Vice President of People & Equity

Vice President of People & Equity

About Us

Our nation’s education system is leaving millions of students—including an overwhelming number of students of color and low-income students—unprepared for college, career, and life. Research shows that classroom teachers are the single most important in-school factor in improving student achievement, and we believe a truly thriving teaching profession requires educator voice and leadership. We work to build durable teacher power, especially with those who have been historically excluded from decision-making, to shape the systems and policies that define education. 

Founded by public school teachers, Educators for Excellence is a growing movement of nearly 40,000 educators working together to build a high-quality, diverse teaching profession with the resources and conditions necessary to help every student thrive. Together, we research and develop educator-informed solutions, build teacher power, and advocate for policy change at the district, state, and national levels.

What We Do

Our work is grounded in the belief that the teaching profession is one of the most vital forces shaping our shared future - and that educators must be at the center of shaping the policies and systems that define public education. We focus on developing teacher leadership and power to drive issue advocacy campaigns that shape policy, contracts, and the national conversation. 

To achieve our vision for transforming the teaching profession, we advance and support the implementation of a focused set of policy solutions backed by research and educators. Our agenda focuses on achieving a high-quality, diverse workforce through:

• Building strong and sustainable career pathways.
• Creating coherent systems of instructional support.
• Funding public schools fully and equitably.

By building durable teacher power, teachers unite as a collective force to drive lasting change and advance an equitable, sustainable public education system where every student has the opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed.

The Opportunity

E4E is entering an exciting new chapter. As we launch our next multi-year strategic plan, we are making deliberate investments in the internal conditions that will allow our staff to thrive, our organization to evolve, and our impact to scale. As part of this evolution, E4E is creating a dedicated Vice President of People & Equity (VPPE)— a leadership role focused on building the people, leadership, culture, organizational capabilities, and talent infrastructure required to bring our strategy to life.

The VPPE will serve as E4E's senior leader for the full life cycle of our people: how we recruit, develop, retain, and deploy a diverse and high-performing team; how we build the leadership capacity and organizational capabilities required to achieve our goals; how we create structures, systems, and ways of working that enable people to do their best work; and how we foster a culture grounded in our values and commitment to equity. The VPPE will help the organization continually answer a fundamental question: What organization do we need to become to successfully execute our strategy, and what will it take to get there?

This is not a traditional HR or compliance role. It is a strategic organizational leadership role for a senior leader who understands that people and organizational effectiveness are central to mission impact. The VPPE will partner with the President, COPO, and Executive Team to translate strategy into the talent, leadership, organizational design, culture, and systems required for execution; diagnose and address complex organizational challenges; build the capabilities needed for the future; and lead the organization through significant change with both clarity and care.

Reporting to the COPO and working closely with the Executive Office (composed of the CEO, President, and Chief of Staff), the VPPE will be a trusted enterprise leader and thought partner to the President and Executive Team. The VPPE will lead E4E's People & Equity team and serve as the Leadership Sponsor of E4E's Diversity Council, ensuring that our commitments to anti-racism and equity are embedded and lived in our strategy, leadership, culture, talent systems, and organizational practices—not simply stated as values.

The VPPE will also play a critical role in strengthening E4E's leadership system: building manager and executive effectiveness, establishing clear expectations for leadership and performance, strengthening accountability, developing succession and talent pipelines, and ensuring that leaders have the skills and support required to navigate complexity, difference, and organizational change. The VPPE will bring both the willingness to make difficult talent decisions and the commitment to treating people with dignity, fairness, and care.

With chapters in New York, Connecticut, Chicago, California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota, and a remote national team, this role requires a leader who can build culture across geography, difference, and distance. The ideal candidate brings the warmth and relational skill to build trust with staff at every level, the organizational savvy to navigate complexity, and the strategic and analytical acumen to make systems-level change. They will be equally comfortable building strong people infrastructure, advising senior leaders, diagnosing organizational challenges, making hard choices, and leading transformation.

