Title: Vice President of Business Operations & Finance
Location: Remote
Job Band: Level 5
Who We Are & Role Overview
There’s no such thing as a “typical” learner. Blue Engine is an education non-profit focused on ending the long-standing pattern of disproportionate student outcomes by shifting the paradigm of “typical teaching.” We work in partnership with schools and systems across 7 states (and growing) to elevate the mindsets and skills of educators to ensure that all students - especially those most marginalized by race, language, and neurodivergence - can access and engage in grade-level learning. Every lesson, every day. Blue Engine’s offerings are designed to build the capacity of schools and systems to effectively support learner variability through teacher development, instructional leader development, and district-level consulting.
Blue Engine began its national growth trajectory in 2020, increasing students served tenfold over the last three years and shifting our business model in service of organizational sustainability. As Vice President of Business Operations & Finance, you’ll help us operationalize our second growth phase and achieve our goal of reaching at least 100,000 new students by 2028 by becoming a product-led learning organization fueled by an earned revenue engine. Reporting to the CEO and collaborating closely with the Leadership Team, you’ll lead the organization's Business Operations and Finance functions, including directly managing 1 FTE, a team of external consultants, and serving as the direct liaison to our Board Finance Committee. This role is for you if you thrive in a culture grounded in rapid learning & improvement, have rigorous attention to detail, and have an entrepreneurial spirit. We are looking for a leader eager to take a fresh look at our operations and finance practices to help our organization drive results by removing obstacles, creating more efficient systems, and developing the critical infrastructure needed to successfully step into our next phase.
Primary Responsibilities & Outcomes
1) Business Operations
a) Leadership & Management: Lead, support, and develop a team (currently 1 FTE) and manage a network of vendors/consultants responsible for central operations functions, including finance, HR, knowledge management, internal communications & staff engagement.
b) Contracting & Compliance: Oversee contracting and compliance for all revenue streams, including earned, private, and government funds. Project manage procurement processes for district and federal applications. Oversee the development of grants budgets and spend-down and reporting across revenue streams. Engage with partners and donors on operational issues as needed.
c) Strategic Planning: Collaborate with the CEO to lead annual planning and performance tracking processes. Ensure that our 3-year strategy is translated into ambitious annual goals and feasible priorities within our available resources, and implement systems for tracking progress towards these goals.
d) Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate closely with the VP of Product and SVP of Org Strategy & Improvement to maintain alignment between organizational, product strategy & design, and revenue strategies.
e) Systems & Processes: Oversee financial, budgeting, and administrative processes—including HR, payroll, grants management and benefits functions—to continuously develop and improve systems.
f) Resource Management: Ensure our organization has the physical and digital resources (technology, systems, space, materials) necessary for current operations and future growth. Lead the build-out of key infrastructure needed to advance organizational sustainability, such as CRM and staff utilization systems.
g) HR & Employee Relations: Resolve employee/employer relations issues that arise confidentially, fairly, and equitably. Ensure that the organization is in compliance with federal, state and local regulations; and that Blue Engine implements the systems and infrastructure required to do this work at scale.
2) Fiscal Health.
a) Financial Planning: Partner with the CEO to lead financial planning efforts, ensuring a robust annual revenue strategy. Allocate resources in alignment with organizational priorities and goals.
b) Revenue & Efficiency: Collaborate with the leadership team to align revenue generation and staff utilization with fiscal objectives.
c) Financial Practices: Conceptualize, structure, and deliver sound financial practices to accurately capture, inform, and report incoming and projected revenue.
d) Financial Management: Oversee day-to-day financial management, including budget monitoring and cash flow; ensure sound financial controls are in place; oversee third-party accounting firm and annual audit.
e) Board Liaison: Serve as the management liaison to the board and finance committee, effectively communicating and presenting critical financial matters at a select board of directors and committee meetings.
