Vice President, Field Operations

Job description

ABOUT THE POSITION, the Vice President, Field Operations (VP) is a full-time executive level position. In this role you will contribute to organization-wide strategy and planning, while also having overall strategic and operational responsibility for a defined geographic area (hub) that will include multiple states and/or regions. VPs generally have responsibility to oversee leaders and/or teams focused on core areas of strategic work and/or capacity building for the organization.

The VP is a collaborative, data-driven and experienced professional who serves as a thought leader for organization-wide matters and supervises regional leaders. A successful Vice President brings passion for the mission, values and culture of Playworks, as well as ambition and enthusiasm to meet our goals, and will demonstrate skills in managing personnel, designing development and operational strategy and assessing performance.

You will provide the perspective of delivering on our mission, building relationships with our partners and assessing our communities’ needs to shape organizational strategies and tactics to maximize Playworks’ impact, financial sustainability and team health. You’ll be a vital link to our day-to-day work in communities across the country, while also bringing your unique perspective to our organization-wide strategy, operations and culture.

As part of Playworks’ Organization-wide Leadership Team you’ll contribute to making decisions informed by hub and regional experience. You will work closely in a highly collaborative way with other VPs, as well with the headquarters department leaders, the CEO, CFO, CDO and President in fostering and creating a thriving culture, modeling values, breaking down silos, and actively facilitating communication across the organization.

The VP creates and deploys best practices to ensure successful mission achievement, financial sustainability, team health and development within and across geographic areas. The VP will establish and inspire vision, provide strategic focus and set priorities for their areas of responsibility.  You will use influence to meet critical performance measures spanning key areas of success. You will support and guide local leaders in their performance and leverage regional and national resources and team members to enable them to succeed. You will manage and support the pursuit of the Strategic Plan goals for your regions and hub and provide guidance for HQ teams toward achieving those goals.

Responsibilities:

• Vision: Create and adopt a shared vision of success in your hub and support the development of the hub team’s annual plans to align with this vision and organizational strategy.
• Leading Leaders: Recruit, develop, manage and retain regional leaders within the hub. Align staff resources to optimize performance in program, sales and development operations to enable achievement of annual plans in alignment with organizational priorities.
• Impact Accountability: Ensure adequate support for regional teams in meeting annual impact goals, including quality of programs, and working toward long-term partnerships with schools and districts.
• Values & Culture: Cultivate and contribute to hub-level culture and collaboration in accordance with Playworks Core Values and the Strategic Plan.
• Financial Accountability: Hold regional leaders accountable for translating annual development, government, and Pro (training) revenue targets into actionable strategies and tactics that meet or exceed goals. Partner with leaders to set ambitious yet achievable financial goals and budgets, and ensure disciplined oversight of expenses to maintain strong fiscal health.
• Continuous Improvement: Ensure hub team is investing in ongoing evaluation of consistency in the quality of programs, fundraising, financial management, communications, and business processes using measurement tools and peer reflection.
• Organization-level Leadership: Represent Playworks’ strategic priorities and challenges in organization-wide discussions. Leverage strengths and experience to address issues facing the organization including developing strategies for increasing impact while ensuring team and financial sustainability.
• Organizational Collaboration: Foster and lead collaboration efforts across the hub and with HQ functions/departments to identify and maximize opportunities for increased impact, financial sustainability and team health.
• Expanded Influence: Assume additional organizational responsibilities with formal assignments, including, but not limited to, government, impact, revenue, and professional growth for Playworkers.

Qualifications

• Passionate commitment to Playworks’ mission and youth development approach and comfort with an open, playful and mildly irreverent workplace culture.
• A track record of creating a shared vision and leading a variety of teams to collaboratively realize results working through challenges and unanticipated obstacles.
• Demonstrated ability to translate vision into strategy and then into tangible results across a variety of teams and/or departments.
• Previous success as a reflective and learning-oriented leader who can spot and develop individuals (including experienced leaders) and bring people together to work across a variety of differences.
• Demonstrated ability to be a collaborative leader that fosters a workplace that values all employees, their perspectives, and life experiences.
• Emotional intelligence and ability to cultivate strong interpersonal relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience managing sustainable operations with an approach that aligns day to day operations with broader organizational vision and strategy.
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills with the ability to identify, assess, and resolve complex problems efficiently
• Well-developed verbal, written, and facilitative communication skills
• Willingness and ability to manage change and resolve conflict effectively with grace, empathy, courage, and confidence.
• Ability to travel to multiple locations as needed, both within hub and across the country if needed.

Compensation & Benefits:

• This is a full-time, salary, exempt position.
• At Playworks, our starting salary takes into consideration internal pay scales, geographic pay differential and robust external market data. We highly value transparency within compensation and therefore are committed to adhering to established compensation pay points. The salary for this position is $155,200.
• A comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, disability, 401(k) plans with employer match of up to 1% of salary, life insurance, employee funded pre-tax health, and child care spending accounts.
• Generous Flex PTO policy, paid sick and holiday leave.

TO APPLY

Please submit (1) a resume and (2) a cover letter describing your interest in Playworks and how your experience has prepared you for this role (3) 2 professional writing samples

ABOUT PLAYWORKS, at Playworks we believe in the power of play to bring out the best in every kid. We create a place for every kid on the playground to get active, build valuable skills, connect, and have fun. We partner with schools, districts, and after-school programs to provide a service or mix of services, including on-site coaches, professional training for school staff who support recess, and consultative partnerships.

As an equal opportunity program, Playworks encourages applications from all individuals regardless of age, gender, gender identity/expression, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, faith, marital status, physical ability, or any other legally protected basis. Playworks evaluates all candidates for employment, volunteering opportunities, or board service on a merit basis.