Chief Strategy & Growth Officer

Description

Job Title: Chief Strategy & Growth Officer 

Full-Time, 12-Month Position, Role Level 6

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Supervisory Responsibilities: Yes

Who We Are:

YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School is a tuition-free, public charter high school with a singular focus on supporting youth aged 17-20 who have been pushed out of traditional schools. During our 1-year alternative program, YouthBuild facilitates a warm, loving culture that uses a variety of structures to build community, such as a restorative-justice approach to discipline, weekly community meetings, and school-wide service projects. Students are empowered to attain their high school diplomas and vocational certifications while receiving unconditional support from the staff around them. At YouthBuild, we work intentionally to disrupt the cycle of poverty and support our students to achieve post-secondary success (4-year college, 2-year college, vocational training program, or liveable wage job). Visit https://www.youthbuildphilly.org/ to learn more.

The Opportunity:

YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School is entering a new chapter, one defined not by recovery, but by intentional, disciplined growth. By School Year 2030-2031, YouthBuild Philly aims to serve up to 500 students across day and evening programming, with strong student outcomes, a codified program model, sustainable finances, and the systems needed to support high-quality implementation at scale. The next five years include launching an evening school, opening a student-connected eatery on Ridge Avenue, resolving our long-term space and facilities needs, codifying our program model, and requesting a charter enrollment amendment.

The Chief Strategy & Growth Officer (CSGO) exists to make that plan happen. Reporting to the CEO and serving as a peer to the COO, CFO, Chief Advancement Officer, and Principal/Head of School, the CSGO owns implementation of our five-year strategic direction end to end: coordinating the launch of growth initiatives, owning the organization's postsecondary pathway outcomes, serving as the keeper of our most significant organizational relationships, driving the space planning process to a board-approved decision, and acting as the internal integrator across the executive team and the CEO's office.

Because we are a small nonprofit, this is emphatically a player-coach role. The CSGO carries a small team and a large mandate, and closes the gap with their own hands: building the project plans and running them, drafting the board materials, negotiating the partnership agreements, and standing in the eatery the week it opens. The ideal candidate moves between a board-level strategy conversation and a vendor logistics spreadsheet in the same morning, and finds energy in both. Candidates who have been the person who makes the thing exist, whether a program launched, a site opened, or a plan executed, will recognize this job immediately.

What You’ll Do:

Strategic Plan Implementation  

• Translate the FY27–FY31 Strategic Direction into a multi-year implementation roadmap with measurable goals and objectives that guide organizational decision-making and progress.
• Establish and run a quarterly strategic plan review cycle with the executive team, including preparing materials, facilitating conversations, documenting decisions, and producing board-ready reporting with the CEO.
• Lead development of the organization's next full strategic plan in SY27-28, including process design, stakeholder engagement, landscape research, facilitation, and writing.
• Prepare the charter amendment request for the enrollment cap increase on the SY29-30 timeline, building the evidence base and coordinating submission with the Compliance team.
• Support the CEO and CFO in the adoption of the organization's investment strategy by managing the decision process and preparing board materials.

Growth Initiatives & Enterprise

• Oversee the launch of the evening school for SY26-27, coordinating across staffing, facilities, compliance, enrollment, scheduling, technology, budget, and communications to ensure a successful opening and stabilization.
• Design the evening school assessment framework with school leadership, defining quality standards across student outcomes, staff sustainability, and financial viability, and lead the formal SY27-28 assessment that informs whether and how the model scales.
• Lead codification of both the day and evening program models in SY28-29, documenting practices, staffing models, cost structures, and quality standards that support growth without diluting the student experience.
• Own the launch of the Ridge Avenue eatery: refine the business plan and operating model, coordinate buildout and licensing, recruit and manage the Social Enterprise Manager, build the financial model with the CFO, and design student training pathways through the enterprise.
• Define and report the eatery's dual bottom line — student learning outcomes and financial performance — on the same rhythm as organizational KPIs.
• Identify, evaluate, and develop future social enterprise and workforce expansion opportunities, maintaining a pipeline of concepts and bringing proposals to the executive team and Board.
• Drive the space and facilities planning process in SY26-27, engaging stakeholders, coordinating due diligence, and preparing the Board's decision materials.

  Postsecondary Pathways

• Own the organization's defining postsecondary outcome: every young person leaves YouthBuild Philadelphia with a confirmed postsecondary path, whether that is a four-year college, two-year college, vocational training program, or livable wage job.
• Hold dotted-line management of the Director of Postsecondary Planning and align with the Principal on shared expectations, priorities, and performance feedback for the role.
• Codify the postsecondary structure for the Director of Postsecondary Planning to execute, including the advising model, bridge plan process, employer and postsecondary partner pipeline, data tracking standards, and Year 2 alumni support model.
• Connect the postsecondary strategy to the organization's partnership portfolio, ensuring employer and education partners translate into confirmed placements for students and alumni.

