Portfolio Director - Rural

Transcend; Houston (TX); Remote; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Transcend seeks a passionate Portfolio Director for their Rural team, focusing on redesigning educational frameworks in rural communities. This full-time role requires expertise in project management, team culture cultivation, and a commitment to impactful learning experiences. The position offers flexibility with a strong collaborative environment.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Paid time off

Professional development opportunities

Org-wide holidays

Paid parental leave

Fully remote work

Qualifications

• Mid-senior level experience in project management and education settings.
• Strong organizational and communication skills.
• Ability to leverage data for decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Oversee portfolio management and ensure smooth operations.
• Lead internal communications and team alignment.
• Develop and implement learning agendas and data systems.

Skills

Project Management

Data Analysis

Communication

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

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PARTNER, PORTFOLIO DIRECTOR - Rural



Start Date: Immediate

Role Type: Full time

Title: Partner, Portfolio Director

Reports to: Taina Torres, Managing Partner

Location/Travel: Flexible; willingness to travel approximately once a month, ~20% travel.

Who We Are

Transcend's mission is to support communities to create and spread extraordinary learning environments for all. Founded in 2015, Transcend has partnered with over 390 schools/partners, which collectively serve thousands of students in over 30 states across the country. As a research & development hub for the education field, Transcend provides schools and systems with research-backed, community-driven models and capacity so they can make significant leaps to reimagine the future of education. Transcend is a nonprofit that operates with a fully remote, nationwide team; currently with 120+ teammates and growing. For more information, follow us on LinkedIn, check out this podcast featuring our two co-founders on Class Disrupted, or read this recent article that illuminates the need for this work.

The Role

The Rural Portfolio partners with rural communities across the U.S. to redesign schools in ways that reflect the local community context and advance 21st-century learning for all. Much of the portfolio's work focuses on Career-Connected Learning to prepare learners in grades 6 - 14 for industry awareness, personal planning, and essential cross-disciplinary & job specific skills to pursue meaningful college and career paths beyond school. This community-driven work involves designing and testing learning experiences through short-cycle piloting, while leveraging instructional design, adult learning, coaching, facilitation, and community engagement to drive meaningful and sustainable redesign.

We're looking for a Partner, Portfolio Director to help drive our Rural Schools Portfolio's impact. This role is at the heart of the Rural Portfolio's operations and culture—responsible for keeping our team aligned, and organized, leveraging data to drive impact, and helping cultivate a thriving team culture. In this role, you'll lead internal communications, coordinate team meetings and retreats, track budgets, and create strong systems for project management, progress monitoring, knowledge sharing, and decision-making. You'll partner closely with Taina Torres, Managing Partner, and collaborate with teammates across the portfolio to ensure seamless coordination and execution, all while staying grounded in both our portfolio-specific strategy and broader organizational priorities. You'll problem-solve and learn alongside the team, and play a central role in leading and sustaining the team culture that supports the team's collective success. While this is an individual contributor role, it is a highly collaborative role that requires strong project management, comfort with data, and a deep commitment to people and culture.

In your role as Partner, Portfolio Director on the Rural team, you'll focus on the following work streams. The time spent on each may shift over time.

Portfolio Management - 40-50%

Working closely with the Managing Partner, oversee the day-to-day coordination, systems, and internal communications that keep the Rural Portfolio running smoothly and aligned. This includes building and managing processes across the following:

• Coordinate and manage both portfolio-wide and project-specific team meetings, including logistics and follow-ups
• Design, refine, and maintain team-wide systems, structures, and calendars for key deliverables across the portfolio ensuring these are codified and clear for the team
• Lead internal communications, including the Rural Rundown (weekly team newsletter), Slack updates, and post-meeting summaries
• Build and manage systems that support project management, progress monitoring, knowledge sharing, and decision-making across the Portfolio
• Monitor the Portfolio's budgets in partnership with Project Leads and the Managing Partner
• Track individual project budgets and align resourcing with team capacity, project goals and the portfolio's strategic priorities
• Capture learnings and lead the collaborative planning process toward advancing the portfolio's strategic direction
  
