Director of Talent Strategy

KIPP Texas Public Schools is a network of 54 public charter, open-enrollment, pre-k-12 schools educating nearly 32,000 students across Austin, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Together with families and communities, our mission is to create joyful, academically excellent schools that prepare students with the skills and confidence to pursue the paths they choose —college, career, and beyond—so they can lead fulfilling lives and build a more fair world.

Founded in Houston in 1994 and operating as KIPP Texas since 2018, we are looking to hire a diverse team of dynamic, collaborative, and dedicated individuals with an unyielding belief that every child will succeed. KIPP Texas is a team and family with an unwavering commitment to creating classrooms, offices, and communities rooted in belongingness, academic success and joy.

KIPP Public Schools is a national network of public charter schools that prepares students with the skills and confidence to create the future they want for themselves, their communities, and us all. We are a network of 278 schools with nearly 16,500 educators and 190,000 students and alumni.

The Director of Talent Strategy is a member of the talent strategy leadership team responsible for shaping and executing the organization’s overall talent vision to attract, develop, retain, and engage a diverse, high-performing workforce. The Director of Talent Strategy will lead key talent short and long-term projects and programs in service of designing strategic talent systems, processes, and protocols that are effective and efficient. While strong project management skills are a necessity in this role, the successful candidate will also be a proven problem solver who can leverage impact and influence to find clarity in complex and gray situations. The ideal candidate will also have the ability to create, maintain, and analyze data reports to ensure we are creating efficient processes and achieving our key performance metrics. 

The Director of Talent Strategy will partner with key stakeholders within and outside of the Talent team to develop a vision for success, a prioritized plan and timeline for the work and progress monitoring to goals, and the systems, processes, and tools that will support improved talent management organization-wide. 

The Director of Talent Strategy  is responsible for delivering on key talent metrics in alignment with team, department, and organizational level goals:

• Delivery of a three-year plan to implement our talent strategy
• 93% staffed for all schools by the first day of school
• 75% staff retention w/90% retention of new hires
• 75% positivity on staff engagement survey

Key Duties

Define & lead talent strategy projects

• Set direction, goals, and define full talent management cycle projects aligned to the talent division strategic plan, encompassing the areas of unique and empowering value propositions, workforce planning, compensation & rewards, policy development, pipeline development, selection design, quality onboarding, performance management, staff engagement & retention.
• Serve as part of the Talent Strategy leadership team to define project goals with the organization, department, and team goals and objectives.
• Create systems to evaluate the project’s progress, approving recommendations to adjust project scope or implementation plans, solving escalated issues, and developing mitigation risk strategies that might prevent on-time and/or quality project delivery.
• Set clear roles and coordinate with key stakeholders across the division and organization to ensure seamless project execution.
• Provide direction to, motivate, and lead cross-functional and complex project teams to develop quality deliverables and/or services based on project requirements.
• Ensure strong project closure, including transferring and training appropriate users or owners on the implementation of project processes, policies, and services.
• Create a database to maintain all projects and strategic initiatives documentation, including, project plans, reports, budgets, communications, etc.
• Set systems in place to regularly communicate plans and forecasts to internal stakeholders, including escalating risk of overcapacity concerns.
• Recommend, analyze, and track budget or cost analysis based on special projects requiring an incremental expense or investment
• Ensure projects and goals effectively improve talent management practices, systems, and processes year over year in an effort to design scaled talent systems for KIPP Texas’s planned growth

Drive the implementation of talent initiatives 

• Drive the implementation of annual talent-based initiatives, encompassing all areas of the employee lifecycle.
• Act as key partner with Talent Strategy Team to develop an annual calendar for assigned talent-based initiatives and ensure effective planning, roll-out, and implementation of key initiatives.
• Set and prioritize processes based on the organizational landscape and need.
• Maintain and monitor progress toward goals for projects.
• Present results and key findings to stakeholders, including executive leadership.
• Develop tools and resources for improved full-cycle talent practices, with a particular emphasis on key priority roles at the central office (SSP) and school levels.

Supervisor Responsibilities

• Manages an Analyst or System Administrators, as applicable
• Conducts weekly 03 (touchpoints) conversations along with all official performance reviews
• Coaches & develops direct reports

Serve as a member of the Talent Division Team and Family

• Partner with the Talent Strategy Leadership to define and operationalize KIPP Texas’s vision of excellence for talent acquisition and onboarding, focused on supporting a diverse pipeline of educators and positioning KIPP Texas to be an employer of choice.
• Champion KIPP Texas’s mission and core values, modeling our values in your work, decisions, and relationships.
• Model the Talent Division’s culture to foster high-performance, inclusion, and belonging. Support key team culture initiatives.
• Build a network of engaged stakeholders across the organization. Leverage a diverse set of perspectives to implement and strengthen our talent practices.
• Serve as an expert in recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and project management practices. 
• Foster a culture of collaboration through active participation in manager, team, department, and organizational meetings.
• Demonstrate a growth mindset through co-creating a personalized learning plan and participating in development experiences to improve your practice in cultural competence leadership.

• Bachelor’s degree required, Degree in management, business, or human resources preferred
• 3+ years of people management experience
• 5+ years of talent experience (talent management, human resources, or management of people and talent work in a related field) with project management-related experience
• Experience working in education, non-profit, or high-stakes service industry, preferred
• Passion for advancing KIPP Texas’s mission

Skills

• Organizational ability and accuracy: Excellent attention to detail in written communication, exemplary calendar management, commitment to data fidelity, and consistency in executing next steps. Demonstrate an adaptive mindset with an ability to concurrently see the big picture while focusing on the details.
• Impact and Influence: Demonstrated ability to impact and influence stakeholders to action and across multiple functional areas based on compelling recommendations based in data
• Communication: Clear, concise, compelling communication with excellent listening skills
• Data Analysis: Excellent ability to create data reports that meet internal and external stakeholder needs and then utilize them to craft a clear analysis, identifying trends and outliers. 
• Critical thinking: Advanced analytic and critical thinking skills required. Ability to make strategic project adjustments based on data analysis. 
• Professionalism: Operate with a professional demeanor in even the most challenging situations. Work with teammates, leaders, regional stakeholders, and managers in a way that demonstrates confidence, initiative, and dedication to meeting commitments. Expresses professional presence with external stakeholders in a way that exemplifies KIPP’s values in person, verbally, in writing, on social media, and at events.
• Systems thinking: Ability to develop problem statements, projects, analyze data, and provide recommendations at an enterprise level that designs talent management systems to an appropriate scale
• Organization & Planning: Excellent project management and planning skills with the ability to change and adapt according to the environment while meeting deadlines and set metrics or goals.

Salary and Benefits

• The starting point for the salary range for this position is $75,000 and is commensurate with experience and internal equity.
• Competitive vacation and flexible paid time off (PTO) policies.
• Paid family leave.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans with varying coverage for employees and their families, inclusive of virtual physician visits. A high deductible health plan with HSA is also offered
• Employee assistance programs.
• Participates in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS).
• KIPP also offers the following employee-paid benefits: legal plans, LifeLock identity protection, life insurance, and disability insurance.
• Flexible spending account or high-yield HSA.

Physical Requirements

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions

• Considerable time spent at a desk using a computer/laptop
• Attending conferences or training sessions

Work Environment

The work characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Hybrid - Work from a regional office at least 3 times a week

Travel Requirements

• Ability to travel to various locations within Texas or nationally, travel time up to 15%.

KIPP provides equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration of race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, or disability.