President at The Acceleration Project

The Acceleration Project; New York (NY); Remote; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first

Travel for donor meetings

Competitive benefits

Job summary

The Acceleration Project (TAP) seeks a President to join our senior leadership, oversee operations, grow the donor base, and ensure we hit strategic goals. By 2030 we plan to reach 12,500 businesses annually and expand the network to 100,000 across new markets.

The ideal candidate has 15+ years of professional experience, including 7+ years in senior leadership, plus a proven fundraising track record and excellent executive communication.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of professional experience with senior leadership exposure
• Proven fundraising or donor relations success
• Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills
• Experience leading multi-year strategic plans
• Excellent verbal and written communication with executive presence
• Ability to manage and motivate high-performance teams in a remote-first environment
• Track record of cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder alignment
• Experience engaging with boards and major donors

Responsibilities

• Set ambitious long-term strategic vision and growth plans
• Lead execution of a 5-year plan with milestones and risk reporting
• Oversee Programs, Partnerships, Operations, Development, Marketing, and Technology
• Drive fundraising and revenue growth toward TAP's 2030 goals
• Lead a high-performing leadership team and ensure alignment with values

Skills

15+ years experience in leadership

Fundraising success

Executive communication

Strategic planning

Change management

Cross-functional leadership

Remote leadership

Board liaison

Job description

The Acceleration Project (TAP) exists to unlock pathways to wealth creation and economic mobility for small business owners. We equip under-resourced entrepreneurs with the mentorship and resources they need to grow, thrive, and lead in their communities.

Economic mobility in the U.S. has declined significantly, and wage growth has failed to keep pace with housing, healthcare, and education costs. Owning a small business remains one of the most reliable paths to financial security and upward mobility, as business owners have far greater net worth than wage earners, and local ownership strengthens community economies. Yet access to affordable, high-quality support is uneven, especially for entrepreneurs of color, women, immigrants, and rural business owners; as a result, roughly 20% of small businesses fail within their first year, and up to half fail within their first five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

TAP was founded in 2012 in response to these troubling trends, with the goal of supporting small businesses with annual revenues between $100,000 and $2 million, the segment that drives local jobs and economic growth but too often lacks affordable, high-quality advisory support. TAP exists to bring Wall Street expertise to Main Street, pairing tailored support with expert guidance across key functional areas such as finance, marketing, operations, and emerging technologies (including AI) throughout the entirety of the capital lifecycle, thereby empowering these entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed economically and uplift their communities in the process.

Powered by a network of more than 200 experienced pro bono consultants and a full-time team of 24, TAP supports small business owners nationwide across a wide range of industries with bespoke guidance that meets them where they are and addresses their most critical barriers – all delivered at no cost to them. What sets TAP apart is a deeply personalized approach and the caliber of the team delivering it: rather than a one-size-fits-all curriculum, each entrepreneur gets the support that fits their needs, driven by a team of accomplished professionals with proven private sector experience and deep dedication to entrepreneurship:

• Deep dive projects: Intensive, multi-week engagements for businesses at an inflection point
• 1:1 consulting: Short-term engagements to work through a specific challenge
• Group-based programs: Peer learning and community-building, paired with 1:1 support

TAP serves as a vehicle for harnessing the talents and expertise of Wall Street to deliver social impact on Main Street. Powered by the deep private sector experience of our team, our organization runs like a business, and our results speak for themselves: Since our founding, TAP has worked with more than 13,100 small business owners on customized engagements, delivering over 72,400 hours of pro-bono consulting and generating a 10:1 social return on investment as determined by Bridgespan. 86% of TAP clients maintain or grow revenue, 90% retain or add jobs, 94% feel better equipped to manage their business, and every $1 invested generates roughly $10 in community value. Further, 87% of TAP clients are women-owned businesses and 75% are owned by under-resourced populations.

Building upon this strong foundation and guided by our core values of Access, Innovation, and Impact, TAP is now at an inflection point as we scale our work to operate in new cities, double our consultant network, grow our ecosystem to include 100,000 small business owners over the next 5 years, and set the stage for further explosive growth – all in pursuit of making business ownership a true path to economic mobility for thousands more Americans.

Learn more about The Acceleration Project here.

About the Role

What You’ll Do

As TAP executes our 5-year strategic plan to scale our reach, deepen our impact, and amplify our influence across the small business ecosystem, we are seeking a President to join our senior leadership team, oversee internal operations, grow our brand reputation and donor base, and ensure we achieve our strategic and programmatic goals. By 2030, we plan to scale our programs to reach 12,500 businesses annually, including offering even more specialized and tailored support services for key constituencies (e.g. veterans, single moms, etc.); we also plan to grow our network to 100,000 businesses overall, providing live and asynchronous support to entrepreneurs to best meet their needs. We are seeking a President with the drive and ambition necessary to lead this growth; the business acumen required to put these plans into action; and the strategic and visionary leadership to set an even bolder vision for the future and achieve the high quality results that our clients deserve.

The ideal candidate is passionate about increasing economic mobility by supporting entrepreneurs; energized by the opportunity to manage people and projects to achieve ambitious goals; adept at storytelling, relationship building, and fundraising; and highly motivated to invest in, grow, and lead our organization through its next phase of evolution and beyond, including the drive and determination necessary to succeed our founding leadership team. This is an exciting opportunity for a strategic leader to help steward our organization into its next chapter, building upon TAP's proven impact and the vision of our founding leadership team, and accelerating our growth well into the future.

