Fast Facts

CredLens is looking for a Vice President of Operations & Chief of Staff to collaborate closely with the CEO and leadership team, driving strategic initiatives and ensuring operational excellence in a fast-paced startup environment focused on customer success and process optimization.

Responsibilities: Lead executive operations, implement process improvements, monitor KPIs, and build a robust customer success program while serving as a strategic partner to the CEO and senior leadership team.

Skills: Strong leadership, strategic planning, customer experience management, project management, outstanding communication skills, and proficiency in CRM systems are essential for success in this role.

Qualifications: Bachelor's degree required; Master's preferred, with 10+ years of progressive management experience in nonprofit or education sectors, and a proven ability to build and manage high-performing teams.

Location: Washington, DC

Compensation: $180000 - $210000 / Annually

CredLens is seeking a highly strategic, results-oriented, and versatile leader to serve as our Vice President of Operations & Chief of Staff. This pivotal role will act as a trusted partner to the CEO and the executive leadership team, driving strategic initiatives while simultaneously ensuring operational excellence and efficiency across the organization. You will be instrumental in translating strategic vision into operational reality, with a specific focus on customer success, optimizing processes, and fostering cross-functional collaboration in a dynamic startup environment.

About CredLens 

CredLens, launched in 2024 as the newest subsidiary of Strada Education Foundation, is a national data trust focused on delivering verified outcomes insights for non-degree credentials. We help a range of organizations, such as credential issuers, funders, policymakers, address the critical data gaps that prevent them from fully marketing and scaling their impact. CredLens is actively delivering outcomes insights to its stakeholders via enterprise-grade dashboards and visualizations and is the best-in-class solution to power ongoing research for industry-based, professional, and workforce credentials.  We may be a non-profit, but we operate like a fast-paced startup with aggressive goals and targets. If you're a self-motivated problem-solver, this may be the place for you. 

The Vice President of Operations and Chief of Staff provides three critical functions within the organization and will be responsible for a wide range of strategic engagement and tactical support across functions.  

Executive & Cross-Functional Operations

This role serves as a strategic partner to the CEO and the Senior Leadership Team. It ensures vital information flows effectively and drives strategic initiatives from concept to completion. The VP will also provide strategic calendar management for the CEO and ensure the operational cadences of the organization match the growing needs of the team.

Operational Focus

Responsible for identifying and implementing process improvements, this role streamlines operations, boosts productivity, and defines organizational structures for efficiency. It monitors key performance indicators (KPIs) and fosters leadership collaboration for operational excellence.

Partner Onboarding & Customer Success

This function will build and lead the customer success program, developing best practices and team structure. It is responsible for the entire post-sale customer lifecycle, ensuring a premium customer experience, refining onboarding, identifying growth opportunities, and collecting product and use case feedback.

Key Responsibilities:

Executive & Cross-Functional Operations

• Serve as a trusted confidant and strategic thought partner to the CEO, representing them as needed in key meetings or decision-making processes as directed.
• Strategic management of the CEO’s calendar, prioritizing tasks and meetings as needed to align with business goals and priorities, ensuring the CEO is well-prepared and has all requisite briefs, materials, and documents.
• Maintain an effective cascade of information from the CEO's office to leadership and full team; partner with Communications for dissemination to the wider organization or externally.
• Partner with the CEO/leadership team to drive strategic initiatives from ideation to implementation, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
• Identify areas for improvement in internal processes and streamline operations, enhance productivity, and create more efficient workflows across teams.
• Build strong relationships with the leadership team, facilitate collaboration, and ensure alignment on strategic priorities.
• Define the structure, processes, and systems needed to achieve efficiency, productivity, and scalability across the organization's operations including long-term planning and anticipation of future needs.
• Monitor organizational key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and identify areas for refinement and optimization as well as develop and manage KPIs for this role.

Partner onboarding & customer success

• Build and lead the customer success function from the ground up, including creation of best practices, playbooks, metrics, and team structure.
• Own the full post-sale customer lifecycle, serving as the primary point of contact and subject matter expert for ongoing customer success, maintaining CredLens’ standard for a white-glove customer experience.
• Build out and refine playbook/process for partner and user onboarding, including (but not limited to) initial onboarding workshops, data sharing and ongoing account reviews to ensure customer satisfaction and renewal.
• Partner with Product and Engagement functions to identify opportunities for upsell/cross-sell.
• Partner with Communications to develop messaging requirements and external-facing materials.
• Proactively collect, synthesize and share product feedback from partners with key CredLens stakeholders (Product, Design, Engineering, etc.).

