Academic Associate VP, Academic Programs

Southern New Hampshire University; New Hampshire; Remote; USD 157,000 - 212,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

High-quality medical insurance

Low to no-cost dental and vision plans

5 weeks paid time off

Employer-funded retirement

Free tuition program

Parental leave

Mental health resources

Job summary

Southern New Hampshire University seeks an accomplished leader to provide strategic, enterprise-wide guidance for assigned academic portfolios, aligning strategy with learner outcomes and institutional goals. You will drive portfolio strategy, foster One University collaboration, ensure academic integrity, and lead organizational transformation across portfolios and teams.

You will coach Academic Deans and Executive Directors, promote data-informed decisions, and champion responsible technology

Qualifications

• Years of experience: 10+ years of progressive higher education leadership experience successfully leading cross-divisional initiatives with enterprise impact.
• Knowledge and experience within online education at large scale, including modalities, learner experience development, and faculty management.
• Experience with development of policies and standard operating procedures.
• Systems Intelligence: systems thinking, complexity navigation, outcomes-based design.
• Enterprise Leadership: enterprise perspective, strategic prioritization, shared accountability
• Change Leadership: change strategy & sequencing, stakeholder mobilization, change adoption
• Strategic Execution: strategy-to-action translation, portfolio/program leadership, execution discipline
• Data-to-Insight-to-Action: data literacy, sensemaking, evidence-based decisions
• Organizational & Process Design: process simplification, operating model-design, continuous improvement
• Enterprise Partnership: influence across departments, build relationships, constructive conflict resolution
• Digital & AI Fluency: AI opportunity identification, human/technology work redesign, responsible adoption
• Talent Fluidity & Capability Building: talent/skills assessment, dynamic resource deployment, leader development

Responsibilities

• Provides strategic and enterprise leadership for assigned academic portfolios, ensuring portfolio strategy, priorities, resources, and performance align with institutional objectives, market needs, and learner outcomes.
• Leads the development and execution of portfolio strategy, using product health, learner, operational, market, fiscal, and other relevant insights to identify priorities, opportunities, risks, and actions that strengthen portfolio performance and long-term sustainability.
• Promotes an enterprise and One University mindset, building alignment across Academic Programs and institutional partners, navigating interdependencies, and ensuring decisions optimize outcomes for the institution and learners rather than individual functions or portfolios.
• Provides enterprise leadership for academic integrity, quality, and governance, ensuring policies, procedures, and practices support consistent academic standards, regulatory, and accreditation requirements, learner success, and institutional expectations.
• Advances organizational agility and talent fluidity by identifying and mobilizing expertise and capacity across portfolios, disciplines, and teams; enabling flexible team structures and product–focused teams as organizational needs evolve.
• Leads strategic initiatives and organizational transformation, translating institutional priorities into coordinated action and guiding teams through changes in operating models, technology, processes, policies, and ways of working.
• Builds leadership and organizational capability by coaching and developing Academic Deans and Executive Directors, identifying and cultivating talent, strengthening succession pipelines, and creating opportunities for people to contribute their strengths and expertise where they can have the greatest impact.
• Strengthens the flow from data to insight to action, establishing expectations for evidence-informed decision-making, identifying meaningful patterns and opportunities, accelerating experimentation and learning, and ensuring actions produce measurable outcomes.
• Champions operational and process excellence by challenging unnecessary complexity, identifying opportunities to simplify and standardize work, clarifying decision rights and accountabilities, and partnering across functions to improve effectiveness, capacity, and speed to value.
• Promotes responsible technology and AI enablement, identifying opportunities to augment or automate work, improve decision-making, and create organizational capacity while ensuring appropriate human judgment, quality, equity, and responsible implementation.
• Builds trusted enterprise partnerships and influences across the organization, creating shared understanding, and aligning stakeholders around common outcomes without relying solely on positional authority.
• Creates a culture of accountability, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement, establishing clear expectations while fostering an environment where people feel valued, contribute their expertise, experiment responsibly, learn from results, and adapt.
• Stewards organizational resources and capacity strategically, balancing near‑term operational requirements with longer‑term priorities.
• Anticipates emerging opportunities and challenges affecting Academic Programs, maintaining awareness of changes in higher education, workforce and market needs, technology and AI, academic models, and learner expectations and translating relevant developments into strategic implications and action.
• Measures and communicates organizational and portfolio performance, establishing meaningful indicators of progress, surfacing risks and opportunities, and ensuring leaders and partners understand performance, decisions, outcomes, and required actions.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Job description

The opportunity

Southern New Hampshire University is a team of innovators. World changers. Individuals who believe in progress with purpose. Since 1932, our people-centered strategy has defined us — and helped us grow a team that now serves over 180,000 learners worldwide. Our mission to transform lives is made possible by talented people who bring diverse industry experience, backgrounds and skills to the university. And today, we're ready to expand our reach. All we need is you. Make an impact — from near or far At SNHU, you'll have the option to work remotely in the following states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. We ask that our remote employees have access to a reliable internet connection and a dedicated, properly equipped workspace that is free of distractions. Employees must reside in, and work from, one of the above approved states.

