Chief People Officer

The role

As Chief People Officer youll own the full employee experience for every teammate. That covers how we recruit and hire how we develop and keep teachers and leaders and how we pay support and manage performance.

We are building an organization where our values show up in every hire every review and every promotion. As Chief People Officer you will be the executive most responsible for making that true.

Youll sit on the executive leadership team and report to the Co-President. Youll lead five functional leaders covering Talent Acquisition Talent Development HR Operations and Payroll Employee Relations and Compensation and Performance Management. Youll work closely with regional leaders in all four cities.

This is a high-visibility high-accountability role. Your work impacts every classroom every school leadership team and every one of our students days.

Your first year

In your first 12 months you will:

• Earn trust fast. Build strong relationships with the executive team school leaders and regional leaders in Newark Camden Paterson and South Florida.
• Lead a unified People team. Lead five functions and four regions together as one team with a shared vision rooted in our 2030 plan.
• Get close to the work. Spend time in our schools several in each region in your first 90 days. Listen to teachers school leaders and staff about what helps them support our students and what gets in their way.
• Staff for growth. Make sure our hiring and pipeline programs can fill the roles that new students and new schools will need.
• Modernize our systems. Assess our HR applicant tracking and performance management tools. Then lead the teams transformation from reactive administration to proactive workforce planning including the smart use of people analytics and AI.
• Put our values at the center of every talent practice. Work with leaders on the People team and throughout the organization to build values-aligned behaviors into how we hire onboard develop evaluate recognize and promote.
• Set the compensation direction. Lay the groundwork for a pay strategy that is competitive equitable and transparent.

What success looks like by 2030

Weve set clear ambitious goals when it comes to our people work and youll own them.

• 90% overall staff retention with a special focus on first-year staff and teachers.
• Less than 5% regrettable attrition. We keep the people we most want to keep.
• 90% of teacher School Leader and Director of School Operations openings filled from within through our own pipeline programs.
• 95% of residents meeting or exceeding expectations in their first year in role.
• 90% of our schools and teams scoring above the 75th percentile on Gallups core engagement questions.

What youll lead

Strategy and culture. Set the multi-year people strategy and serve as a true thought partner to the Co-President and CEO on organizational design and workforce planning. Embed the networks values and key behaviors into talent systems job descriptions interview rubrics onboarding performance management recognition and leadership development so they are truly lived not just stated.

Talent acquisition. With the Managing Director of Talent Acquisition develop and refine KTAFs current recruitment strategies that prioritize high quality talent by leveraging KTAFs mission brand and value proposition.  Recruit exceptional mission-aligned teachers school leaders and staff across every region at the pace our growth requires.

Talent development. With the Managing Director of Talent Development grow our teacher pipeline programs leader residency and teacher-to-leader pathways so our next leaders come from within. Develop and implement a continuum of professional development  for all home office and school-based staff and managers that fosters strong succession planning for internal growth.   

HR operations and payroll. With the Managing Director of Human Resources modernize HR systems and evaluate people-analytics and AI tools moving the team from reactive to proactive workforce planning. Oversee compliant payroll in two states and own benefits strategy and administration balancing cost competitiveness and employee experience. 

Employee relations. With the Managing Director of Employee Relations keep our policies clear fair and consistent across all four regions Oversee employee relations strategy and support for schools.  Partner with legal counsel on complex matters.

Compensation and performance. Build pay and performance systems that recognize strong performers. Equip managers across the network to set clear expectations give useful feedback and keep their best people.

Qualifications :

Who you are

• A builder. Youre energized by growth and comfortable with ambiguity. Youve built systems that outlasted your time in a role and you want to do it again at a large scale.
• A people leader. Youve managed senior leaders and helped them get better. You make tough calls have hard conversations with care and hold a high bar.
• Obsessed with the frontline. You keep teachers school leaders and school staff the people who serve our students every day at the center of your thinking. You spend time in classrooms and schools and you judge every policy system and process by whether it helps them better support our students or gets in their way.
• A systems thinker. You connect individual programs to organizational results. You see how a change to compensation affects retention and how retention affects what students experience.
• Data-driven and practical. You use recruiting retention pay and performance data to make decisions and youre curious about how new tools including AI can help.
• A bridge builder. You earn trust with school leaders executives and the board. You can lead one unified team while respecting whats different in each city.
• Committed to equity. You center racial equity and cultural responsiveness in how you design programs and lead teams. You believe deeply in what our students can achieve.
• Rooted in our values. You see yourself in Kid Focus Radical Love Excellence TEAM and Fun. You can describe a time you made values real inside an organization including a time it was hard. You take the work seriously not yourself.

Sound like you Wed love to hear from you.

What you bring

Required

• 10 years of progressive HR or talent leadership experience including at least 5 years in a senior role overseeing multiple HR functions
• Working knowledge of employment law HR compliance and payroll across multiple states
• Strong written and verbal communication with the ability to influence senior leaders and boards
• A bachelors degree
• Willingness to travel regularly between Newark Camden Paterson and South Florida

Preferred

• Experience leading HR or talent across multiple sites or regions ideally in an organization of 1000 employees
• Experience in K-12 education charter schools or another mission-driven people-intensive sector
• New Jersey and Florida employment law experience
• An advanced degree in Human Resources Business Organizational Development or a related field

Additional Information :

The salary range for this role is $250000 - $290000. Salary ranges at KTAF are set based upon the role level and function using benchmarks in the education and non-profit sector and allow for growth within the role. Individual compensation will be set based on a variety of factors including but not limited to: relevant professional experience and qualifications; education skills and training; and market conditions.

In addition to a competitive salary KTAF offers a generous benefits package including but not limited to the following:

• Robust benefits that include medical dental and vision
• KTAF 403b retirement plan including matching contributions
• Generous Time-Off Policy
• Up to 12 weeks 100% parental leave for primary caregivers
• Employer-paid life insurance
• Extensive optional ancillary benefits including short-term and long-term disability and accident and hospital indemnity

Our organization is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color sex gender age religion national origin citizen status marital status physical or mental disability military or veteran status sexual orientation gender identity or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Our organization will make a reasonable accommodation to known physical or mental limitations of a qualified applicant or employee with a disability unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship on the operation of the organization. No questions on this application are asked for any unlawful purpose.

How to apply

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Click the Im interest button to submit your resume and screening questions for the role. Youll be given the opportunity to share a message with the hiring team we strongly encourage you to use that space to tell us why this moment at KTAF is right for you and which of our values resonates most with you and where youve lived it.

#LI-NJ

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time