Education

• Bachelor's degree required.
• Master's degree preferred - MBA, Organizational Development, or related field.

Experience

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in leadership/management roles.
• A strong background in nonprofit or education sectors.
• Demonstrated ability to succeed at a leadership level in a cross-functional position. 
• Expertise across the customer experience and lifecycle: needs, relationship building, advocacy, issue management, negotiation.
• Deep operating experience, including a demonstrated ability to manage large scale projects involving government or higher education institutions.
• Ability to define and execute a long-term customer success strategy aligned with goals.
• Proven ability to build and manage high-performing customer success teams.
• Proficiency in change management to improve customer outcomes and operational efficiency.
• Familiarity with CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce).

Skills and Traits

• Proactive and results-oriented; a demonstrated problem-solver.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, combined with the ability to ‘read a room’.
• Exceptional organizational and project management skills, with the ability to handle multiple tasks and deadlines.
• Highly organized with strong project management capabilities. 
• Highly pragmatic, with a refined sense for finding the practical solution.
• Adaptable and resilient in a fast-paced environment.
• High level of discretion and confidentiality.
• Ability to interact, present, and negotiate with C-level executives, both internally and externally.

$180,000 - $210,000 a year

Plus an annual bonus.

The pay range listed is based on national compensation benchmark data and may vary depending on skills, experience, job-related knowledge, variations in cost of labor, and in some cases, geographic location. The exact job offer will be determined based on several factors such as the candidate’s individual skills, qualifications and experience relative to the requirements of the role. The range displayed with the job posting represents the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across the U.S.  

The company also reviews and considers internal equity (current employee salary) when hiring new employees to the organization. The range is the expected starting base salary for someone hired into this position with room to grow professionally, including increased earning potential beyond the starting pay range. Beyond a new hire’s base salary, Strada also offers all full-time employees a comprehensive employee benefit package.

Personal Attributes

Excels under pressure, in a fast-paced, high-profile work environment. Enjoys meeting needs/deadlines of internal and external stakeholders. Operationally minded manager, who can identify and capture efficiency, quality, and effectiveness improvements. Relationship builder, motivator, and team player. Positive attitude and energetic. Sound judgment and impeccable character. 

Mission and Values Alignment:

Committed to providing equitable pathways to opportunity through PSET, particularly for individuals who have faced significant barriers. Demonstrated alignment with CredLens' guiding values, commitment to building a strong and healthy workplace culture, and working in a collaborative environment.    

Strategy and Innovation Leadership:

Adept at operationalizing strategy and effectively communicating strategic endeavors within the organization and in external contexts, both verbally and in writing. Particular skill in designing annual plans, monitoring progress, and refining plans as needed. Adaptable with tolerance for ambiguity. Able to problem-solve and navigate varied viewpoints. Capacity to refine efforts based on evidence that change is needed. Ability to lead efforts to visualize and monitor change. Capability to see and support innovative ideas and opportunities across the organization, and to embed innovation within operational plans. Capabilities in taking the perspective of others and adapting an agenda and approach – toward a shared aim - accordingly.   

Strategic Problem Solving: 

Ability to effectively utilize a hypothesis-driven approach to problem solving, with effective quantitative and communication skills. Ability to take on broad-reaching and sometimes ambiguous questions while working collaboratively and cross-functionally with Strada team members across the organization.  

Execution and Operations Leadership:

Ability to translate innovative, strategic ideas into tangible, actionable steps, as well as to effectively monitor progress and partner with others on identifying improvements during implementation to increase the likelihood of successful execution.  

DEI Commitment:

Commitment and professional experience advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within and organization, including incorporating stakeholder perspectives in the design, implementation, and evaluation of strategic efforts.    

Relationship Building and Collaborative Capabilities:

Demonstrated ability to cultivate, grow, and manage positive, mutually beneficial relationships at all levels of an organization and with partners outside the organization. Strong communication, interpersonal and relationship management skills—including identifying and working through challenges—underscored by strong judgment and emotional intelligence. Proven collaborator, able to work with colleagues at all levels in the organization. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to CredLens' organizational vibrancy, employee experience, and mission. We strongly encourage applicants from people of color/the global majority, immigrant, bilingual, and bicultural individuals; people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ and gender nonconforming communities; and people with other diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. We believe every member on the team enriches our workplace by exposing us to a broad range of ways to understand and engage with the world, identify challenges, and discover, design, and deliver critical insights and solutions.