Managing Director of Growth

KIPP • Newark, NJ

2h • $175,000 - $225,000

About The Position

KIPP Team & Family is on a path to serve over 24,000 students across 40+ schools in New Jersey and Florida by 2033. Getting there requires more than ambition—it requires exceptional planning, coordination, and execution across dozens of moving pieces: real estate acquisition, financial modeling, talent recruitment, academic program design, operations setup, community engagement, and building the external support and funding necessary to make ambitious growth sustainable.
We’re looking for a strategic planner, relationship builder, and project management leader who can bring rigor, clarity, and coordination to our growth efforts while simultaneously building the external partnerships and funding streams that make expansion possible. You’ll be the person who ensures that when we commit to opening a new school or expanding to a new region, we do it with excellence—that timelines are realistic, dependencies are clear, teams are aligned, stakeholders are engaged, funding is secured, and leadership has the information they need to make smart decisions.
This role combines two critical dimensions: internal coordination and external relationship building. Internally, you’ll orchestrate complex, multi-year projects across functional teams—ensuring Real Estate, Finance, Talent, Academics, Operations, and Development all move in sync. Externally, you’ll represent KIPP in new markets, building relationships with donors, community leaders, government officials, and potential board members to create a foundation of support before and during launch.
This isn’t about setting growth strategy (that lives with senior leadership) or doing the frontline work (that happens within functional teams). This is about being both the orchestrator and the ambassador: the person who sees across all the workstreams, identifies what needs to happen when, produces the analysis and documentation that drives decisions, keeps complex projects on track, AND builds the external relationships and secures the resources that make growth sustainable.

Requirements

• 7-10+ years of professional experience in strategic planning, program management, project management, business development, or related roles managing complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives
• Proven track record of successfully coordinating work across multiple teams or departments toward shared goals
• Experience in external relationship building and fundraising: You’ve successfully identified, cultivated, and closed significant funding opportunities (ideally six- or seven-figure commitments) and built productive relationships with diverse external stakeholders
• Strong analytical and research skills: You can gather data from multiple sources, identify patterns and insights, and translate analysis into clear recommendations
• Exceptional writing and communication skills: You produce documents that are clear, well-structured, and tailored to different audiences (board members, donors, internal teams, government partners, community leaders)
• Project management expertise: You know how to build realistic plans, track progress, identify risks, and keep complex projects on track
• Relationship-building ability: You can build trust and credibility with people across different functions, levels, and external organizations, even without formal authority
• Comfort with data and tools: Experience with demographic analysis tools (Census data, ESRI mapping, etc.), project management software, financial modeling basics, and presentation tools
• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree in business, public policy, urban planning, education, or related field preferred

Nice To Haves

• Charter school or education organization growth/expansion experience: You’ve been part of opening new schools or expanding education organizations and understand the unique complexities of this work
• Experience managing large-scale organizational growth or expansion projects in nonprofit or for-profit contexts (multi-site rollouts, market expansion, new product launches, etc.)
• Real estate or facilities planning experience, particularly in education or public sector contexts
• Development or fundraising experience in nonprofit settings, particularly with major gifts and institutional funders
• Government relations or advocacy experience, particularly navigating regulatory and approval processes
• Experience working in fast-growing, entrepreneurial organizations where you had to build processes and bring structure to ambiguity
• Knowledge of New Jersey and/or Florida education policy, charter school regulations, and funding structures
• Systems thinking: You naturally see how pieces connect, anticipate downstream effects, and identify dependencies others miss
• A bias toward clarity: You’re bothered by ambiguity and feel compelled to bring structure, documentation, and shared understanding to complex situations
• Strong facilitation skills: You can run meetings that actually move work forward and help groups reach alignment
• External presence and credibility: You can walk into a room of donors, community leaders, or government officials and quickly establish trust and rapport
• Intellectual curiosity: You ask great questions, dig into details, and genuinely want to understand how things work
• Adaptability: You’re comfortable with changing priorities and can manage multiple projects at different stages simultaneously
• Ownership mentality: When you take on a project, you see it through—you don’t wait for someone else to solve problems
• Collaborative approach: You accomplish things through and with others, not by force of authority
• Comfort with both strategic and tactical work: You can write a compelling board memo in the morning and coordinate a site selection committee meeting in the afternoon
• Commitment to excellence: “Good enough” doesn’t satisfy you—you want to help the organization do this work exceptionally well
• Mission alignment: You’re motivated by KIPP’s work to expand educational opportunity and believe that growth done well creates transformative opportunities for students and families

Responsibilities

• Manage Growth Project Planning from Pre-Diligence to Launch
• Build External Support and Secure Funding for Growth
• Navigate Government Relations and Charter Authorization
• Draft Key Documents for Decision-Making and External Engagement
• Conduct Pre-Diligence on Emerging Markets
• Drive Continuous Improvement in Growth Planning

Benefits

• Robust benefits that include medical, dental, and vision
• Optional participation in the KIPP NJ 403b retirement plan, including matching contributions
• A school-issued laptop
• Transportation benefits for TEAMmates commuting into Newark from the New York City area
• Generous Time-Off including 3.5-4 school vacation weeks (depending on the year), allocated sick and personal days, and an extended summer break
• Up to 12 weeks 100% parental leave for primary caregivers
• Employer paid life insurance
• Extensive optional ancillary benefits including, short term and long term disability and accident and hospital indemnity

What This Job Offers

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