Guild, the leading education benefits platform and one of Denver's fastest growing startups, is increasing economic mobility for working adults in America and providing education and support to help every student survive and thrive in the economy of tomorrow. Our platform helps employers offer education as a benefit to their employees by connecting employers' workforces with our network of nonprofit universities and education institutions that focus on serving the needs of working adults. And, our team of retention coaches helps each employee navigate the path back to school, providing individualized support from day one through graduation. In order to accelerate our growth and achieve our mission to serve 1000s more students, we've raised over $70 million from top tier investors including Felicis Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Redpoint Ventures (among other social impact and VC partners!). 

To meet the diverse needs of our students and their career goals, Guild partners with academic providers and offers many types of academic programs - from trades programs to college prep classes to bachelor’s degrees. The Academic Program Director will be responsible for program development, operations, account management, and strong student outcomes for their academic programs which could include micro-masters credentials, trades, English Language Learning, bootcamps, high school completion, college prep or similar programs.

A day in our open, collaborative workspace will look a little like this:

• Managing the day-to-day operations for your program(s), including:
• Implementing the program and setting up initial processes, policies, and procedures or iterating on the same to drive greater efficacy, efficiency and outcomes.
• Analyzing data and examining reports in Salesforce or Looker to manage student progress and drive improvement in processes and outcomes
• Dotted line overseeing student coaches to support students and drive retention results
• Leading operational processes during enrollment, add drop and completion periods
• Monitoring key success metrics like yield, retention, completion and NPS and utilizing data relating to these metrics to identify opportunities to grow, change or develop the program
• Collaborating with teams like retention, marketing, client services and others to strategically grow, expand, and improve outcomes of your program(s)
• Managing the external partnership or “account” in one or more academic verticals, including:
• Leading weekly check-in calls with the academic partner
• Creating process of shared learnings with the external partner, providing space to both provide and receive feedback

In this role, you’ll grow and expand your expertise by:

• Work cross-functionally to establish processes to seamlessly enroll, communicate with, and/or support students in the program
• Running regular retrospectives around enrollment and student success for your programs and implementing learnings into next cycle
• Creating consistent communication strategies to both partners and internal stakeholders, sharing priorities, outcomes and learnings
• Developing deep relationships with key stakeholders internally while working to understand and address areas of strength and pain points
• Spearheading conversations around needed data or operational improvements, achieving buy-in need to deliver cross-functional asks
• Re-evaluating contract, data integrations and billing processes as needed

You’ll know if you’re successful by:

• Managing towards strong student outcomes, efficient processes, and academic partner satisfaction
• Seeing improvement in student enrollment, retention, and completion rates overtime as a result of your insights and cross-functional iterations
• Receiving feedback through our learning-focused twice annual Structured Growth Conversations

You’ll join a team:

• Of experts with experience in government, higher education, and private sector partnerships
• Of learners & problem-solvers dedicated to our dual mission of changing education in America while building a successful, high-growth company
• Committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment that you’d support every day

What you’ll add to Guild - as an individual and part of the broader team:

• 5+ years of previous experience as an account or program manager in a related field, with strong partnership management
• Ability to successfully manage multiple complex, cross-functional projects at the same time
• Experience using analytical approaches to develop, measure and evolve processes
• Ability to develop strong relationships and communicate effectively while under pressure - balancing confidence, humility, and diplomacy internally and externally
• Evidence of your intellectual curiosity in the space - do you blog, tweet, speak or read everything that’s out there - tell us more!
• Previous experience in a high growth tech startup
• A drive to work hard and a plan for how you can refresh and recharge while working in a startup
• Something else? Wonderful, we’re curious to learn more about you!