Sr. Manager of Compliance

Vertex Education•Chandler, AZ

About The Position

Vertex Education is seeking a Senior Manager, Compliance Center of Excellence (CoE) to establish and manage operating standards for compliance and reporting across School Performance, Assessment and Reporting (SPA), Strategic Finance (SFO), and related school support functions. This role reports to the VP, Student Performance and Accountability / School Analytics and will partner with SPA and SFO leadership to define the CoE's operating cadence and make its tools practical for existing compliance teams. The Senior Manager will focus on enablement, standards, and state-readiness, equipping delivery teams with resources like calendars, SOPs, knowledge bases, training, QA expectations, readiness checklists, and state-specific guidance, rather than owning routine submissions or client communication. The role involves working through dotted-line relationships with SFO and collaborating with Accounting, Grants, BCM, and Student Performance and Reporting teams.

Requirements

5 or more years of experience in compliance operations, state reporting, school operations, school finance operations, regulated reporting, public administration, grants administration, data reporting, internal controls, project management, or a related operations role.
Demonstrated ability to turn complex, multi-state, multi-entity, or multi-stakeholder work into repeatable SOPs, templates, calendars, workflows, and accountability models.
Experience building or maintaining knowledge repositories, training materials, process documentation, compliance calendars, trackers, dashboards, or operational playbooks.
Strong project management skills with the ability to organize ambiguous work, manage competing deadlines, create visibility for stakeholders, and drive work through dotted-line relationships.
Ability to interpret state, authorizer, funder, federal, or internal reporting requirements and translate them into practical execution guidance for delivery teams.
Comfort working with Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Teams, Asana or similar workflow tools, SIS or reporting platforms, and ERP or financial management systems.
Bachelor’s degree in business, Finance, Accounting, Public Administration, Education Administration, Operations, Data Analytics, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience in K-12 education, charter schools, school finance, education management organizations, or organizations supporting public school reporting.
Experience with state student data reporting, attendance reporting, financial compliance, grants compliance, audit support, authorizer reporting, or public-sector compliance workflows.
Familiarity with platforms or workflows such as PIMS, CALPADS, PowerSchool, state reporting portals, grant portals, or school accountability reporting.
Experience supporting teams through operating-model change, knowledge centralization, role clarification, or new process adoption.
Experience partnering with data engineering, technology, or analytics teams to translate operational requirements into tools, dashboards, or automation improvements.
People leadership or team coordination experience, especially with analysts, specialists, project coordinators, or cross-functional working groups.
Master’s degree in business, Finance, Public Administration, Education Administration, Data Analytics, or a related field.

Responsibilities

CoE Buildout and Governance with SPA Leadership: Define the CoE charter, roadmap, operating cadence, decision rights, success metrics, and stakeholder governance. Translate the CoE concept into practical routines and artifacts for adoption by delivery teams. Establish a dotted-line governance rhythm with relevant teams to review adoption, risks, deadlines, state changes, and improvement priorities. Clarify CoE standards, functional team ownership, and leadership decision points.
Master Calendar and Compliance Coverage Map: Build and maintain the master compliance calendar architecture for various compliance categories (financial, student data, state, attendance, authorizer, etc.). Define calendar fields, ownership rules, lead times, evidence due dates, dependencies, submission windows, approval requirements, escalation points, and status conventions. Maintain a state coverage map documenting obligations by state, school type, client segment, authorizer, funder, reporting platform, and delivery team. Create a recurring refresh process for the calendar.
SOPs, Repository, and Knowledge Management: Build and maintain a centralized compliance repository with state-specific and workflow-specific SOPs, templates, portal guides, submission checklists, QA expectations, evidence standards, and historical reference materials. Codify subject matter expertise from SPA, SFO, Accounting, and Grants teams. Document priority workflows such as PIMS, CALPADS, attendance reporting, state data reporting, federal grants reporting, and financial compliance submissions. Define version control, naming conventions, permissions, annual refresh owners, and approval workflows.
Training and Enablement: Develop training materials, onboarding modules, job aids, refreshers, office hours, and role-specific learning paths for compliance and reporting teams. Train delivery teams on requirements, source data needs, portal workflows, evidence expectations, QA checks, escalation triggers, and changes in state or funder rules. Support cross-training and backup coverage. Partner with functional leaders to reinforce role clarity.
State Greenlight and Expansion Readiness: Own the state compliance readiness framework for current and potential new states. Create a greenlight checklist assessing state reporting requirements, financial compliance, grants, student data, attendance, portals, source data, SIS dependencies, staffing, training, data security, delivery ownership, implementation timeline, and risk level. Prepare greenlight recommendations for leadership before new-state commitments or product expansions. Maintain launch playbooks for new-state workflows.
QA, Risk Visibility, and Continuous Improvement: Define submission readiness criteria, evidence standards, QA gates, review checklists, and escalation triggers. Maintain risk visibility through dashboards and trackers showing upcoming deadlines, ownership, missing inputs, at-risk submissions, and quality issues. Conduct process reviews to identify issues and partner with delivery owners to analyze root causes and improve processes.
Systems, Automation, and Data Product Alignment: Partner with SPA and IT to align compliance standards with data pipelines, dashboards, reporting tools, and automation priorities. Define business requirements for tools supporting compliance visibility and execution. Identify opportunities to reduce manual work, improve validation, standardize data flows, automate reminders, and improve evidence retention. Ensure automation and dashboard efforts account for compliance requirements, data security, FERPA, permissions, audit trails, and usability.
Stakeholder Partnership and Change Management: Serve as the day-to-day CoE partner to delivery leaders, assisting with standards adoption. Prepare updates for SPA and SFO leadership on CoE progress, risks, and decisions needed. Help manage change with teams whose expertise is being codified centrally. Coordinate analysts, specialists, or project resources supporting CoE maintenance and administration.