Responsibilities - In this role, you will:

Although no two days are the same, a great VP of People & Equity can expect to spend their time across the following areas:

Strategic People & Equity Leadership

• Serve as E4E's leader to design and lead our people strategy, partnering closely with the COPO and Executive Team to ensure people infrastructure is aligned to organizational goals and values.
• Shape and own E4E's multi-year People & Equity strategy, translating organizational priorities into concrete plans and systems for talent, culture, DEI, and organizational health.
• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor and confidential thought partner to the Executive Team on matters of DEI, talent, leadership, organizational design, and staff experience.
• Champion E4E's Commitment to Anti-Racism as a living, strategic priority, ensuring it is reflected in tangible practices in hiring, compensation, evaluation, promotion, retention, and every aspect of the employee experience.
• Act as the lead of E4E's Diversity Council, providing leadership and accountability for our DEI commitments at the organizational level.
• Partner with chapter Executives and Leadership teams to build strong, equity-centered teams across geographies and to ensure consistent culture and talent practices.

Talent Acquisition & Workforce Planning

• Lead E4E's talent acquisition strategy to ensure we attract, hire, and retain diverse, values- and mission-aligned talent at every level of the organization.
• Oversee the design and continuous improvement of E4E's recruiting infrastructure, hiring processes, and candidate experience, ensuring an equitable, values-aligned experience for every candidate.
• Embed anti-racist hiring practices across all roles, including structured interviews, diverse candidate slates, and equitable compensation offers.
• Partner with team leaders on workforce planning, headcount decisions, and hiring timelines to ensure we are building toward long-term organizational goals by providing clarity in our people policies, practices, culture, and personnel decision-making.

Learning, Development & Manager Effectiveness

• Design and lead E4E's learning and development strategy, establishing clear expectations for effectiveness in all roles and creating clear pathways for growth, advancement, and/or identification of terminal positions across the organization.
• Build and sustain robust manager development programming, ensuring that managers at every level have the skills, tools, and coaching they need to lead equitably and effectively across lines of difference - ensuring a consistent management experience regardless of management lines
• Oversee onboarding to ensure new staff feel deeply welcomed, connected to mission, have clarity in culture and values, and are set up to succeed from day one.
• Lead succession planning and leadership pipeline development to build organizational bench strength and ensure E4E's long-term personnel sustainability.
• Establish and track clear competency frameworks and performance systems that support staff growth, accountability, and equity in evaluation.

Culture, Engagement & Organizational Health

• Shape and sustain E4E's organizational culture, a culture of excellence, joy, and mutuality, grounded in service to educators, students, and each other through a shared vision, people strategy, and practices
• Continually assess staff health and engagement through direct relationships across staff, managers, and leaders, and survey data, helping shape and inform strategies that support organizational thriving.
• Build strong cross-functional collaboration across chapters and national teams, ensuring staff at every level feel connected to E4E's mission, values, and culture and to one another.
• Model an organizational culture where difficult conversations (e.g., race, equity,  difference, compensation, etc.) are navigated with care, clarity, and a commitment to organizational well-being.

People Operations & HR Infrastructure

• Oversee all people operations functions, including compensation and benefits administration, performance management, HR compliance, and employee relations.
• Ensure E4E's people policies and practices are equitable, legally sound, consistent across the organization, aligned with our values, and kept up to date to stay aligned with industry best practices.
• Partner with the COPO on compensation strategy and philosophy in partnership with Finance and the Executive Team, ensuring our compensation practices are rooted in values, transparent, equitable, and competitive.
• Build and oversee people systems and infrastructure (including HRIS and related tools) that support accurate data, efficient, clear, and predictable processes, so that it can operationalize the organization’s people management values and facilitate strong management relationships and conversations.
• Manage and develop the People & Equity team, setting a clear vision for the department and priorities, building team members' capacity, and ensuring the team models people care to staff and managers across the organization.

Organizational Leadership

• Serve as a full member of E4E's leadership team, contributing to organizational strategy, decision-making,  stewarding the organizational resources, and positioning the organization for long-term well-being across all dimensions of the organization, not just people functions.
• Lead change management for organizational transitions, ensuring staff are brought along thoughtfully, communication is clear, and change is managed with care.
• Diagnose the mindsets, knowledge, and skill needs of the leadership team as it relates to leading a multicultural organization, and make recommendations that support ongoing executive development.
• Build the conditions, through trust, transparency, and strong culture, that allow staff to do their best work and stay connected to E4E's mission through every phase of organizational growth.

