Executive Director, Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects

About the role

The Executive Director, Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects serves as an extension of the Chief Executive Officer's strategic capacity, advancing CEO-directed priorities and high-priority special projects, strengthening executive relationship and contact management, preparing the CEO for consequential engagements, and ensuring commitments and opportunities move from conversation to execution. This role provides the information, preparation, and systems the CEO needs to operate at maximum effectiveness, and drives cross-functional follow-through so decisions made at the executive level are carried out across the organization. The Executive Director, Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects reports to the Chief Executive Officer.

Responsibilities

• CEO Strategic Priorities & Executive Support: Partner directly with the CEO to translate strategic priorities, ideas, commitments, and emerging opportunities into clear actions, workstreams, and deliverables; maintain visibility across the CEO's highest-priority initiatives and proactively identify deadlines, dependencies, risks, decisions, and required follow-up; conduct research and synthesize information to support CEO decision-making, external meetings, organizational strategy, partnerships, and emerging opportunities; capture and advance key commitments resulting from CEO meetings and engagements, ensuring appropriate follow-through and accountability; help create systems that allow the CEO to maintain strategic focus across multiple priorities, relationships, and organizational commitments; coordinate with appropriate stakeholders across departments to advance CEO-sponsored priorities, clarify responsibilities, establish timelines, and monitor progress on CEO-directed initiatives; escalate unresolved issues, decision points, or risks to the CEO when appropriate.
• Project & Initiative Management: Serve as the CEO's lead project manager for strategic initiatives and special projects that require focused executive sponsorship or do not naturally sit within an existing organizational function — developing the project charters, work plans, milestones, decision points, stakeholder maps, and accountability structures needed to move them forward; drive these initiatives from concept through development and execution, transitioning them to the responsible organizational leader or team once they are established; identify barriers to progress, surface risks early, and develop options and recommendations for the CEO; manage select time-sensitive, confidential, or high-stakes assignments on behalf of the CEO; support the incubation and development of emerging partnerships, initiatives, and strategic opportunities before they transition into established organizational workstreams; develop dashboards or other lightweight tracking mechanisms that provide the CEO with clear visibility into progress, commitments, risks, and next actions.
• Executive Relationship & Contact Management: Build and maintain a disciplined system for managing and cultivating the CEO's internal and external relationships — encompassing board members, funders and philanthropic prospects, education and policy leaders, institutional and corporate partners, alumni, and advisors — that captures not only who the CEO knows, but the history, substance, and trajectory of each relationship; serve as the institutional memory for CEO relationships: maintain stakeholder profiles, engagement histories, meeting notes, commitments made by both parties, interests and affiliations, and follow-up timelines with enough fidelity to reconstruct any relationship on demand; develop relationship maps and stakeholder strategies that help identify connections, opportunities, gaps, and appropriate next engagements across the CEO's network; prepare the CEO for external engagements with concise briefing materials about individuals and organizations involved, prior interactions, relevant context, and desired outcomes; establish protocols and stewardship practices that ensure important relationships are cultivated consistently rather than managed transactionally — including acknowledgments, milestone recognition, strategic check-ins, introductions, and follow-up communications; administer and optimize the CRM and contact-management infrastructure supporting this work (data structure, tagging, segmentation, engagement logging discipline, and reporting), coordinating with Development and other teams to ensure CEO relationship activity is captured in organizational CRM systems with clear ownership boundaries to avoid duplication or crossed signals; manage sensitive relationship information with exceptional discretion and appropriate confidentiality.
• Executive Communications & Preparation: Draft and refine selected CEO communications, correspondence, talking points, briefing documents, presentations, meeting preparation and follow-ups, memos, stakeholder outreach, and other materials for high-priority CEO engagements in the CEO's voice and calibrated to the intended audience; partner with Communications and other appropriate teams on CEO thought leadership, speaking engagements, external presentations, and high-profile opportunities; prepare the CEO for board, philanthropic, district, university, corporate, conference, and other strategic engagements – ensuring clarity on context, objectives, participants, potential sensitivities, desired outcomes, and next steps.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Mission Alignment: Passionate belief in academic excellence for every student, aligned with New Leaders' mission.
• Educational Background: Bachelor's degree required.
• Professional Experience: Minimum of 10 years of professional experience required, including progressively responsible experience in strategy, project management, executive leadership support, external affairs, development, partnerships, consulting, nonprofit management, education, or a related field.

Preferred Experience

• Experience in K–12 education, education nonprofits, philanthropy, leadership development, higher education, consulting, or another mission-driven environment.
• Experience supporting a CEO, superintendent, president, executive director, or other senior executive.
• Experience managing relationships involving boards, foundations, major donors, government leaders, corporate executives, institutional partners, or other high-level stakeholders.
• Familiarity with fundraising and philanthropic relationship management while understanding the distinction between CEO relationship stewardship and Development ownership.
• Experience developing executive dashboards, project management systems, stakeholder maps, briefing systems, or other executive decision-support tools.
• Comfort using AI and emerging technology to improve research, synthesis, project management, executive preparation, and workflow efficiency.

General Qualifications

• Demonstrated success managing complex, cross-functional projects from concept through completion.
• Demonstrated experience with relationship management, stakeholder engagement, or contact management systems.
• Demonstrated experience supporting senior executives or organizational leaders in complex, high-accountability environments.
• High emotional intelligence and demonstrated ability to navigate organizational dynamics with diplomacy and professionalism.
• Demonstrated ability exercising influence through credibility, preparation, relationships, and execution rather than through assumed organizational authority.
• Travel may be required 20-30% of the time aligned to New Leaders' Travel and In-Person Activities policy.

Role-Specific Competencies

• Team-Driven: Proven ability to collaborate effectively with individuals across a variety of backgrounds and experiences; must be results-driven while maintaining a collaborative and inclusive leadership style.
• Demonstrated experience breaking down complex strategies into clear, actionable plans for their teams.
• In-depth expertise in project management and demonstrated ability leading initiatives that require a deep understanding of multiple functions, bridging gaps, and ensuring functional cohesion.