Partner, Learning & Development Strategy

Start Date: Immediate
Role Type: Full-time
Reports to: Shari Lawrence
Team: School Design, Learning & Development

Location/Travel: Remote (U.S.-based); Willingness to travel approximately ~15–25%

Who We Are

Transcend is a national nonprofit that helps communities reimagine and redesign schools so every young person can thrive in a rapidly changing world. Across the country, communities are recognizing that classrooms built for the industrial age aren’t preparing learners for what’s next. Instead, schools must be designed for continuous evolution: relevant, resilient, and ready for the future. For more than a decade, Transcend has partnered with school and system leaders to build the capacity for bold, lasting change—change led by the people who live it every day. We’ve worked with nearly 500 schools and 200 districts serving over 225,000 students in 35 states. Together, we’ve seen what’s possible when communities lead redesign with proven methods, insight, and support. From that work, we develop and share tools, research, and models that help schools everywhere make the leap to extraordinary learning—for every child, in every community.

For more information, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn.

The Opportunity

For years, Transcend has partnered directly with communities to lead and facilitate multi-year school redesign journeys. That work has taught us something important: lasting transformation doesn’t come from outside support alone, it comes from local leaders who are equipped to drive change themselves. That’s why Transcend’s School Design, Learning & Development team is investing in building the capacity of leaders and communities to lead this work directly, with less reliance on Transcend’s facilitation over time. This role sits at the center of that strategic shift by helping us design, scale, and bring to market the credentials, certifications, and capacity-building offerings that make community-led transformation possible.

As the Partner, Strategy for this team, you will sit at the center of multiple priorities. This role supports go-to-market strategy, leads the team's learning agenda, connects and coordinates across functions, and ensures the work progresses with clarity and momentum. It's a high-leverage role for someone who can operate at both the strategic and execution level - shaping direction one moment and driving follow-through in the next.

If you're energized by complexity, and thrive in bringing order, clarity, and momentum to a fast-moving team, this role is for you.

In This Role, You Will Get To

Partner on Strategy and Direction

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the Managing Partner, helping to shape priorities, plans, and key decisions
• Translate high-level strategy into clear, actionable plans and aligned workstreams
• Prepare synthesis, recommendations, and materials that support strong internal and external decision-making

Develop and Drive a Go-to-Market Strategy

• Support the development and refinement of our go-to-market strategy for external capacity-building and certification offerings
• Help define target audiences, value propositions, and partner pathways
• Partner with Business Development and Portfolio teams to align strategy with external opportunities
• Ensure internal clarity and consistency in how offerings are understood and communicated across the organization

Hold the Team's Learning Agenda and Strategic Research

• Steward the School Design, Learning & Development Team’s learning agenda, ensuring key questions are clearly defined and prioritized
• Conduct and synthesize research across internal pilots, partner work, and external models
• Translate insights into clear implications for strategy, offerings, and decisions
• Ensure learning is systematically captured and used to continuously improve the work

Drive Cross-Functional Alignment and Momentum

• Serve as a central connector across teams contributing to capacity building (e.g., Portfolio teams, Program Team, Business Development, Legal)
• Ensure alignment across strategy, tools, experiences, and certification efforts
• Identify gaps, overlaps, and inconsistencies and drive toward greater coherence

• Support the Managing Partner in setting and maintaining clear priorities across the School Design, Learning & Development Team
• Drive planning and tracking processes (e.g., quarterly priorities, step-backs, progress monitoring)
• Ensure strong communication, role clarity, and follow-through across workstreams
• Proactively identify risks, bottlenecks, and areas requiring attention

Lead Strategic and Cross-Cutting Projects

• Own and execute high-priority, ambiguous projects that advance the capacity strategy
• Bring structure and clarity to early-stage work and move it toward concrete outcomes
• Ensure projects are grounded in both strategic intent and practical execution

Who You Are

You are a highly organized and strategic operator who thrives in complex, evolving environments. You are known for your ability to connect ideas, people, and workstreams — bringing clarity where there is ambiguity and momentum where there is fragmentation.

