Senior Director, BigFuture Product Management, Higher Education

College Board – BigFuture 

100% Remote (anticipated travel 6-12 times/year) 

About the Team  

The BigFuture division is a team of mission-driven people who deliver career and college planning products and services for over 7 million high school students, recruitment and enrollment solutions for over 1500 Higher Education institutions, and critical products and services in support of K12 school, district and state customers. 

The BigFuture product portfolio includes recruitment and enrollment solutions for Higher Education institutions, including Search, Connections, and College Profiles, that enable Higher Education institutions to meet their enrollment goals through prospective student outreach and engagement.  Our broader portfolio also includes BigFuture.org, the leading free student resource for College, Scholarship, and Career Exploration, and BigFuture School, a recently launched innovative mobile app that integrates with Connections and helps student connect their learning to post-secondary opportunities. BigFuture products demystify the college-going process, helping students unlock options to afford college and explore careers and pathways that connect to their skills, knowledge and interests. BigFuture products also integrate across divisions, bolstering our K12 solutions and other CB products.  

BigFuture has an 85+ person core team and collaborates deeply with other divisions including Technology, UX Design and Research, Strategic Higher Education, State & District Partnerships, Legal, Marketing, and Finance. Our product portfolio spans K-12 school, district and state customers, Higher Education customers, and direct to consumer models. We have a talented team with a deep knowledge of the Higher Education space, students and educators, and the K-12 market landscape. 

About the Opportunity  

As the Senior Director, Higher Education Product Management, you will serve as the overall product lead and portfolio manager for our Higher Education Recruitment and Enrollment solutions, including Search, Connections, College Profiles, and future Higher Education solutions. You are enthusiastic about creating mission and member value to provide best in class services and solutions for Higher Ed, as well as for students and K12. You have an entrepreneurial spirit and are excited about the opportunity to develop new solutions in an ever-shifting education landscape. 

You will be responsible for the strategic management of BigFuture’s portfolio of Higher Education products including: product roadmap, implementation of product enhancements, day-to-day management of the product and achieving target outcomes; issue resolution; financial management; and collaboration with various groups that use and support our Higher Education products and services.  

You will lead a team of experienced product owners. You will mentor and coach your product team to ensure each individual contributor is learning and growing as they contribute to the overall success of our products. You are a champion for your teams; you celebrate the wins and provide direct feedback when team members have opportunities for growth.  

Our product leads bring an end user-focused and organizationally aware mindset; they are inquisitive and possess tremendous learning agility; they constantly seek useful information that can shape their products for the good of those our products serve; and they build strong, productive relationships while guiding/leading/nurturing their teams and stakeholders to produce tremendous value for our customers and stakeholders. You also enjoy using quantitative and qualitative inputs to make strategic decisions and thrive on getting direct insights from your users.  

Leveraging your background and experience, you’ll drive best practices and methods to help our product organization thrive. You will focus on strategy across adjacent product teams, including our College Readiness Assessments, Advanced Placement, and K12 product teams. You will identify unique opportunities across multiple areas of our enterprise product portfolio in ways that affect product outcomes and exercise your influence to get things done across the organization.  

You will report to the VP, BigFuture Product. You will manage a team of four Product Owners, and collaborate deeply with critical cross-functional partners, including Engineering, UX Design and Research, Strategy, Recruitment and Enrollment Solutions, Enrollment Solutions Program, Strategic Higher Education and Access, Legal, Comms and Marketing, Finance, and other teams serving Higher Education, Students and K12 users. You are a leader who is mission driven, inspires excellence, and you thrive on working with cross-functional teams to provide value to our users and deliver on our goals. 

In this role, you will:  

Product Management (60%) 

• Lead a Higher Education product team to define and execute on overall vision/roadmaps, ensuring user experience, business and delivery goals are met 
• Define and manage the Higher Education product portfolio roadmap, identifying short, medium, and long-term product changes and enhancements that will improve the user experience, grow participation, and enhance operational and financial sustainability 
• Formulate product plans that are driven and informed by regular user and market research, internal partner feedback, outreach and interaction with Higher Education institutions, educators, and students, as well as competitive, analytics and cost/benefit analyses 
• Direct and supervise all analyses required to develop detailed and actionable product plans including competitive positioning, product branding, and delivery models 
• Be accountable for the successful delivery/launch of any product changes or enhancements implemented and desired outcomes 
• Demonstrate confidence in making complex tradeoffs and educating all stakeholders on those tradeoffs through the process 
• Actively work to resolve blockers and risks for the portfolio and lead teams to validate assumptions and analyze and communicate trade-offs to guide portfolio decisions 
• Understand technical concepts and be able to communicate them to non-technical audiences 

