Chief People Officer

SmartRecruiters, Inc.; New York (NY); On-site; USD 250,000 - 450,000; Full time

Job summary

KIPP NYC Public Schools in New York, NY, seeks an exceptional Chief People Officer to serve as the chief architect of the organization's talent strategy, culture, and employee experience. Reporting to the CEO, the CPO will own all aspects of the People function across 1,200+ employees serving thousands of students and families.

This enterprise role requires strategic leadership and operational excellence, guiding recruitment, development, performance management, equity, total rewards, HR

Job description

• Department: Regional Support and Leadership

Company Description

About KIPP NYC:
Founded in 1995, KIPP NYC Public Schools is a non-profit network of 18 free, public charter schools located in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. We partner with families and communities to create joyful, academically excellent schools where every child grows up free to create the future they want for themselves and their communities.

From our first middle school, KIPP Academy in the Bronx, to today’s network of eight elementary schools, nine middle schools, and one high school, KIPP NYC provides students with engaging academics, arts, athletics, and social-emotional learning that prepare them for college, career, and beyond.

Our commitment doesn’t end at graduation. Through KIPP Forward, we continue to support our alumni as they navigate college, career, and life, helping them define success on their own terms and pursue the paths that align with their goals and sense of purpose.

Together, we serve more than 9,400 students, support 4,700 alumni, and employ over 1,100 dedicated team members who bring passion, expertise, and commitment to our mission every day.

The Next Chapter

KIPP NYC enters its next chapter from a position of considerable strength. Over the past several years, the organization has nearly doubled enrollment, expanded its presence across New York City, and celebrated its 30th anniversary. Today, KIPP NYC is one of the largest and most influential regions within the national KIPP network - a network of more than 1,200 educators and staff across three boroughs, in service of thousands of students and families.

As KIPP NYC has grown, so too has the opportunity to strengthen the systems and infrastructure that support its next phase of impact. Since CEO Leslie-Bernard Joseph joined KIPP NYC in August 2025, the executive team has embraced a highly collaborative, systems-oriented approach to preparing the organization for what's next. Significant progress has already been made to strengthen and modernize core organizational functions, including substantial investment in finance. Over the past year, KIPP NYC has also taken a deliberate approach to strengthening its People function, creating greater stability and clarity before bringing in its next Chief People Officer.

As KIPP NYC approaches a $300M annual operating budget and a workforce of 1,200+ across three boroughs, the opportunity is significant. The organization is ready to invest with intentionality in the systems, culture, and leadership pipeline required to attract, develop, and retain exceptional people at every level - from school-based educators to central office leaders.

For the next Chief People Officer, this is a rare opportunity: to build a talent function with strong organizational support and a mandate for innovation alongside an invested and aligned executive team.

Job Description

The CPO Opportunity

KIPP NYC is seeking an exceptional Chief People Officer (CPO) to serve as chief architect of the organization's talent strategy, culture, and employee experience, and as a critical member of the Executive Leadership Team.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the CPO will own all aspects of the People function - including talent acquisition and workforce planning; talent development and performance management; organizational effectiveness and change leadership; total rewards; employee and labor relations; HR operations, governance, compliance, and risk management; and equity and belonging - across a complex, multi-entity organization of 1,200+ employees serving thousands of students and families across three boroughs.

This is an enterprise-level mandate requiring both strategic leadership and operational excellence. The CPO will sit alongside the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Development Officer as one of the CEO's core strategic partners, responsible for ensuring that the organization's people strategy scales at the same pace as its budget, its footprint, and its ambition. Early priorities include:

• Strengthening and building areas of an integrated, data-driven People function capable of supporting a $300M+, multi-entity, three-borough organization - with the infrastructure to match near-term execution against long-term scale.
• Modernizing core HR systems (HRIS, performance management, applicant tracking) and exploring AI and modern people-analytics tools to move from reactive HR administration to proactive workforce strategy.
• Partnering closely with the CFO on the transition of payroll into Finance, and establishing a durable, well-defined operating partnership between People and Finance going forward.
• Building a school-leader and central-office leadership pipeline strong enough to support continued growth, with clear succession planning at every critical seat.
• Strengthening recruitment, onboarding, and retention strategies for school-based educators - historically the highest-turnover, highest-stakes talent segment in the network.
• Embedding equity and belonging as operating disciplines, not slogans, across hiring, compensation, promotion, and performance management.

Key responsibilities of the CPO include, among others:

Talent Strategist and Empowering Culture Leader

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the CEO, Board, and Executive Leadership Team, translating organizational vision into an actionable, multi-year talent strategy.
• Own workforce planning across a complex, multi-entity structure - anticipating hiring needs, succession risk, and organizational design questions before they become urgent.
• Build and protect a culture of high performance, accountability, and belonging at every level of the organization, from classrooms to the central office.
• Advise the CEO and executive team on the people implications of major strategic decisions - including organizational design changes, new school openings, restructures, and shifts in operating models - and lead the people and change-management strategies required for successful implementation.
• Champion a leadership philosophy grounded in clear expectations, coaching, and empowerment - modeling the culture the organization wants replicated at every school site.
• Serve as a senior advisor on organizational risk, governance, and compliance, ensuring people-related risks are proactively identified, appropriately escalated, and addressed through clear policies, controls, and decision-making processes.
• Lead a team of ~18 (with three direct reports: Managing Director, Talent; Managing Director, People Operations; and Managing Director, People Transformation) across functions of recruitment, employee experience and talent development, people operations and transformation.

Employee Experience, Talent Development, & Equity Leadership

• Design and lead an end-to-end talent lifecycle strategy - recruitment, onboarding, development, performance management, advancement, and retention - tailored to the distinct needs of school-based and central-office talent.
• Build a rigorous, equitable performance management approach that sets clear expectations, supports continuous development, differentiates performance, addresses underperformance, and strengthens teacher and leader effectiveness in service of student outcomes.
• Build a leadership development pipeline for school leaders and rising central-office executives, with defined pathways, competency frameworks, and succession plans for the organization's most critical roles.
• Own total rewards strategy - compensation philosophy, benefits design, and market benchmarking - ensuring KIPP NYC remains competitive for top talent in both the education sector and the broader NYC labor market.
• Lead equity and belonging strategy across hiring practices, compensation structures, promotion pathways, and performance management, in direct service of the organization's broader commitment to racial equity and social justice.
• Build listening infrastructure (engagement surveys, exit interviews, stay interviews) and translate findings into concrete action.
• Ensure managers across the network are equipped - through training, tools, and coaching - to lead, develop, and retain their teams effectively.

Enterprise Builder and Systems Leader

• Modernize HR infrastructure and systems (HRIS, ATS, performance and compensation platforms) to move the People function from manual and reactive to integrated and data-driven.
• Establish and oversee strong governance, compliance, and organization risk-management processes across the People function, including consistent policies, internal controls, documentation standards, escalation protocols, and compliance with New York State and City employment law.
• Ensure consistent, sound employee and labor relations practices across the organization, including investigations, performance and conduct matters, partnership with legal counsel, and effective engagement with unionized stakeholders.
• Partner with Finance to execute the transition of payroll into the finance function, and establish clear, durable ownership and handoff points between the two teams going forward.
• Build people-analytics capability - turnover, time-to-fill