Chief People Officer

KIPP; Camden (NJ); On-site; USD 250,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

KIPP TEAM & Family Schools seeks a Chief People Officer to design and lead the talent engine for a growing network. You will own recruiting, development, pay, and performance across four cities and two states, including Newark, Camden, Paterson and South Florida.

You’ll sit on the executive team, guide five HR functions, and implement a values-driven, analytics-enabled people strategy aligned with our 2030 plan. This role is high-visibility and high-impact.

Qualifications

• Track record building scalable people systems in growing organizations.
• Experience leading HR, recruitment, and talent development across multiple regions.

Responsibilities

• Own the full employee experience from recruitment to performance management.
• Lead five functional leaders: Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, HR Operations & Payroll, Employee Relations, and Compensation & Performance Management.
• Set a values-aligned talent strategy and a transparent compensation framework.
• Collaborate with regional leaders across Newark, Camden, Paterson and South Florida.
• Drive HR systems modernization and leverage analytics and AI for planning.

Job description

• Department: Regional Support and Leadership
• Compensation: USD 250,000 - USD 290,000 - yearly

Company Description

KIPP TEAM & Family Schools · Newark, Camden, Paterson, South Florida

We serve more than 11,000 students today, and we plan to serve 15,000 by 2030. That growth depends on one thing: great people in front of our students and great leaders running our schools.

Most Chief People Officer roles are about keeping a system running. This one is about building the talent engine for a network that's growing by nearly 40% in four years, across four cities and two states. If you've wanted to design the people strategy for a growing organization, rather than just maintain one, keep reading.

Who we are

KIPP TEAM & Family Schools (KTAF) is a network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools in Newark, Camden, and Paterson, New Jersey, and in Miami, Florida. We're part of the national KIPP network. We exist to prepare our students for success in college and in life. KIPP students are nearly three times as likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than their peers.

Today we have more than 1,500 staff and an operating budget of over $300 million. We're also growing our South Florida presence beyond Miami. Our network office supports our schools through teams like Leadership Development, Recruitment, Advocacy, Facilities, Finance, and People.

We believe the adults in our buildings shape our students' futures more than anything else we do. That's why this role matters so much.

What we stand for

Our Be the Change values shape how we make decisions, who we hire, and how we hold each other to a high bar. We're early in the work of bringing them to life in every part of how we operate, and the Chief People Officer will lead this work.

• Kid Focus. Students First. Always.
• Radical Love. Fierce Care, Bold Belief.
• Excellence. Get Better Every Day.
• TEAM. Together Everyone Achieves More.
• Fun. Joyful Culture, Serious Mission.

If you read this and see yourself in it, we'd like to meet you.

Job Description

The role

As Chief People Officer, you'll own the full employee experience for every teammate. That covers how we recruit and hire, how we develop and keep teachers and leaders, and how we pay, support, and manage performance.

We are building an organization where our values show up in every hire, every review, and every promotion. As Chief People Officer, you will be the executive most responsible for making that true.

You'll sit on the executive leadership team and report to the Co-President. You'll lead five functional leaders, covering Talent Acquisition, Talent Development, HR Operations and Payroll, Employee Relations, and Compensation and Performance Management. You'll work closely with regional leaders in all four cities.

This is a high-visibility, high-accountability role. Your work impacts every classroom, every school leadership team, and every one of our students' days.

Your first year

In your first 12 months, you will:

• Earn trust fast. Build strong relationships with the executive team, school leaders, and regional leaders in Newark, Camden, Paterson, and South Florida.
• Lead a unified People team. Lead five functions and four regions together as one team, with a shared vision rooted in our 2030 plan.
• Get close to the work. Spend time in our schools, several in each region, in your first 90 days. Listen to teachers, school leaders, and staff about what helps them support our students and what gets in their way.
• Staff for growth. Make sure our hiring and pipeline programs can fill the roles that new students and new schools will need.
• Modernize our systems. Assess our HR, applicant tracking, and performance management tools. Then lead the team’s transformation from reactive administration to proactive workforce planning, including the smart use of people analytics and AI.
• Put our values at the center of every talent practice. Work with leaders on the People team and throughout the organization to build values-aligned behaviors into how we hire, onboard, develop, evaluate, recognize, and promote.
• Set the compensation direction. Lay the groundwork for a pay strategy that is competitive, equitable, and transparent.

What success looks like by 2030

We've set clear, ambitious goals when it comes to our people work, and you'll own them.

• 90% overall staff retention, with a special focus on first-year staff and teachers.
• Less than 5% regrettable attrition. We keep the people we most want to keep.
• 90% of teacher, School Leader, and Director of School Operations openings filled from within, through our own pipeline programs.
• 95% of residents meeting or exceeding expectations in their first year in role.
• 90% of our schools and teams scoring above the 75th percentile on Gallup's core engagement questions.

What you'll lead

Strategy and culture. Set the multi-year people strategy, and serve as a true thought partner to the Co-President and CEO on organizational design and workforce planning. Embed the network's values and key behaviors into talent systems - job descriptions, interview rubrics, onboarding, performance management, recognition, and leadership development - so they are truly lived, not just stated.

Talent acquisition. With the Managing Director of Talent Acquisition, develop and refine KTAF's current recruitment strategies that