Senior Director, User Readiness

College Board • Remote - Virginia, VA

3d • $104,000 - $160,000 • Remote

About The Position

The Senior Director of User Readiness leads College Board’s strategy for preparing district-level, school-level, and student-level users across programs to succeed on test day. The role defines a shared readiness framework and operating standards that unite logistical and digital preparedness across assessment delivery. It owns the strategy, team coherence, roadmap, and outcomes for community management, digital engagement, technical readiness, and risk monitoring and intervention.

The Senior Director leads the User Readiness portfolio, including network, digital, and analytics talent and approximately 30 contract community support staff. The role sets priorities, manages performance and development, builds an inclusive culture, addresses talent and skill gaps, and develops growth and succession pathways for Directors and their teams.

The role interprets portfolio data to inform business cases and changes to processes, technology, and resourcing. It owns readiness definitions, operating standards, risk signals and thresholds, the master planning calendar, and cross-functional milestones. It is accountable for readiness outcomes for coordinators and testing staff and leads seasonal retrospectives to inform future strategy.

The Senior Director partners with program, product, and technology leaders to shape requirements for College Board’s next-generation digital testing platform and ensure readiness scales alongside digital modernization. The role represents the User Readiness roadmap to strategic partners, integrates technology requirements with Operations’ needs, and oversees onboarding and change management as new programs join the shared model.

This is a remote, full-time role. Employees near College Board offices may work fully remotely or hybrid, with in-office days Tuesday and Wednesday. Occasional travel is required, approximately 3–5 times per year, to College Board offices or for business purposes.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of combined education and experience leading complex, multi-program operations, community, or customer-success functions, including experience managing other people-leaders.
• Experience leading people leaders and a technical workforce, including network, digital, and analytics staff, alongside program or product management experts.
• Strategic and inclusive leadership skills, including setting priorities, building effective team structures, planning for future needs, and fostering belonging.
• Ability to set high expectations, provide timely evidence-based feedback, and coach team members to take smart risks, develop skills, and achieve impact.
• Strong data and analytics background, including interpreting complex analysis, building business cases, and driving organizational change based on evidence.
• Track record designing and operationalizing a shared, cross-program operating model that replaces duplicative or program-specific structures with a scalable, unified model.
• Experience running digital email or marketing campaigns, or activation-focused programs, and building outreach that turns awareness into action.
• Experience managing up and across and representing a function’s strategy and needs to strategic partners overseeing policy, technology, data, or marketing.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams through organizational change, including transitioning from a legacy operating model to a new model.
• Executive-level written and verbal communication skills, including presenting strategy and outcomes to senior leadership.
• Experience communicating product and technical requirements directly to technology teams, with credibility to act as a technology integrator and spokesperson to senior stakeholders.
• Comfort with ambiguity and building new capabilities from scratch, particularly for functions still taking shape.
• Ability to travel occasionally, approximately 3–5 times per year, to College Board offices or on College Board business.
• Passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and for 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, including welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving respectful feedback, and improving through iterative learning and user input.
• 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.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in assessment, education technology, or another high-stakes service-delivery environment.
• Direct experience building or scaling a community engagement, customer success, or user-success function.

Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio spanning community management, digital engagement, technical readiness, and risk monitoring and intervention, including oversight of network, digital, and analytics talent and approximately 30 contract community support staff.
• Set team vision and priorities, track progress toward goals, and coach and support team members to meet and exceed goals.
• Cultivate an inclusive, high-achieving culture aligned with College Board’s Operating Principles and Manager Expectations.
• Identify and address talent and skill gaps, and build growth and succession pathways for Directors and their teams.
• Coach Directors to own outcomes within their functions and apply the User Readiness roadmap throughout the team.
• Interpret data and analysis across the portfolio to build business cases and drive evidence-based changes to process, technology, and resourcing.
• Own the shared definition of user readiness and the operating standards used across College Board programs.
• Set consistent, defensible standards for defining readiness risk and acting on risk signals and thresholds across programs.
• Anticipate emerging business needs and direct resulting changes to processes, case management, and technology requirements.
• Set strategic direction and priorities for Directors across the User Readiness functions while empowering them to own execution.
• Own the master planning calendar and milestone cadence across functions.
• Own readiness outcomes for coordinators and testing staff, including the share who complete readiness without intervention, and reallocate focus based on results.
• Lead cross-portfolio seasonal retrospectives and use lessons learned to shape future strategy across programs.
• Shape requirements for the next generation of College Board’s digital testing platform with product and technology leaders.
• Represent the User Readiness roadmap to strategic partners and ensure platform and program decisions account for pre-test-day readiness.
• Evolve the User Readiness model alongside digital modernization and ensure it scales to new programs and platforms.
• Design onboarding paths and facilitate change management as new programs enter the shared User Readiness model.
• Serve as technology integrator and primary spokesperson to stakeholders on product and technical requirements, translating between technology teams and Operations leadership.
• Travel occasionally, approximately 3–5 times per year, to College Board offices or on College Board business.

Benefits

• Comprehensive compensation and benefits package.
• Fair and competitive compensation informed by qualifications, experience, impact, and market data.
• Location-adjusted salaries.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed