AI Innovation & Portfolio Lead

Overview:

Year Up United is a $160M national workforce development nonprofit operating in 20+ locations, closing the Opportunity Divide for tens of thousands of young adults every year. The AI Innovation & Portfolio Lead sits within the Product & Design team — the transformation function inside Transformation & Technology (TnT) — and owns two things at once: the operating picture of AI across the organization, and the engine that turns a business problem into a tested pilot before we commit real build capacity.

This is not a project management role. The AI Innovation & Portfolio Lead does not run delivery standups, manage tickets, or chase status team to team — the portfolio is a living operating picture leaders pull from, not a report that gets chased. It is also not a technical build role: turning validated pilots into production systems belongs to our technical AI build capability and agile delivery teams. This role’s job is to decide what is worth building, prove whether it works, and hand winners off to be scaled.

Year Up United is already investing in AI and using it to solve real business problems, and this role connects that work — giving the organization one place where AI initiatives are seen, tested, and moved forward. To succeed, you will breathe AI: you track the frontier, know the latest tools and capabilities, and can tell a real advance from hype.

This is a hybrid role requiring regular in-person engagement. Applicants must live within a reasonable commutable distance to a Year Up United location.

In keeping with Year Up United’s values, this leader also engages directly with students as a mentor and advocate.

Key Responsibilities:

Key Metrics

• Maintain a trusted, current view of every AI initiative in flight that leaders use to make decisions

• Move AI use cases from intake through discovery to a clear go/kill decision each cycle

• Achieve a healthy graduation rate of validated pilots into scaled builds — and end the rest quickly and cheaply (a fast, evidence-based “no” is a successful outcome, not a failure)

• Grow cross-org participation in AI through the community of practice

• Evaluate pilots on validated learning against defined milestones — not on features shipped or first-quarter ROI

Innovation Pipeline

• Take a business problem and stand up a fast, low-cost pilot to test whether it is worth solving — “here is the problem, and we are going to pilot X, Y, Z”

• Run discovery with the people closest to the work to surface the problems most worth solving

• Design and orchestrate experiments using flexible resourcing (contractors, vendor pilots, borrowed capacity) rather than a standing team

• Make evidence-based go/kill decisions and retire most pilots quickly and cheaply

• Prepare validated pilots to graduate into scaled builds

AI Portfolio Management

• Maintain the single trusted view of every AI initiative — status, cost, adoption, outcomes, and readiness to graduate

• Own the state of every bet and what it teaches us

• Surface portfolio insights that inform prioritization and investment decisions

Strategic AI Leadership (SAIL) Governance & Intake

• Co-chair the Strategic AI Leadership group (SAIL), Year Up United’s AI governance committee

• Own the SAIL intake process — collecting and triaging AI use cases from across the organization

• Treat intake as the top of the innovation funnel: where the problems worth piloting surface

• Bring SAIL the pipeline and the evidence it needs to decide what graduates to a real build

• Bring a workforce development lens to every AI decision, understanding how Year Up United’s work intersects with opportunity talent, employer expectations, and the students we serve

AI Community of Practice

• Lead the biweekly AI skill shares (Lunch & Learns) that bring staff together from across the organization

• Use these sessions to sense what teams are building on their own and feed that into the funnel

• Build cross-org AI fluency and a culture of safe experimentation

• Co-lead and manage the AI Champions program, a national network of staff building with AI across every function and market

• Set the strategy for how future Champions are recruited, developed, and activated, ensuring the network grows in reach and depth over time

• Use Champions as eyes and ears across the organization, surfacing what teams are building independently and feeding promising use cases into the innovation funnel

• Create shared infrastructure for Champions, including resources, playbooks, and peer learning, so staff can experiment safely and effectively

• Track program health through participation, use case volume, and the quality of what surfaces into SAIL intake

• Represent the Champions program to senior leadership as a leading indicator of organizational AI fluency and culture

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner across program, partnerships, marketing, Development, and operations to surface AI opportunities and ensure initiatives reflect the full scope of Year Up United’s work

• Serve as a connective layer between TnT and the rest of the organization, not a siloed technical function

Staying at the Frontier

• Track the latest and greatest in AI — tools, models, and capabilities

• Evaluate what is real and applicable, and bring it back to sharpen the bets we make

• Serve as a go-to resource on current AI capabilities for teams across the organization

• Monitor the external AI landscape, including major model releases, philanthropic investments, policy developments, and sector initiatives, and brief internal leaders on what matters for Year Up United

• Identify opportunities to position Year Up United’s AI work within larger national conversations and funding moments

Handoff to Scale

• When a pilot earns it, hand it cleanly to the technical AI build capability and agile delivery teams to be hardened and scaled

• Ensure a clean transition from “proven it works” to “built to last”

Learning Community

• Serve as a coach/mentor to a small group of current students

• Participate in weekly group sessions, staff meetings, and training as part of the broader Learning Community

* Other duties as assigned

Qualifications:

• Minimum 5–7 years of experience in product management, portfolio management, innovation, or digital transformation — we welcome strong portfolio and operations backgrounds paired with genuine drive to innovate

• Experience building and maintaining portfolio views, operating dashboards, or initiative roll-ups that leaders rely on to make decisions

• Demonstrated track record standing up pilots or prototypes and making evidence-based go/kill decisions

• Deep, current fluency in AI — you follow the field closely and can distinguish real capability from hype without needing to be an engineer

• Genuine passion for AI — you actively experiment with new tools and are energized by finding where they can transform how we serve students and staff

• Comfort operating with ambiguity and lean experimentation; a bias toward running several low-cost tests over writing one perfect plan

• Strong facilitation and stakeholder skills — able to hold a room with senior leaders and run a scrappy vendor pilot in the same week

• Ability to partner with technical builders and agile delivery teams to move validated work into production

• A senior operator comfortable leading through influence, without a dedicated team

• Experience building or scaling a community of practice, ambassador program, or distributed change network across a complex organization

• Ability to track and synthesize external AI developments and translate them into strategic implications for a mission-driven organization

• Understanding of workforce development, skills-based hiring, or economic mobility, or genuine drive to develop it quickly

• A passion for the mission of Year Up United and belief in the potential of young adults navigating the Opportunity Divide

Preferred

• Proficiency with Salesforce or a similar ecosystem

• Experience in nonprofit, education, or workforce development environments

• Prior experience presenting to senior leaders or an executive/governance committee

Additional

• Occasional travel to Year Up United sites for discovery and pilot work

• Commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging

Salary Range : $135,000 - $160,000

#LI-Hybrid

WORKING AT YEAR UP UNITED:

Starting January 5, 2026, employees are expected to work on-site at least two days per week (Monday through Thursday dependent on job requirements). To be eligible for employment, candidates must live and work in a state (or an approved proximate state*) where Year Up United operates. For a list of eligible locations, please visit:

*Approved proximate states where Year Up United operates are: Connecticut, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS:

• Year Up United has established salary ranges for each of our sites, which allows us to pay employees competitively, equitably and consistently in different geographic markets. For roles in which the location is listed as flexible, the range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Salary offers take into account a candidate’s skills, experience, and location. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

• Benefits: Comprehensive healthcare options and dental coverage; 401(k) match for eligible participants.

• Vacation: Earn three weeks paid vacation in first year of employment; four weeks after initial year.

** This is an exempt role (paid on a salaried basis). **

ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTION:

Year Up United is a national 501(c)3 workforce development organization committed to ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, education, and justice for all young adults—no matter their background, income, or zip code. Employers face a growing need for talent while millions of talented young adults lack access to meaningful careers. These inequities only further perpetuate the opportunity gap that exists in our country—a gap that Year Up United is determined and positioned to close through three interconnected strategies: providing targeted skills training and connections to livable-wage employment for students and alumni; empowering others to serve and support young adults, and changing systems that perpetuate the opportunity gap. Year Up United’s intensive training program utilizes a high expectations, high support model where students learn in-demand technical and professional skills and apply them during a corporate internship. Year Up United has directly served more than 40,000 young adults since its founding in 2000. Year Up United's nationwide presence includes Arizona, Austin, Bay Area, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Greater Atlanta, Greater Boston, Greater Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, the National Capital Region, New York City/Jersey City, Pittsburgh, Puget Sound, Rhode Island, South Florida, Tampa Bay, and Wilmington.

Voted one of the Best Nonprofits to Work For in the country by The NonProfit Times, Year Up United is a rewarding and impactful place to work. Our staff is passionate, supportive, mission-driven, and committed to positive change and continuous learning. We set high standards for both ourselves and our students and live by a set of core values that reflect an unshakable belief in the talent and potential of our young people. The work we do is life-changing, and we know that our team is the greatest asset in achieving our mission.

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY:

Year Up United embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. All aspects of employment, including the decision to hire, promote, discharge, or discipline, are based on meritocracy. We do not permit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristics protected by federal, state, or local laws. Learn more about our commitment to diversity:

Year Up United is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Your recruiter can provide details regarding the expected work environment and any physical requirements. Please let our hiring team know if you need an accommodation at any point during the interview process. Information received relating to accommodation will be addressed confidentially.

TO APPLY:

Please submit a thoughtful cover letter and resume through our website.

We respectfully request no phone calls.