3) Provide enterprise-level leadership.
a) Strategic Contribution: Participate as a Blue Engine Leadership team member, contributing to developing Blue Engine’s strategic goals, engaging in organizational-wide decisions, and championing BE’s mission and vision.
b) Internal Communications: Support cross-departmental collaboration and strengthen internal communications to ensure staff receive clear, consistent, and transparent information about enterprise-level priorities.
c) Executive Support: Undertake ad hoc project work at the CEO's request; develop options and solutions, creating materials for discussion to support executive decision-making.
d) Feedback Culture: Proactively give constructive feedback to teammates across all levels of the organization to foster continuous improvement.
e) Demonstrate Core Values: Model and champion Blue Engine’s core values within the organization.
Competencies Required:
Specifically, we are searching for an individual who possesses the following:
- Bachelor’s Degree Required
- 8-10 years of relevant leadership operations and finance experience
- Proven track record of successfully leading teams, planning and managing complex projects, and facilitating cross-functional decision-making
- Ability to analyze and display data in a way that illuminates business insights and supports members across the organization to do so
- Communicate and deliver information, both written and verbal, across audiences.
- Demonstrate resourcefulness in finding solutions in ambiguous situations and allocating resources to achieve organizational objectives.
- Ability to strategically balance technical and adaptive leadership, knowing when to follow a plan and when to deviate from a plan to achieve our organization’s goals
- Demonstrate the ability to evaluate existing processes and create a vision and strategic plan for impact.
Org-Wide Expectations & Core Values
- Mission Alignment: Believes in the infinite potential of all humans and supports an educational system that liberates this potential. Understands education topics, including supporting Students with Disabilities and Multilingual Learners.
- Community: Demonstrates self-awareness, empathy, and perspective-taking to foster an inclusive, supportive environment. Builds belonging through honest communication, authentic connections, and collaboration.
- Inclusion: Designs to meet the needs of all individuals, prioritizing the most marginalized. Cultivates an inclusive culture by taking collective ownership, valuing differences, and ensuring everyone can contribute and lead.
- Growth: Values improvement over static thresholds, showing curiosity, humility, and adaptability. Uses data to inform decisions, learns from successes and mistakes, and seeks opportunities for learning to drive collective improvement.
- Equity: Commits to eliminating barriers for marginalized groups, challenging personal and organizational biases. Acts courageously to address and disrupt inequities, ensuring fair distribution of responsibilities and burdens.
- Impact: Focused on impact for students and teachers, relentlessly pursues a just, inclusive education system. Approaches obstacles creatively, maintains high expectations, and balances sustained effort with self-care and joy.
Compensation
This role sits in Job Level 5 within our compensation structure with a starting salary range of $160,914-$174,907. Blue Engine employees are provided comprehensive benefits, including six weeks of paid time off. Compensation for this role will depend on experience, demonstrated performance on core competencies, and internal equity alignment. Blue Engine offers a comprehensive benefits plan (through JustWorks, a PEO), including employer-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and the majority of costs for dependents subsidized. Other benefits include six weeks of paid time off, a 403(b) plan with employer matching, an FSA plan, commuter benefits, and a flexible work environment.
To Apply
Applicants should submit their applications (resumes and application questions) via down below. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
OUR APPROACH TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSIVITY
Blue Engine is more than an “equal opportunity employer.” We acknowledge the roles we play as educators and leaders in the systems of oppression and racism that exist in our city, our communities, and our classrooms, and we strive to become an actively anti-racist organization. We do this first by articulating the value of diversity, inclusivity, and equity as separate yet interwoven concepts; we evaluate decisions and policies through the lens of diversity, inclusivity, and equity; we pursue opportunities for continued learning about how historical and current systems of oppression manifest in individuals and organizations; we strive to increase our collective awareness of the cultural values, biases, and differences; we utilize skills of interruption to bring to bear cultural breaches along the lines of diversity, inclusivity, and anti-racism and combine these approaches to embrace and resolve conflict while fostering growth. We make this commitment because we know it enables us to connect more meaningfully with our students and the communities in which we work.
