Associate Director, Strategic Consulting

Terrain Mastery

Build and maintain issue expertise across research terrains, with a special focus on those most important to members across the university executive cabinet at educational institutions and the teams they lead each day: including the delivery of dynamic strategy to guide transformation; advancement and fundraising strategy; campaign readiness and execution; and donor and alumni engagement.

Store and curate EAB’s perspective across the breadth of research terrains to give partners the most direct access to EAB’s advice. The ideal candidate will bring experience working with senior institutional leaders and advancement organizations through practitioner, consulting, or advisory experience. Successful candidates will be able to engage effectively with advancement and cabinet leaders while maintaining the broad strategic and operational fluency required of the RAS model.

Leverage EAB’s insights, best practices, tools, and data to help partners make decisions and implement best practices and develop a deep understanding of assigned terrain, market trends, and evolving client needs.

Content Delivery and Facilitation

Work directly with partners to diagnose their problems, challenge their assumptions, guide decisions, and suggest solutions. Deliver EAB’s point of view and advice through phone consultations, virtual meetings, conferences, and on campus presentations to:

• Make EAB insights and data accessible and impactful for our partners, bringing clarity and context to their understanding of their challenges;
• Present partners with new ideas and potential solutions to those challenges and advocate for adoption;
• Act as an expert outside voice, building consensus and educating committees and staff.

Combine functional knowledge, with an understanding of higher ed’s unique organizational dynamics, enabling partners to set strategy, lead their institutions, and manage their operations more effectively by diagnosing and giving voice to dynamics that are often felt, but not addressed; supporting leaders as they align effort and teams around institutional priorities; pathing partners through ranges of viable solutions and their pros and cons; recommending paths for improvement and serving as their guides and accountability.

Customer Success and Commercial Support

Collaborate with the research customer success team to execute on a scalable and impactful partner delivery model and deliver high-impact client interactions. Support sales in new partner development.

Research Collaboration

Leverage terrain expertise to generate original insight and content in assigned areas (e.g., blog posts, social media posts, briefings, presentations, etc.). Actively participate in ongoing research processes and share market insights with research colleagues to inform future EAB insights and deliverables.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree, with an excellent academic record and 5+ years of post-graduate, professional experience; or 4+ years of post-graduate, professional experience and advanced degree
• Experience working with client executives, either at a college, university, district, or school or as a consultant or advisor
• Superior verbal, written, facilitation, and presentation skills
• Ability to create a compelling narrative through data visualization, graphics, and slides
• Excellent relationship building and collaboration skills; ability to build relationships with and engage and challenge senior-level executives
• Ideal Qualifications: Advanced degree, In-depth understanding of education industry and the specific role that senior institutional leadership has in setting strategy and decision making, Demonstrated ability to distill market and terrain insights, drawing on client interactions, Experience producing written content and deliverables for an executive-level audience (e.g., blogs, social media feeds, reports, briefings), Commitment to embracing a continual learning environment and contributing to a dynamic and welcoming culture of fairness, authenticity, and belonging in support of EAB’s mission, values, and aspiration

Benefits

Consistent with our belief that our employees are our most valuable resource, EAB offers a competitive and inclusive benefits package. Our benefits currently include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance plans; dependents and domestic partners eligible 20+ days of PTO annually, in addition to paid firm and floating holidays
• Daytime leave policy for community service and flextime for fitness activities (up to 10 hours per month each)
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with annual discretionary company matching contribution
• Health savings account, healthcare and dependent care flexible spending account, and pre-tax commuter plans
• Employee assistance program with counseling services and resources available to all employees and immediate family
• Wellness programs including gym discounts, incentives to promote healthy living, and family access to the leading app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation
• Fertility treatment coverage and adoption or surrogacy assistance
• Paid parental leave with phase back to work program for birthing and non-birthing parents
• Access to milk shipping service to support nursing employees during business travel
• Discounted pet health insurance coverage for dog and cat family members
• Company-provided life, AD&D, and disability insurance
• Financial wellness resources and membership in a robust employee discount program
• Access to employee resource groups, merit-based advancement, and dynamic professional growth opportunities