Chief Platform Officer

March 10th, 2022
Chief Platform Officer

Chief Platform Officer

  • Full Time
  • Senior Level
  • Applications have closed
Job Category: Executive, Programs/Services
Location: Queens
Job Sectors: Community Improvement, Education, Other
Salary Range:

About NYC Kids RISE 

NYC Kids RISE manages the Save for College Program (the Program) in partnership with the NYC Department of Education and the City of New York, with founding support from the Gray Foundation. Through the Program, every student enrolled in a participating NYC public elementary school (including charter schools who choose to participate), starting in kindergarten, automatically receives an NYC Scholarship Account invested in a NY 529 Direct Plan plan with a $100 seed deposit and up to $200 in early rewards. Their families can open and connect their own college savings account, and communities can contribute to groups of these NYC Scholarship Accounts as both a targeted and universal platform for community-driven asset-building in every neighborhood. This approach draws from a variety of best practices and disciplines across the fields of asset building, child savings accounts, financial empowerment, education, community wealth building, urban poverty, neighborhood effects and social capital research, collective impact, and more. Read more about NYC Kids RISE and the Save for College Program and listen to stories from partners who helped build the platform during the pilot phase.  Also check out recent articles in Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal and the NYCHA Journal. Read more about NYC Kids RISE theory of change here in a recent report by the Urban Institute. 

 

After a successful pilot phase in the communities of School District 30 in Queens, NYC Kids RISE is currently expanding citywide during the 2021-2022 school year. This school year nearly 70,000 Kindergarten students across more than 1,000 elementary schools will have an NYC Scholarship for their educational futures. 

 

Chief Platform Officer

Through the Save for College Program, NYC Kids RISE is building a platform that enables communities to come together to invest in all of their children and create neighborhoods of economic success. The Save for College Program is one piece of an ecosystem in each neighborhood that impacts a child’s likelihood of attending and graduating from college and career training. This ecosystem includes their home, their school, their after-school program, their religious or spiritual home, the local financial institutions, community organizations, commercial strips, community centers, their neighbors, and the belief systems that are shared within and across these institutions about the student, the family, and the community at large. As a decentralized platform, the NYC Kids RISE Save for College Program aims to support, reinforce, and become integrated within this broader ecosystem in each neighborhood. This platform aims to recognize and build upon the unique expertise that every individual and community institution has and to give communities ownership in shaping the ways they interact with this platform. 

 

NYC Kids RISE seeks an experienced, entrepreneurial, highly organized, strategic, systems-thinking leader and manager to serve as the organization’s first Chief Platform Officer (CPO). The Chief Platform Officer will manage the day-to-day operations of the Save for College Program, including outreach, engagement, and capacity building for the wide range of stakeholders that support the program’s implementation, including parents/guardians, school leaders, community-based organizations, and civic, anchor, business, and faith-based institutions. The Chief Platform Officer will lead efforts to partner with stakeholders to integrate the Program into the infrastructure of neighborhoods. 

 

Reporting to the NYC Kids RISE Executive Director and serving as part of the NYC Kids RISE executive leadership team, the CPO’s role will be to: 1) inform and drive the organization’s and program’s strategic direction through leadership and collaboration with team members and partners at every level; and 2) foster a highly effective, creative, nimble, collaborative, mission-oriented anti-racist organizational culture that takes NYC Kids RISE to the next phase in its evolution as an institution and as a fantastic place to work. The ideal candidate will be a natural leader and someone who thrives as a manager; brings out the best in their direct reports and teams; excels at managing up, down, and around the organization; and creates and sustains systems that foster exceptional team communication.