Higher Education Product Strategy Management and Leadership (20%) 

• Act as a product evangelist, both internally and externally, by promoting and educating stakeholders about the benefits and features of our Higher Education products and services, and the benefits of these products and services to College Board’s overall offering 
• Be accountable for and manage day-to-day business to meet or exceed P&L targets including proactively addressing costs while ensuring that actions are taken to deliver all financial commitments while maintaining customer experience and engagement goals 
• Leverage your strong leadership skills to effectively influence, persuade, and negotiate with multiple levels including executive leadership 
• Collaborate closely with our senior leaders in partner divisions and teams to identify needed enhancements and additions, coordinate releases and launches impacting same end users, measure and monitor product analytics and user feedback, and ensure compliance and risk management. This includes but is not limited to our Digital Assessment Platform team (core Bluebook and Test Day Toolkit platforms used for digital testing), Operations, Technology, CRA, AP, Test Security, Communications and Marketing, State and District Partnerships, Recruitment and Enrollment solutions, Higher Education and Access, Legal and Risk Management. 

Team Leadership & Management (20%)  

• Effectively manage four direct reports to ensure they are engaged and working effectively toward accomplishing goals  
• Design and implement an onboarding and training process to orient new staff and provide continuous training for existing staff 
• Provide the leadership necessary to deliver results across the team 
• Drive the overall performance management plan within the unit to impact team engagement 

About you, you have:

• 10+ years’ experience in product management, product strategy, and/or product consulting roles, including building, growing, and supporting a product team running a portfolio of products 
• Strong working knowledge of B2B products, with a background in EdTech and Higher Education markets, ideally Higher Education Recruitment and Enrollment solutions 
• Experience managing multiple Product teams across a portfolio and working with matrixed cross-functional partner teams 
• Technical fluency and experience managing products from inception through design to implementation and launch 
• Experience working in an Agile product development work environment
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills 
• Ability to complete complex tasks on short deadlines and in a fast-paced environment 
• Excellent prioritization skills 
• Experience distilling data to inform key decisions 
• Experience designing and communicating Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) 
• Experience creating business cases and receiving buy-in from senior leadership 
• Experience presenting in high stakes internal and external settings, seeking to drive understanding and alignment 
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent required
• Authorization to work in the U.S. 

​About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled 
• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise and/or panel interview, and reference checks.  This is an approximately 8-week process. 

About Our Benefits and Compensation

College Board offers a competitive benefits and compensation program that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. As a self-sustaining non-profit, we believe in compensating employees equitably in relation to each other, their qualifications, their impact, and the relevant market.

The hiring range for a new employee in this position is $120,000 to $180,000.

College Board differentiates salaries by location so where you live will narrow the portion of this range in which you can expect a salary. Your salary will be carefully determined based on your location, relevant experience, the external labor market, and the pay of College Board employees in similar roles. College Board strives to provide our best offer up front based on this criteria.

 
Your salary is only one part of all that College Board offers, including but not limited to:   

• A comprehensive package designed to support the well-being of employees and their families and promote education. Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, generous paid time off, paid parental leave, fertility benefits, pet insurance, tuition assistance, retirement benefits, and more 
• Recognition of exceptional performance through annual bonuses, salary growth over time through market increases, and opportunities for merit raises and promotions based on increased scope of responsibility 
• A job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive 

You can expect to have transparent conversations about benefits and compensation with our recruiters throughout your application process. 

About Our Culture 

Our community matters, and we strive to practice and improve our culture daily. Here are some headlines: 

• We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year. 
• We prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard. 
• We welcome staff to join any or all six of our affinity groups: ARISE (Alliance for Asian Retention, Inclusion, Success, and Engagement; DIASPORA (Alliance for Pan-African Success and Achievement); Pride (alliance for LGBTQ+ staff and allies); Resilience (alliance for Native staff and advocates); SALSA (Staff Alliance for Latinx Success and Achievement); and WIN (Women’s Impact Network). 
• We value learning and growth; we offer formal and informal ways to lead through your superpowers, sharpen your strengths, and meet your development goals. 
• We know that our impact is strongest together. Our College Board Cares program offers all staff up to $1,000 annual match against partner non-profit organizations. 
• We offer a transparent approach to promotions and merit raises, annual performance-based bonuses, and how to grow your career here over time.  ​

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