Qualifications & Requirements:

Experience:

• Deep, demonstrated commitment to E4E's mission and to building anti-racist, equitable organizations.
• Either or more years of senior experience in HR, people strategy, and/or talent leadership, with a strong track record of impact across multiple people functions.
• Proven experience setting DEI strategy and driving meaningful practices and outcomes — not just programs, but measurable shifts in hiring, retention, compensation, and culture.
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams in fast-paced, mission-driven environments, including experience managing across lines of difference.
• Track record of serving as a trusted advisor to senior executives, including the ability to raise difficult issues with care, candor, and appropriate confidentiality.
• Experience building and improving people infrastructure in a growing or scaling organization — including systems, processes, and team capacity.
• Proven ability to lead across geography and to build culture in distributed, multi-site organizations.
• Strong change management experience, including the ability to bring staff and leadership along through organizational transitions.

Technical Skills: 

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree (MBA, MPA, or equivalent) preferred.
• Experience with HRIS systems and people data; comfort using data to drive design, strategy and measure impact.
• Strong working knowledge of HR compliance, employment law, and compensation best practices.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex people and equity issues clearly to diverse audiences.

Core Values

• Dynamic Leadership: You think strategically and set a bold vision for our programming work.
• Achieve Ambitious Goals: You envision beyond the status quo.
• Adjust Course: You pivot effectively in a dynamic landscape.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: You leverage our differences as strengths and look for opportunities to redistribute power in response to inequity.
• Communication: You listen actively and respond appropriately.
• Solutions Orientation: You have a deep belief in our mission and take part in finding solutions for the problems we identify.

Positional Skills

• Cultivating Relationships & Collaborating: Excellent relationship-building skills with an ability to communicate and work effectively with a variety of internal and external stakeholders; a persuasive negotiator able to utilize relationships to mobilize others to action. 
• Allocating and Managing Resources: A practical ability to get things done; the ability to set clear priorities, delegate, and guide investment in people and systems.
• Organizational Leadership: Wisdom and good judgment; organizational savvy; keen analytic, organizational, and problem-solving skills to enable sound decision-making.
• Leading Change: The intellectual flexibility and managerial courage to shift direction and bring others along.
• Ensuring Diverse and Equitable Environments: Strong commitment to establishing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment and to developing and retaining talent.

Benefits & Applying

Educators for Excellence (E4E) believes in providing employees with benefits to support self-care, wellness, and financial stability. We value the whole person and provide benefits such as paid time off, health insurance plans, competitive salaries that include pre-tax benefits, and cell phone reimbursements. See more information about our benefits here.

E4E is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by state or federal law or local ordinance. E4E has a zero tolerance for discrimination, racism, xenophobia, or misogyny in any form in our workplace. We strive to create a workplace where everyone feels a strong sense of belonging.

Compensation Policy 

Educators for Excellence (E4E) is committed to valuing team members holistically. We do not engage in salary negotiations; our first offer is always our best offer.

Salary bands (based on geographic location):

• $155,000 - $215,000 | High Urban (NYC, San Francisco)
• $140,000 - $195,000 | Mid-High Urban (LA, Boston)
• $135,000 - $185,000 | All other locations

Within this range, our competitive, non-negotiable salary offer will be based on a candidate’s relevant experience and credentials, role-related competencies assessed through our robust hiring process, and geographic location. 

COVID-19 Vaccination Policy: All new employees are required to comply with E4E’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy, which requires all staff to be fully vaccinated before the start of employment. An employee will be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the requisite number of doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Employees may request an exemption as a reasonable accommodation due to a medical reason or a sincerely held religious belief.

E4E abides by each state’s requirements and acknowledges that they may change over time. If you advance to an interview, you will have the opportunity to ask questions about this job requirement.

Accommodations: We are committed to creating an inclusive and accessible interview experience and will ensure that all candidates are provided with reasonable accommodations that allow them to participate in the interview process. To request an accommodation, please email peopleandequity@e4e.org

EEOC questionnaire: We place a particular focus on recruiting staff members who share the backgrounds of the communities we serve. We encourage all applicants to complete our EEOC questionnaire as part of your application process (these questions will be included in your initial application). Completing the questionnaire will help ensure our People & Equity team is attracting a diverse pool of qualified candidates for each of our open positions. Please note that this information is not included with your application, and our hiring managers do not have access to race and other identifying information at any point in the interviewing or hiring process, including after a hire is made.

E4E uses E-Verify when completing all new hire paperwork. For more information, visit here.