 

Key responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

 

1) PROGRAMMATIC OPERATIONS AND LEADERSHIP

  • Manage the day-to-day programmatic operations of the Save for College Program to successfully execute its vision and goals using a neighborhood-based, networked approach 
  • Manage a team of senior-level staff responsible for implementation of key elements of the Save for College program including stakeholder engagement, leadership development and capacity building
  • Oversee the creation, momentum, and success of networks of key stakeholders in each school district through relational, network theory-informed approaches and systems that center local knowledge and expertise, enhance the capacity of stakeholders to collectively build financial assets and support college-going expectations in their neighborhood, and operate within an outcome-oriented framework
  • Operationalize and oversee systems for monitoring, sharing, and acting upon relevant data and metrics (including stakeholder feedback) to adjust operations in real time and ensure data-driven decision making across the organization and its partners, working with Research & Evaluation and Data Management team members
  • Work with other key city agencies and partners to institutionalize the Save for College Program within existing systems;
  • Represent NYC Kids RISE with public, private and non profit executives and other stakeholders, serve as spokesperson as makes sense;

 

(2) STRATEGIC PLANNING & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

  • Lead the organization’s annual project planning processes and ongoing maintenance by working with and facilitating NYC Kids RISE leadership, team members and/or other partners as appropriate to a) determine priorities, goals, outcomes; b) align these goals to a set of projects for the year through which the organization will advance those goals; and c) oversee the team’s creation of project charters and work plans that align goals to projects, outcomes, and timelines;
  • Play key role in strategy, development and implementation of scaling the decentralized economic platform including determining how to build and scale community “ownership” and “co-creation”

 

(3) ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT

  • With the Executive Director and other members of the Executive Team, lead and support change management processes around organizational growth including reviewing, evaluating and iterating organizational growth plans and projections
  • With the Executive Director and other members of the Executive Team support the ongoing development and implementation of internal operational systems to advance the organization’s continuous work to sustain a high-performing, inclusive, dynamic organizational culture, one that centers racial equity, inclusivity and shared ownership as a core component, by planning and organizing organization-wide meetings, staff retreats, trainings and professional development, and other activities as appropriate
  • Support developing and operationalizing the platform’s narrative, to effectively communicate about the Program and continue to build support with a variety of stakeholders including families, civic organizations, businesses, corporate partners, government etc
  • Along with all NYC Kids RISE employees, maintain, and support other staff and volunteers to maintain strict adherence to NYC Kids RISE data security and privacy policies; remaining vigilant on the ways in which NYC Kids RISE can continue to protect confidential information (including Student and Family Data); identify vulnerabilities, and proactively problem solve to improve controls and practices
  • Along with all NYC Kids RISE employees, participate and share in the organization’s work to advance racial equity and anti-oppression in the organization’s and program’s operations and practices; proactively identify opportunities to advance the development of an anti-racist organization; share and solicit ongoing feedback and conversations to advance this work.

 

Qualifications

  • At least 12 years of experience in place-based economic and community development, anti-poverty work, community organizing, organizational development, financial empowerment service-delivery, or comparable, including in senior leadership and management positions; 
  • At least six years of experience in managing people and teams, including management of Director-level staff;
  • Experience leading teams through change, building systems within high-growth organizations, formalizing and codifying practices and processes to support collaboration, efficiency and shared ownership
  • Proven commitment to racial equity and advancing economic opportunity and justice
  • Superb communication and relationship building skills, including writing, public speaking, and presentation to diverse audiences
  • Adaptable, flexible and effective problem solver in fast-paced settings; 
  • Knowledge of, and demonstrated interest in, increasing economic opportunities and long-term financial security for low-income New York City families and neighborhoods, and combating wealth inequality and the racial wealth gap; 
  • Familiarity with New York City neighborhoods and systems (schools, community-based organizations, social services, local and state government, philanthropy, etc.) preferred;

 

Due to COVID-19, the application process for this role will be conducted virtually. The team is currently working remotely. The office is based in Long Island City (Queens, NY), and the entire team is expected to return to the office in a hybrid model once health conditions allow.

 

To apply, submit a cover letter and resume via https://nyckr.applytojob.com/apply/. Salary for this position starts at $165,000.

 

NYC Kids Rise is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate in employment on the basis of basis of gender, religion, race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship status, age, disability, marital status, caregiver status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, unemployed status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

NYC Kids RISE

  • 28-07 Jackson Ave
  • Long Island City, NY 11101
  • US
  • Phone: