Senior Director, Digital Operations & AI

Role Description

This is a leadership role on Bellwether’s Central Support (CS) Team that balances strategic direction with hands-on execution. We anticipate the Senior Director will function similarly to a product manager with change management depth and technical range. This role is right for someone who can help shape the vision, run the roadmap, and build the work. Because this role does not come with a dedicated technical team, execution will occur through a mix of individual work, contracted support, and close partnership with other Central Support roles, depending on the project's requirements.

Here’s how we expect this role to spend its time:

• 35-40% Strategic direction and roadmap ownership: Translating the organization’s digital transformation and AI priorities into a sequenced, realistic plan and making clear-eyed calls about what to build, what to defer, and what to resist.
• 25% Client-facing delivery: Embedded support on select projects where AI integration, workflow design, or operations modernization supports Bellwether’s service offerings.
• 35-40% Hands-on execution: Building prototypes, configuring tools, writing automations, testing integrations, and designing systems that the Central Support team can maintain without ongoing technical support.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in digital transformation, workflow redesign (process engineering), operations, or product management in a role that required owning both strategy and execution, not just one.
• Demonstrated track record of leading organizational change and building lasting adoption in contexts where enthusiasm was uneven and pushback was genuine.
• Hands-on AI and automation experience: you have built workflows, configured tools, and implemented AI in real operational settings that improved effectiveness and sustainability.
• Technical understanding of generative AI: you think in terms of evaluation, context engineering, and agentic design, and you can balance trade-offs among speed, latency, cost, and quality.
• Systems thinking: you map workflows end to end, find where friction lives (not just where it is most visible), and design for root causes.
• Ability to assess data privacy and security risks: you anticipate the privacy and security risks that come with AI adoption, translate those for the wider team, and design/build with mitigating them in mind.
• Communication range: you translate fluently across every level of the organization, from executive strategy conversations to the hands-on details of getting work done.
• A builder's attitude: you have shipped things, owned deliverables, and know what it feels like to be accountable for a system people rely on.
• Strong mission orientation: you understand why Bellwether's work matters and can connect better internal systems to better outcomes for young people.

Requirements

• Experience in nonprofit, education, consulting, or professional services; you understand how mission-driven, expertise-led organizations make decisions and navigate governance.
• Product management background: iterative delivery, user research, prioritization discipline, accountability for outcomes over outputs.
• Forward-deployed engineering or technical consulting experience: diagnosing and building solutions directly alongside end users.
• Familiarity with Salesforce, HRIS platforms, grant management workflows, or knowledge management systems.
• Exposure to AI policy, governance, or ethical use frameworks.

Benefits

• The base salary range for incoming team members in this role is $170,250-$199,625 annually, with eligibility for an annual performance bonus targeted at $19,900 based on individual and organizational success.
• Bellwether provides competitive compensation and an attractive benefits package that includes a performance bonus based on individual and firm success, health care coverage, and a 401(k) plan with matching employer contributions.

Company Description

Bellwether is a national nonprofit that exists to transform education to ensure students furthest from opportunity achieve outcomes that lead to fulfilling lives and flourishing communities. We work hand in hand with education leaders and organizations to accelerate their impact, inform and influence policy and program design, and share what we learn along the way.

We are a remote-first team, and our work is national in scope, so our flexible working style allows our professionals to work where they have built their lives, which means Bellwether can hire the best person for each role, regardless of geography. This role can be based anywhere in the United States. Up to 15% travel may be required.