facilitate stakeholder interviews, workshops, and design sessions that surface root causes, generate options, and build consensus around solutions
• Conduct rigorous analysis — including internal/external benchmarking, process mapping, and data synthesis — to inform recommendations
• Develop clear deliverables (assessment reports, business cases, implementation plans, and communications materials) tailored to diverse audiences
• Apply change management principles to build buy-in, mitigate resistance, and sustain adoption of new processes, structures, or systems
• Manage scope, timeline, and risk across concurrent engagements, escalating issues and trade-offs as needed
• Coach and mentor project team members and campus partners in problem-solving, facilitation, and process improvement methods
• Contribute to the continued development of Institutional Innovation's methods, tools, and team capabilities

Benefits

• The University is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or age in employment.

What This Job Offers

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