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 that support compliance and reporting work 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 closely with SPA and SFO leadership to establish the CoE, define its operating cadence, and make its tools practical for the teams that currently manage compliance submissions. The role will work through dotted-line relationships with SFO and collaborate closely with Accounting, Grants, BCM, Student Performance and Reporting teams. This is an enablement, standards, and state-readiness role. The Senior Manager will not generally own routine submissions or routine client communication. Instead, the role equips delivery teams by creating and maintaining the calendar, SOPs, knowledge base, training, QA expectations, readiness checklists, and state-specific guidance they need to execute accurately and consistently.

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: Partner with the VP of Student Performance, Assessment & Reporting to define the CoE charter, initial roadmap, operating cadence, decision rights, success metrics, and stakeholder governance. Translate the CoE concept into practical routines, artifacts, and working norms that current delivery teams can adopt without disrupting in-flight submissions. Create a dotted-line governance rhythm with Accounting, Grants, BCM, Student Performance and Reporting teams to review adoption, risks, upcoming deadlines, state changes, and improvement priorities. Clarify where the CoE sets standards, where functional teams own execution, and where leadership decisions are.
Master Calendar and Compliance Coverage Map: Build and maintain the master compliance calendar architecture for current states and in-scope compliance categories, including financial compliance, student data reporting, state reporting, attendance reporting, authorizer reporting, and other recurring or ad hoc obligations. 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 that documents which obligations apply by state, school type, client segment, authorizer, funder, reporting platform, and delivery team. Create a recurring refresh process so the calendar is updated annually and whenever state, authorizer, funder, or internal requirements change.
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 currently held by SPA, SFO, including Accounting, Grants, and other teams so that knowledge is accessible, current, and not dependent on individual memory. Document priority workflows such as PIMS, CALPADS, attendance reporting, state data reporting, federal grants reporting, financial compliance submissions, and other high-volume or high-risk recurring obligations. Define version control, naming conventions, permissions, annual refresh owners, and approval workflows for CoE materials.
Training and Enablement: Develop training materials, onboarding modules, job aids, refreshers, office hours, and role-specific learning paths for teams that execute compliance and reporting work. 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 so core workflows do not rely on a single person or legacy team with undocumented expertise. Partner with functional leaders to reinforce role clarity, especially where compliance work has historically defaulted to BCMs, AMs, or senior leaders because ownership was unclear.
State Greenlight and Expansion Readiness: Own the state compliance readiness framework for states where Vertex currently operates and for new states under consideration. Create a greenlight checklist that assesses state reporting requirements, financial compliance obligations, grants requirements, student data reporting, attendance requirements, portals, source data, SIS dependencies, staffing needs, training needs, data security considerations, delivery ownership, implementation timeline, and risk level. Prepare greenlight recommendations for SPA, SFO, Partnerships, and senior leadership before Vertex commits to new-state compliance support or expands a compliance-adjacent data product. Maintain launch playbooks that help delivery teams stand up new-state workflows consistently once leadership approves expansion.
QA, Risk Visibility, and Continuous Improvement: Define submission readiness criteria, evidence standards, QA gates, review checklists, and escalation triggers for recurring compliance workflows. Maintain risk visibility through dashboards, trackers, or reporting routines that show upcoming deadlines, ownership, missing inputs, at-risk submissions, and recurring quality issues. Conduct process reviews or spot checks to identify missing evidence, inconsistent execution, unclear ownership, late inputs, data-quality issues, recurring errors, or avoidable rework. Partner with delivery owners to analyze root causes and improve SOPs, training, templates, tooling, or escalation routines based on real-world issues.
Systems, Automation, and Data Product Alignment: Partner with SPA and IT to align compliance standards with data pipelines, dashboards, secure file transfer processes, reporting tools, and automation priorities. Define business requirements for tools that support compliance visibility and execution, including SharePoint, Teams, Asana, SIS-related workflows, ERP or finance systems, data warehouses, dashboards, and reporting platforms. Identify opportunities to reduce manual work, improve validation, standardize data flows, automate reminders, improve evidence retention, and create portfolio-level visibility across states and schools. Ensure automation and dashboard efforts account for compliance requirements, data security, FERPA-sensitive information, role-based permissions, audit trails, and operator usability.
Stakeholder Partnership and Change Management: Serve as the day-to-day CoE partner to delivery leaders, helping them adopt standards without losing ownership of their work. Prepare concise updates for SPA and SFO leadership on CoE progress, adoption, risks, state readiness, training completion, documentation coverage, and decisions needed. Help manage change with teams whose expertise is being codified centrally, making clear that the CoE is moving knowledge and standards, not removing delivery responsibility by default. As the CoE matures, coordinate analysts, specialists, or project resources supporting repository maintenance, workflow documentation, QA support, training administration, or state research.