Project Manager, Quality Coaching

Overview

The Project Manager, Quality Coaching serves as the operating backbone of Strada Education Foundation’s Quality Coaching team. Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Quality Coaching, the role translates established strategy into integrated plans and provides disciplined operational leadership across the team’s initiatives, grants, contracts, resources, and operating rhythms.

Working across the Quality Coaching team, the Project Manager collaborates closely with portfolio leaders and colleagues in Grants Management, Strategy, Finance, Legal, Communications, Talent, and other departments as requested by the Senior Vice President. The role creates visibility across a growing portfolio, ensures priorities are appropriately planned and resourced, and drives timely execution through clear milestones, effective systems, technology-enabled workflows, proactive communication, and consistent follow-through. This leadership strengthens accountability, accelerates decision-making, and enables the team to deliver its priorities with greater consistency, efficiency, and impact.

Strada Education Foundation is a national nonprofit social impact organization that supports programs, policies, and organizations that strengthen connections between education and employment in the U.S., with a special focus on helping those who have faced the greatest challenges securing economic opportunity through postsecondary education or training (PSET). Our strategic plan focuses on five strategic pillars: clear outcomes, quality coaching, affordable PSET, work-based learning, and employer alignment. 

We work with partners in education and training, nonprofit organizations, industry, startups, and public policy. We leverage strategic philanthropy, investments, research, communications, advocacy, and collaborating organizations as tools to help advance equitable pathways to opportunity. Strada aspires to be a nonprofit partner of choice working with education and training providers and leaders, policymakers, and peer organizations. Strada offers a dynamic, collaborative, and inspiring professional environment that provides learning and professional development opportunities, both within the organization and with external partners.

Key Responsibilities

Five core responsibility areas are listed below with the approximate percentage of time required for execution.

1. Project Management and Annual Planning (35%)

• Develop and maintain the integrated operating plan for the Quality Coaching portfolio, translating established priorities into clear milestones, owners, dependencies, deliverables, and timelines.

• Lead the annual and quarterly planning process, including planning calendars, templates, workplan consolidation, quarterly insights, and alignment with organizational and board planning cycles.

• Create and maintain portfolio dashboards, project plans, decision logs, risk and issue trackers, and other tools that provide timely visibility into progress and performance.

• Coordinate work across portfolio leads and cross-functional partners; surface risks, resource constraints, overdue decisions, and interdependencies early; and drive agreed-upon follow-through.

• Establish practical project-management standards and support team members in consistently applying shared tools and processes.

2. Grants and Contract Management Oversight (25%)

• Lead teamwide operational coordination of the Quality Coaching grants and contracts portfolio, establishing the systems, responsibilities, timelines, and processes required for consistent execution and follow-through. Partner closely with the Director, Quality Coaching Innovation and Impact and the Vice Presidents to align grant and contract operations with portfolio priorities, substantive goals, and partner commitments.

• Serve as the Quality Coaching team’s primary operational liaison to Grants Management, Finance, Accounts Payable, Legal, and other Strada colleagues, coordinating documentation, approvals, payments, amendments, renewals, reporting, compliance, and closeout.

• Maintain an integrated grants and contracts calendar and dashboard, along with complete and audit-ready records, to provide leadership with timely visibility into commitments, deliverables, disbursements, reporting due dates, risks, and upcoming decisions.

• Coordinate grants portfolio reviews and prepare concise summaries that enable the Senior Vice President and portfolio leaders to assess progress, address emerging issues, and make informed decisions. Translate funding decisions, scopes of work, deliverables, performance expectations, and learning priorities into actionable plans and monitoring processes.

3. Team and Executive Operations (20%)

• Manage the Quality Coaching Operations Center and the team’s core operating infrastructure, including shared calendars, meeting cadences, agendas, pre-reads, templates, decision records, and action tracking.

• Coordinate internal (e.g., weekly team meetings) and executive updates by managing timelines, gathering and synthesizing inputs, and developing clear, compelling written materials and PowerPoint presentations in partnership with the Senior Vice President and substantive leads.

• Participate in selected leadership, planning, grants portfolio, and external stakeholder meetings with the Senior Vice President to provide operating context, document decisions, and drive coordinated follow-through.

• Lead operational preparation for team retreats, PSE all-team meetings, Stradasphere, and other major internal engagements, including project plans, materials, logistics, and post-meeting actions.

• Identify and implement opportunities to streamline workflows, strengthen communication, and improve team effectiveness, including the thoughtful use of technology and AI-enabled tools to enhance internal systems and capabilities.

4. Budget and External Engagement Projects (10%)

• Manage the Quality Coaching team’s budget and resource plan in partnership with the Senior Vice President and Finance, including forecasts, commitments, expenses, variances, regular budget snapshots, and assumptions supporting annual base and growth planning.

• Manage the team’s conference, convening, and sponsorship portfolio, including the annual calendar, participation decisions, calls for proposals, registrations, sponsorship deliverables, presentations, logistics, resource requirements, and follow-through.

• Partner with the Executive Assistant to align scheduling, preparation, and travel for major engagements and maintain a forward-looking calendar that reflects team priorities, creates space for collaboration and preparation, and supports the Senior Vice President’s timely participation in key meetings, decisions, and team activities.

5. Organizational Health and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (10%)

• Build and sustain team practices that promote engagement, inclusion, clarity, accountability, collaboration, effective prioritization, and delivery with excellence.

• Incorporate inclusive practices and diverse stakeholder perspectives into team planning, operations, partner engagement, and decision-making while actively contributing to Strada’s organizational health and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

• Partner with Talent and team leaders to support effective onboarding, professional development, employee engagement, and a healthy, collaborative workplace culture.

The Person: Qualifications and Experience

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.

Experience Required

• At least three (3) years of relevant experience in operations, program or project management, business operations, grants administration, or a related field, preferably within education, philanthropy, or the nonprofit sector.

• Demonstrated success managing multiple concurrent workstreams, due dates, dependencies, and stakeholders in a complex, matrixed environment.

• Experience overseeing the operational lifecycle of grants and contracts, including workflows, documentation, approvals, reporting, payments, compliance, and closeout.

• Experience managing budgets, forecasts, resource plans, and executive-level reporting.

• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into integrated plans, practical operating systems, dashboards, and clear accountability structures.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including demonstrated ability to translate complex information into clear, concise, and visually compelling PowerPoint presentations and memos for senior leaders and varied audiences.

• Strong judgment, discretion, responsiveness, attention to detail, and ability to manage through influence.

Preferred Experience

• Experience using (or a strong interest in developing proficiency with) AI-enabled tools to improve project management, information synthesis, workflows, and team operations.

• Experience in grantmaking, philanthropy, education, consulting, or another mission-driven organization.

• Familiarity with grants, contracts, payment, project-management, and dashboard platforms.

• Experience coordinating conferences, sponsorships, convenings, retreats, or other complex engagements and supporting senior leaders and leadership teams.