What you’ll do:

• Provides strategic and enterprise leadership for assigned academic portfolios, ensuring portfolio strategy, priorities, resources, and performance align with institutional objectives, market needs, and learner outcomes.


• Leads the development and execution of portfolio strategy, using product health, learner, operational, market, fiscal, and other relevant insights to identify priorities, opportunities, risks, and actions that strengthen portfolio performance and long-term sustainability.


• Promotes an enterprise and One University mindset, building alignment across Academic Programs and institutional partners, navigating interdependencies, and ensuring decisions optimize outcomes for the institution and learners rather than individual functions or portfolios.


• Provides enterprise leadership for academic integrity, quality, and governance, ensuring policies, procedures, and practices support consistent academic standards, regulatory, and accreditation requirements, learner success, and institutional expectations.


• Advances organizational agility and talent fluidity by identifying and mobilizing expertise and capacity across portfolios, disciplines, and teams; enabling flexible team structures and product–focused teams as organizational needs evolve.


• Leads strategic initiatives and organizational transformation, translating institutional priorities into coordinated action and guiding teams through changes in operating models, technology, processes, policies, and ways of working.


• Builds leadership and organizational capability by coaching and developing Academic Deans and Executive Directors, identifying and cultivating talent, strengthening succession pipelines, and creating opportunities for people to contribute their strengths and expertise where they can have the greatest impact.


• Strengthens the flow from data to insight to action, establishing expectations for evidence-informed decision-making, identifying meaningful patterns and opportunities, accelerating experimentation and learning, and ensuring actions produce measurable outcomes.


• Champions operational and process excellence by challenging unnecessary complexity, identifying opportunities to simplify and standardize work, clarifying decision rights and accountabilities, and partnering across functions to improve effectiveness, capacity, and speed to value.


• Promotes responsible technology and AI enablement, identifying opportunities to augment or automate work, improve decision-making, and create organizational capacity while ensuring appropriate human judgment, quality, equity, and responsible implementation.


• Builds trusted enterprise partnerships and influences across the organization, creating shared understanding, and aligning stakeholders around common outcomes without relying solely on positional authority.


• Creates a culture of accountability, learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement, establishing clear expectations while fostering an environment where people feel valued, contribute their expertise, experiment responsibly, learn from results, and adapt.


• Stewards organizational resources and capacity strategically, balancing near‑term operational requirements with longer‑term priorities.


• Anticipates emerging opportunities and challenges affecting Academic Programs, maintaining awareness of changes in higher education, workforce and market needs, technology and AI, academic models, and learner expectations and translating relevant developments into strategic implications and action.


• Measures and communicates organizational and portfolio performance, establishing meaningful indicators of progress, surfacing risks and opportunities, and ensuring leaders and partners understand performance, decisions, outcomes, and required actions.


• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Job responsibilities can change at any time, with or without notice.

What we’re looking for:

• Years of experience: 10+ years of progressive higher education leadership experience successfully leading cross-divisional initiatives with enterprise impact.


• Degree(s): Doctoral degree or equivalent terminal degree Equivalent of experience in lieu of degree acceptable


• Knowledge and experience within online education at large scale, including a variety of modalities, faculty and course design models; learner experience development, and faculty management.


• Experience with development of policies and standard operating procedures


• Systems Intelligence: systems thinking, complexity navigation, outcomes-based design.


• Enterprise Leadership: enterprise perspective, strategic prioritization, shared accountability


• Change Leadership: change strategy & sequencing, stakeholder mobilization, change adoption


• Strategic Execution: strategy-to-action translation, portfolio/program leadership, execution discipline


• Data-to-Insight-to-Action: data literacy, sensemaking, evidence-based decisions


• Organizational & Process Design: process simplification, operating model-design, continuous improvement


• Enterprise Partnership: influence across departments, build relationships, constructive conflict resolution


• Digital & AI Fluency: AI opportunity identification, human/technology work redesign, responsible adoption


• Talent Fluidity & Capability Building: talent/skills assessment, dynamic resource deployment, leader development

We believe real innovation comes from inclusion - where different experiences, perspectives and talents are celebrated. So if you're wondering whether SNHU is right for you, take the leap and apply. You might be just the person we're looking for.

If you have a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to fully engage in any part of the application or hiring process, please complete the Accommodation Request form or contact us at 603-626-9447. A member from the Employee Accommodation Support Center will be in contact with you within two business days to discuss your request.

Compensation

The annual pay range for this position is $141,974.00 - $227,199.00. Actual offer will be based on skills, qualifications, experience and internal equity, in addition to relevant business considerations. We expect this position to be hired in the following target hiring range $156,880.00 - $212,250.00.

Exceptional benefits (because you’re exceptional)

You’re the whole package. Your benefits should be, too.

• High-quality, low-deductible medical insurance


• Low to no-cost dental and vision plans


• 5 weeks of paid time off (plus almost a dozen paid holidays)


• Employer-funded retirement


• Free tuition program


• Parental leave


• Mental health and wellbeing resources