  Organizational Relationships & Partnerships

• Serve as the keeper of all significant organizational relationships, maintaining the institutional relationship map and partner pipeline so that YouthBuild Philly's most important external relationships are stewarded deliberately and survive individual transitions.
• Operate a clear division of labor with the Chief Advancement Officer, managing all programming-related elements of shared relationships — including internships, placements, training pathways, and program collaboration — while planning jointly to ensure each significant relationship has one coordinated organizational strategy.
• Develop and steward the employer, postsecondary, civic, and YouthBuild-network partnerships the growth plan requires, and hand warm, structured relationships to the program leaders who operate them day to day.
• Represent YouthBuild Philadelphia in coalitions, working groups, and convenings alongside or on behalf of the CEO.

Data, Goals & Organizational Accountability

• Support the COO in contributing to dashboard design, tightening metric definitions, and ensuring strategic plan milestones and growth initiative metrics are well represented and current.
• Co-facilitate session-cycle data reviews with the COO, synthesizing patterns across departments, connecting results to strategic plan progress, and framing the decisions the data demands.
• Own and report the metrics tied directly to this role's portfolio: strategic plan milestones, evening school launch and assessment indicators, eatery dual bottom line, and the confirmed postsecondary path metric.
• Lead the annual goal-setting process, facilitating the executive team's translation of strategic priorities into annual goals and KPIs.
• Disaggregate and interrogate data to surface equity gaps, leading indicators, and emerging challenges early.

  Leadership, Administration, & Team Management

• Serve as a member of the Leadership Team, advising the CEO and Board of Directors on strategy, growth, and organizational performance.
• Run the executive leadership team operating rhythm, including owning the standing agenda, preparing materials, facilitating meetings, documenting decisions, and tracking follow-through.
• Manage and develop the Social Enterprise Manager; hold dotted-line management of the Director of Postsecondary Planning; and oversee internal communications so staff understands organizational priorities, progress, and decisions.
• Serve as the first point of escalation for cross-team issues, resolving what can be resolved and bringing the CEO a short list of genuinely CEO-level items with a recommendation attached.
• Support board governance work as assigned, including committee staffing, succession planning support, and retreat design.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Who You Are:

• Invested in our core values - Respect, Excellence, and Perseverance.
• Equity-focused and believe that all students can achieve. 
• Passionate about community service and civic engagement.
• Collaborative and dedicated to personal and professional development.
• Committed to educational equity, anti-racism, and anti-bias.
• A practiced strategy and execution leader with a demonstrated record of translating vision into operational reality across complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
• A disciplined project and process manager with experience personally building and running multi-workstream plans and driving follow-through across teams.
• A skilled relationship builder who earns trust with employers, education partners, civic leaders, and funders, and manages shared relationships gracefully across internal lines.
• Fluent with data: you design metrics, interrogate numbers, and lead data conversations with senior leaders with confidence.
• An exceptional communicator who produces board-quality writing and skillfully facilitates senior groups, including meetings where peers disagree.
• Skilled at influencing without authority, with demonstrated success driving outcomes through people and teams you did not directly manage.
• Comfortable operating across altitudes, moving between strategy and logistics without seeing either as beneath or above you.
• Candid and direct, with the ability to deliver difficult news early and constructively to the CEO, peers, and Board alike.
• Modeling organizational behaviors and competencies for staff and supporting the growth and development of all staff members, regardless of reporting lines.
• Operating with a 'move as one' mindset rather than an individual mindset regarding goals, organizational culture, and work prioritization.

Education and Experience:

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience, including 3+ (as an executive-level leader) years managing complex, cross-functional initiatives from plan through execution, in education, workforce development, nonprofit management, social enterprise, operations, or comparable settings.
• Experience launching or operating a social enterprise, food service business, or earned-revenue program is strongly preferred.
• Experience in charter school, alternative education, or workforce development environments, including authorizer, federal grant, or compliance-heavy contexts, is preferred.
• Experience building postsecondary, employer, or workforce partnership pipelines that produced measurable placement outcomes is preferred.
• Chief of staff, strategy, transformation, or new-site launch experience supporting a CEO, executive team, or board is preferred.
• Familiarity with Philadelphia's education, workforce, civic, and funding landscape is a plus.
• A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university is required; a Master's Degree is strongly preferred.

What We Offer You:

• Competitive compensation and an excellent work environment  
• Generous time off
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance 
• Flexible spending accounts
• 401(k) savings plan with an employer match
• Employer-paid life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability 
• Educational assistance and professional development opportunities to enhance skills and career growth
• Supportive and collaborative work environment
• Strong community support and involvement

Salary Range:

     New YouthBuild chief-level staff can expect a starting salary of between $140,000 and $150,000, based on years of experience and education. Incoming salaries are determined based on experience and internal equity.

     Applicants will have the opportunity to discuss our employee total rewards package and additional benefits during the application process.

This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by this employee. 

All qualified candidates will be considered for employment without regard to their race, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital status, medical condition, veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.