  

Portfolio Learning & Data Systems - 20%

Lead the implementation of the Portfolio's learning agenda and the process for collecting and synthesizing learnings. This includes:

• Lead the development of the portfolio's learning agenda and the systematic approach to capturing insights across our work internally and the field externally to advance our strategy Design and refine data systems that support project teams in consistently collecting, organizing and learning from the data
• Provide training and support to Project Leads to implement learning and data systems effectively
• Plan and facilitate team learning spaces, including data stepbacks and knowledge-sharing sessions
• Regularly synthesize key insights and elevate them to the Managing Partner through clear narratives, presentations, and artifacts for both internal and external audiences (e.g., funders, Transcend community)
  
  

Portfolio Culture - 10-15%

Cultivate a thriving team culture by designing intentional systems, routines, and events that foster connection, alignment, and shared ownership of the portfolio's values, agreements, and ways of working. For example:

• Design and lead team-wide efforts to support a thriving team culture, including planning and executing internal team retreats and stepbacks that strengthen team connection and alignment
• Maintain and evolve team agreements and routines, including planning celebrations, birthday shoutouts, and intentional moments of community-building
• Engage teammates in shaping the portfolio's systems, structures, and strategies through community-based design processes
• Ensure the portfolio's ways of collaborating are aligned with Transcend's values and solve emerging needs as they arise
  
  

Special Projects & Events - 10-15%

Provide flexible support across a variety of strategic projects, such as:

• Provide direct project support, as needed, especially during strategic pivots or high-priority work, such as drafting early project scopes or frameworks
• At times, lead external event planning with partners from vision to execution (either directly executing or coordinating with other teammates or contractors to do so)
• Manage the portfolio's presence and logistics for external conferences and engagements
  
  

Who You Are

You equally love all things project management, data tracking, leveling up systems, and centering people in all you do. You bring top-notch project management, are an incredible communicator, and have strong organizational skills–and you can apply them with clarity, vision, and care. You know how to set up human-centered systems, support people to be aligned, keep the work moving forward, and proactively notice trends/gaps—even across a range of personalities, working styles, and functions. Whether it's coordinating across complex projects or making sure the team gathering has enough coffee, you bring joy and intention to the details—synthesizing input from every direction into a clear, thoughtful path ahead.

And, to all of this, you bring:

• A wholehearted dedication and passion for Transcend's unique mission
• A deep eagerness to embrace and live into Transcend's core values in your daily work
• Flexibility, enthusiasm, and trust—enabling you to build positive relationships and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, readily stretching high and low, doing whatever it takes to get the job done
• A calm and grounded presence that allows you to lead and support teams through influence by creating clarity where there is ambiguity. While this role is an individual contributor position, it is uniquely positioned to influence, organize, and galvanize project teams through lateral leadership and strong collaboration.
• Exceptional project management and organizational skills, with the ability to juggle multiple priorities and lead complex workstreams across a dynamic portfolio team
• A strong ability to design and maintain clear, user-friendly systems that support a portfolio team. You know how to anticipate needs, plan ahead, and follow through with consistency and care
• Comfortability with data, spreadsheets, and basic analytics
• A strong ability to thrive in a remote work environment and have strong personal organizational systems
• And above all, you care deeply about people. You help shape and steward a portfolio culture that is grounded in relationships, reflection, and shared purpose—ensuring that our ways of working not only drive results but reflect who we are and what we stand for
  
  

Perks and Benefits

Transcend is committed to providing our colleagues with a competitive benefits package. Transcend offers medical, dental, and vision coverage options, org-wide holidays, paid time off, paid parental leave, professional development opportunities, and fully remote work. We take pride in our collaborative environment, exceptional team, and shared commitment to principled, impactful work.

Join Us!

We are an experienced team focused on extraordinary learning for all. We welcome candidates who are passionate about ensuring that all students thrive.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Finance and Sales

• Industries

  Education Management

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