About The Position
The Vice President, KEDA, will serve as the program lead responsible for founding KIPP’s first-ever Executive Director leadership program. The KIPP Executive Director Accelerator (KEDA) is scheduled to launch in School Year 2026–2027. This leader will design, build, and continuously refine three core programmatic components — ED identification and selection, the ED Fellowship, and the New ED Program — ensuring they function as a cohesive, high-impact leadership development pipeline.
This role is fundamentally focused on building and executing a best-in-class leadership program that produces a robust and sustainable pipeline of ED-ready candidates prepared to lead one of KIPP’s 28 regions nationwide. The Vice President of KEDA will translate KEDA’s vision into concrete programming, curriculum, learning experiences, and operational structures. They will build and manage the fellowship model; design learning experiences aligned to KIPP’s leadership expectations; coordinate selection processes; cultivate facilitators, coaches, and partners; and establish the systems and rhythms necessary to run KEDA effectively at launch and beyond.
As KIPP works toward its 2030 goals, KEDA is focused on preparing a specific kind of leader: an Executive Director who leads with conviction, centers students and community in every decision, and has the vision, drive, and cultural competency to deliver breakthrough outcomes across regional leadership. This role will design and deliver programming that develops a diverse cohort of leaders who excel across the five domains critical to leading a KIPP region in this era — Driving Performance, Leadership Mindset, Vision and Strategic Direction, Talent and Culture Cultivation, and Communication, Influence, and Leading Change — while remaining deeply grounded in who KIPP is and why we exist.
Specifically, the VP of KEDA will be responsible for the following:
Responsibilities
Act as a talent magnet, cultivating current and future Executive Director (ED) prospects:
Strategically identify and cultivate a bench of the most talented and successful education leaders with track records of extraordinary results.
Cultivate results-driven pipeline sources over time while building KIPP’s brand as the home for top executive level talent and development
In partnership with the KIPP Foundation Talent Team, co-design and implement executive-level recruitment strategies, inclusive selection practices, and succession planning systems aligned to network-wide talent strategy.
Partner with Regional Superintendents to ensure that 75% of candidates who complete the ED Residency are certified “ED Ready,” and 100% of ED ready candidates successfully matriculate into an Executive Director role within two years.
Establish annual and long-term targets based on ED attrition data and collaboration with Regional Superintendents on talent landscape and needs to meet our goals of 85% retention of high performing EDs and 100% of regions with an ED vacancy fill the role with a best-in-class successor:
Collaborate with the Talent Team to identify a search firm partner for national searches
Set goals, establish expectations, and monitor efforts of the partner search firm
Tap into personal networks and cultivate relationships leading to ED referrals and candidates
Create and maintain ED identification and selection practices in partnership with Regional Superintendents and local Board Chairs:
Partner with Regional Superintendents and the Talent Team to operationalize toolkits and resources for existing national expectations set by the CEO including decision rights and processes related to ED selection
Engage consistently with Regional Superintendents to gather feedback, share updates, and communicate status of each ED Fellow
Prepare explanatory materials for local Boards and regional leadership teams
Build resources and toolkits related to ED searches for local Board use
Support Regional Superintendents in material creation and professional development of local boards in ED searches
Develop selection criteria for successful completion of ED Fellowship
Drive programming for ED Residency and New ED Cohort to support the vision of KEDA:
Collaborate with Talent Team to define certification standards, performance metrics, and longitudinal tracking of ED Fellows and New ED participants.
Develop case studies, codify best practices, and gather exemplar resources for ED Residency and New ED Cohort
Collaborate with Regional Superintendent Team to scope monthly New ED virtual sessions for planning purposes
Lead process for identifying and contracting with external faculty, identifying and preparing internal faculty
Ensure a seamless participant experience through facilitator expectation setting, training, and norming
In partnership with KIPP Foundation Chiefs and Regional Superintendents, create targeted development goals, scope and sequences, and participant resources in alignment with KEDA’s vision
Drive strong operations and learning visit experiences in partnership with KIPP Foundation’s Event Design and Operations Team:
Plan learning visits and in-person cohort development aligned to KEDA goals
Partner with regional hosts and mentors to ensure a strong experience for both participants and hosts
Coordinate scheduling and operations alongside the EDO team for all virtual and in person events
Develop and manage an executive talent strategy in alignment with the vision for KEDA
Analyze ED attrition and performance data in partnership with the KIPP Foundation leadership team
Establish clear, data-driven benchmarks for ED readiness, certification, and placement
Who You'll Work With:
The Vice President of KEDA will leverage influence skills and strong stakeholder management to build trust and relationships with regional leaders through strong execution, excellent programming, responsiveness to feedback, and ability to differentiate while holding a consistently high bar.
Skills and Mindsets
Mission and Student Focus: Demonstrates passion and commitment to KIPP’s mission and possesses the desire and ability to uphold KIPP’s core values (Focus on Excellent Results, Collective Impact, and Courageous Action)
Self-Management: Demonstrated record of setting and achieving ambitious goals for their departments in complex or ambiguous environment; uses data, research, and analysis to set a high bar of excellence for goal setting; effectively distributes and redistributes work among direct reports, teammates, and teams to optimizes goal attainments; effectively sets and fosters a culture that enables and celebrates teammates’ achievements and goals attainment.
People Management & Development: Effectively ensures strong professional development and coaching for teammates directly and through layers. Proficient in the mechanics of succession management and performance management for teammates. Able to coach manager of managers and skilled at fostering a positive team culture in which teammates feel ownership and accountability for their own and the broader team’s work and results.
Collaboration: Identifies and leverages opportunities with both internal and external stakeholders (including students, parents, community partners and leaders, donors, and staff) to increase impact. Leads successful collaboration across functions and evolves plans to get strong results. Has the interpersonal, diplomatic, relationships building and communication skills to connect and compel teammates across different functions to collaborate effectively toward shared goals. Effectively builds, maintains and leverages teams and systems to move work forward.
Data Driven Actions & Decisions: Effectively uses data to shape teamwide decisions and the learning agenda or evaluation of a function or significant initiative. Able to generate, implement, and evaluate solutions with a focus on scalability and sustainability.
Process Management: Able to build and align goals and project plans with organization priorities; Develops and codifies processes that promote coordination, efficiency and efficacy across KF and the Network; Prioritizes processes that ensure sustainability and scalability; ensures team is finding efficiencies through process implementation and improve