Chief of Staff & Strategy

Job Description

Job Description

Reports to: CEO
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA (Preferred) and Seattle, WA

The Chief of Staff & Strategy is a senior leader responsible for ensuring Summit operates as a strategically aligned, high-performing organization. This role translates strategy into execution—aligning people, priorities, resources, data, and narrative across the network.

Working closely with the CEO and C-Team, the Chief of Staff drives enterprise-wide planning, performance management, and cross-functional integration. They ensure that strategy is not only defined, but executed with discipline, clarity, and accountability toward measurable outcomes.

This is a high-trust, high-impact role designed to multiply the CEO’s effectiveness, strengthen executive team performance, and connect work across functions—including data, development, and communications—into a coherent, results-driven system.

What if all students graduated high school with the knowledge, skills and habits they need to lead a fulfilled life? This is the question that guides our mission at Summit Public Schools.

To collectively prepare a diverse community of young people with the skills, knowledge, and habits to attain economic empowerment and success in a chosen concrete next step toward a fulfilled life. We operate 10 schools serving over 3,300 students in the Bay Area and Washington state. 100% of Summit graduates are college ready and Summit graduates complete college at double the national average.

We need exceptional, diverse, and mission-aligned teachers to join our team to help prepare our students for a fulfilled life. Join us!

Drive Enterprise Strategy & Execution

• Lead strategic planning for Summit Public Schools on an annual and multi-year basis

• Set the organization's annual priorities across teams and sites

• Plan strategy to ensure priorities are served and lead to measurable outcomes

• Relentlessly track progress against those outcomes with the Network Level Team

• Work to identify and resolve misalignment across teams

• Ensure that people, time, and resources are aligned to priorities

Lead Performance, Data & Accountability Systems

• Create, build, initiate and run Summit Public School’s performance management system. Design and build tracking methods such as scorecards and dashboards to ensure accountability.

• Ensure initiatives move from planning to execution with visible progress

• Monitor and track data and then ensure that data is elevated data from compliance to decision-making

• Flag risks early and drive course correction

• Drive successful Executive Team performance and health, including through design and implementation of meeting and planning structures and processes and supporting Executive Team hiring, onboarding and offboarding.

Integrate and Lead Cross-Functional Priorities

• Oversee key functional areas (Data, Development, Communications, Strategy, Innovation) to ensure alignment with organizational priorities. Manage these areas to excellent performance outcomes.

• Assure that fundraising, communications, and data all reinforce the same key strategic directions for Summit Public Schools

• Collaborate closely with the Executive Director of Marshall, Chief Academic Officer and the Chief People and Operations Officer to align academic and operational systems, including enrollment and student achievement

• Establish and drive a unified organizational narrative internally and externally

• Strengthen internal transparency and clarity across teams.

Multiply the CEO and Strengthen Executive Leadership

• Serve as a strategic thought partner on tradeoffs, priorities, and resource allocation alongside the CEO for Summit Public Schools

• Lead Board engagement strategy and integration with organizational priorities for all of the Board partnerships that Summit Public Schools holds

• Deepen and strengthen C-Team alignment, effectiveness, and accountability

• Support and Drive CEO communications, materials, and key relationships both internally and externally

Other Duties and Responsibilities as assigned.

Success After the First Year Looks Like:

• Clear enterprise scorecard adopted and consistently used.

• Quarterly performance review cadence operationalized.

• Data function producing strategic insights beyond compliance.

• Development strategy tightly aligned to strategic priorities.

• Improved cross-functional alignment across C-Team.

• Reduced CEO involvement in director-level coaching and cross-functional coordination.

• Increased visibility and alignment via internal and external communication, to incorporate refreshed organizational brand and positioning.

Who You Are:

• An Enterprise-Level Thinker & Doer: You naturally connect disparate functions into a coherent whole, moving fluidly between high-level strategic planning and in-the-weeds operational follow-through.

• A Respected Influencer: You easily build trust with senior leaders, communicate strategically across diverse audiences, and confidently present to and facilitate adult learning.

• An Accountability Driver: You are comfortable having hard conversations, holding peers accountable, and resolving complex issues to increase the organization's efficiency and resilience.

• Mission-Driven & Ego-Free: You are motivated by organizational impact over individual visibility, remain committed to your own growth, and welcome feedback.

What You Need (Qualifications):

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree preferred.

• Executive Experience: Proven track record as a trusted member of a senior leadership team, with at least five years of direct experience leading enterprise-level strategy.

• People Leadership: Significant experience managing and influencing directors, senior directors, and multiple high-performing teams, while actively building organizational culture.

• Industry Knowledge: Experience working in or with K-12 schools is strongly preferred.

• Logistical Requirements: Must meet health clearances and pass background/reference checks per education code. Must be able to travel occasionally to the Seattle/Tacoma and/or San Francisco Bay Area.

In addition to joining a highly motivated team and engaging in meaningful work, you’ll have access to a comprehensive suite of benefits including a retirement plan, unlimited “take what you need” PTO policy, 11 paid holidays, and 3 weeks of organization-wide closures during the year. You and your dependents will have access to multiple health, dental, and vision plans at 25% cost (we cover the other 75%) and employee life and disability insurance at no cost. Our compensation policy strives to be equitable and transparent. The salary for this position starts at $180,923 and goes up to $238,080. commensurate with experience and qualifications.

Summit is an equal opportunity employer. We believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion are directly intertwined with education. We are ALL better when we are able to bring our whole selves to work and honor each other’s voices across identities, cultural backgrounds, and life experiences. We welcome and encourage applications from individuals who are members of historically marginalized communities. Spanish language proficiency is a plus.