Key Responsibilities

Organizational Strategy & Vision

• Set an ambitious long-term strategic vision for the organization, including plans for accelerated growth and enhanced programmatic offerings that are responsive to emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities within the small business landscape.
• Lead the successful execution of TAP's current 5-year strategic plan, including tracking milestones, reporting on progress, elevating risks, and driving the cross-functional collaboration and follow-through necessary to achieve goals.
• Maintain a pulse on the latest news, trends, data, and innovations within the business world and economic landscape; connect the dots on what implications these developments could have for TAP.
• Adapt and iterate as needed in response to new challenges and opportunities; translate high-level ideas into concrete action plans within a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.

Team Management & Performance

• Determine and drive enterprise-wide Objectives & Key results (OKRs) and ensure the organization is on track to meet annual goals; serve as the single point of accountability for strategic initiative status reporting to the CEO and Board.
• Oversee all functions including Programs, Partnerships, Operations, Development, Marketing, & Technology; manage and coach direct reports to effectively lead their teams, collaborate cross-functionally, and achieve their individual and shared goals.
• Ensure the successful execution of the organization's day-to-day operations through effective management and empowerment of the senior leadership team, and implementation of best-in-class systems and processes.
• Lead in alignment with TAP's core values of Access, Innovation, and Impact; foster a high-performing, results-oriented culture with high morale and strong cross-functional collaboration and alignment.

Programs & Service Delivery

• Set strategic direction for program design, consultant recruitment, and client experience, ensuring strong service delivery quality and consistency as TAP scales into 5+ new markets, recruits hundreds more consultants, and seeks to impact many thousands more small businesses in the years ahead.
• Drive client growth and increase clients served and sessions delivered, progressing toward strategic plan targets on time and at a reasonable cost and attractive ROI.
• Monitor program KPIs including client outcomes, consultant utilization, days to staff, session quality, retention, and cost-per-client.
• Drive operational improvements to the service delivery model and ensure program infrastructure can support the geographic expansion and increased volume stipulated by our strategic plan.

External Leadership & Fundraising

• Generate and grow a portfolio of donors and partners that build TAP's visibility and pipeline; originate, cultivate and close meaningful contributions towards TAP's 2030 revenue goal of $7.5M from individual and major donors, family offices, corporations and foundations.
• Drive board engagement, expansion/recruitment, and fundraising activation, targeting $1M+ annually in board-influenced revenue and pursuing a goal of increasing the Board's fundraising capacity.
• Drive and optimize TAP's brand marketing and thought leadership strategy; establish a credible and compelling external voice and presence across multiple channels to elevate TAP's profile externally.
• Represent TAP at conferences, convenings, and public events; seek out new panels, keynotes, and conference opportunities.

Who You’ll Work With

You will report to Jane Veron, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, and will work in close collaboration with the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and Board of Directors.

You will directly supervise the VP Programs & Partnerships, the VP Programs & Operations, the Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, the Director of Digital Marketing, and the Senior Director of Technology.

Learn more about the TAP team and Board here.

Required Skills and Experience

• Deep commitment to the TAP mission, driven by a conviction that entrepreneurship is a powerful catalyst for economic mobility and long-term wealth creation in under-resourced communities.
• A minimum of 15 years of professional experience, including at least 7+ years in senior-most leadership roles navigating organizational growth, complexity, or transformation and overseeing a budget or P&L.
• Substantive professional experience in private sector roles (e.g. strategy consulting, private equity, finance) and/or high-performing nonprofit leadership positions, bringing analytical capability and strategic problem-solving to internal growth and external partnership development challenges.
• Strong strategic thinking and demonstrated intellectual curiosity, including the ability to quickly understand complex problems and to successfully anticipate new challenges and opportunities within a dynamic landscape.
• Demonstrated success in fundraising or sales, serving as the primary lead generator and relationship manager to cultivate, convert, and steward key donor and client partnerships.
• Track record of designing, implementing, and executing multi-year strategic plans, with a demonstrated ability to future-proof an organization and align diverse stakeholders through influence and collaboration.
• Exceptional capacity to lead comprehensive change management, optimizing internal infrastructure and successfully steering an organization through shifting external landscapes.
• Proven experience building and managing high-performance teams to achieve ambitious goals; comfortable leading and managing in a remote-first context.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the executive presence and sophistication required to serve as a high-profile national advocate, thought leader, and media spokesperson.

Additional Details

Compensation

The salary range for this position is $150K - $200K+ annually, commensurate with experience. Additionally, TAP is prepared to incentivize growth and reward high performance via a bonus structure that is commensurate with progress against organizational goals.

Additional Details

This is a full-time, remote-first position based in the Tri-State Area. Proximity to the New York City metro area is strongly preferred to facilitate in-person collaboration with the CEO; additionally, in-person funder meetings and relationship cultivation are a meaningful part of this role. Regular (e.g. monthly) travel for donor meetings, conferences, and team events is expected.

Inclusion & Belonging at The Acceleration Project

TAP is an equal opportunity employer committed to equity, inclusion, and expanding opportunities for historically under-resourced communities. We strongly encourage applications from candidates of all backgrounds.