You are just as effective shaping strategy as you are rolling up your sleeves to ensure strong execution. You anticipate needs, synthesize quickly, and help teams move forward with focus and alignment. You don't need a perfect roadmap to get started. You feel comfortable building the path as you go, and you bring others along with you.

You're drawn to this work because you genuinely believe in building local capacity as a path to lasting change in education, and that belief carries you through the slow, messy, and important parts of the work.

And, to all of this, you bring:

• You share a deep commitment to Transcend’s mission of transforming education and a passion for designing learning experiences where all students thrive.
• You show up with curiosity, care, and a drive to make meaningful change—living into Transcend’s values through how you work, connect, and lead.
• Strong strategic synthesis skills. You can take complex, evolving ideas and translate them into clear plans, sharp recommendations, and materials that make it easy for others to make good decisions and move forward with confidence.
• Excellent cross-functional coordination. You know how to build alignment across teams and functions without formal authority, spotting gaps and inconsistencies early and driving toward coherence before they become bigger problems.
• A practical, execution-oriented mindset. You bring structure to ambiguous, early-stage work, own projects end-to-end, and move things forward without waiting for a perfect roadmap or complete information.
• Strong research and learning synthesis skills. You can design and steward a learning agenda, make sense of what you find across pilots, partner work, and external models, and ensure insights actually shape decisions rather than sitting unused.
• Go-to-market fluency. You understand how to define a target audience, sharpen a value proposition, and build clear pathways to partners, and you can bridge strategy with the teams responsible for taking it to the world.
• Strong planning and project management instincts. You run quarterly planning, track workstreams across a complex portfolio, and keep communication crisp so people always know what's happening, who's responsible, and what's at risk.
• Clear, compelling written communication. You produce well-organized, accessible materials that distill complex work into what matters most and bring others along with clarity and purpose.
• A track record of operating at the intersection of strategy and execution, serving as a trusted thought partner to senior leaders and helping good decisions get made.

Application & Hiring Process

We review applications on a rolling basis and are committed to a thoughtful and people-centered hiring experience that helps candidates feel what it’s like to work at Transcend. Here’s what you can expect if you are selected to move forward:

• Initial interview with the team via Zoom to learn more about your interest and experiences. A note on compensation: during your initial interview with the team, we will confirm your location and accompanying salary range. *More on how we determine this is below.
• Try-on activity to engage in a role-aligned exercise. This helps us get a sense of how you approach the work and gives you a feel for what the role might be like.
• Interview with the hiring manager, where we’d debrief the try-on task and engage in some scenarios you are likely to encounter in the role.
• Interview with the team, where you will meet with a small group of Transcend teammates with whom you would most likely collaborate in the role.
• Final interview with Lavada Berger, Chief Portfolio Officer.
• Reference checks to learn more about your superpowers and working style.

Salary

As a national team, we apply a cost-of-labor adjustment by adjusting salaries into 3 geographical bands (geo-band) in order to offer competitive compensation for all employees across the US. These geo-bands help us tailor compensation appropriately based on the specific location of each teammate. Below are the three salary geo-bands for this role, and we will confirm the individual range for your location during this initial interview, if you move forward in the process.

• Geo Comp 1: Currently Includes: NYC metro area, CA Bay Area, Boston City, LA City, Washington, D.C, Seattle $115,000-$150,000
• Geo Comp 2: Currently includes locations such as: San Diego; New Haven, CT; Ventura, CA $109,250-$142,500
• Geo Comp 3: Currently Includes: Most other US locations $103,500-$135,000

A Few Nuts & Bolts

We are an experienced team focused on extraordinary learning for all. We welcome candidates who are passionate about ensuring that all students thrive. We are also committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package and offer medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We take pride in our collaborative environment, exceptional team, and shared commitment to principled, impactful work.

We look forward to learning more about you!