Executive Director, AP Credit and Placement 

Executive Director, AP Credit and Placement 

College Board – AP&I 

Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office) 

Type: This is a full-time position 

About the team 

The College Board’s Advanced Placement and Instruction (AP&I) division develops and administers coursework taken by almost 4 million students worldwide each school year, and the related subject-matter exams utilized by thousands of colleges and universities for course placement and awarding of college credit. The AP Product Strategy department in the AP&I division identifies and evaluates new program opportunities, including ways to expand upon AP’s value proposition, and secures AP’s value to students and families.  

The AP Credit and Placement team, an expanding, nine-person unit which sits within the AP Product Strategy department, achieves ambitious goals for credit availability across all AP courses, both established and recently launched courses, as well as contributing to the development of and laying a foundation for credit availability for courses that have yet to launch. The team is committed to expanding opportunities for students, and is equally committed to assuring that colleges and universities find value in providing students with advanced placement and credit for their AP scores.   

The AP Credit and Placement team is dedicated to expanding AP’s reach by developing and implementing strategies that secure AP credit policies, helping students earn college credit and placement. The team builds scalable models that enhance faculty understanding of AP course and exam content and student outcomes. Our team is dedicated to forward-thinking policy development and to ensuring that AP continues to be valued by and provide value to higher education leaders for its role in preparing and accelerating students. 

About the Opportunity 

As the Executive Director, AP Credit and Placement, you will be responsible for leading the team to surpass our goals and consistently secure and expand the landscape of credit availability. You’ll focus on rapidly securing credit for new and recently launched AP courses and exams while assuring continued acceptance of all AP subjects for credit by colleges and universities.  

You are motivated by the impact that credit has on propelling students to college and to degrees, particularly students currently underrepresented in college. You are equally committed to assuring that colleges and universities find value in providing students with advanced placement and credit for their AP scores, partnering with a range of campus leaders to connect AP credit acceptance to their goals for student retention and success.  

You have a campaigner’s mindset and toolkit, and are motivated by demanding, measurable goals. You enjoy crafting new strategies while improving upon proven approaches. You like to understand the return to your investments and seek ways to bring highly effective efforts to scale.  

In this role, you will: 

Strategy, Analysis, and Prototyping (35%) 

• Use data to set goals, prioritize opportunities, evaluate strategies, and determine what’s working and what’s not 

• Communicate with colleagues using data and evidence about the progress to—and barriers to—goals  

• Identify data-backed opportunities to start and to stop doing work and to reassign the resources of the team to the highest-promise initiatives 

• Scale high-impact, high-efficiency initiatives while ruthlessly retiring lower-impact, low-return activities 

• Partner with other teams across College Board to introduce, gain support for, test, and refine ideas for driving new approaches to awarding AP credit by colleges and universities in order to deliver value to AP students 

Team Strategic Alignment (35%) 

• Lead and inspire a high-performing team of 8-10 staff to achieve the team’s ambitious credit and placement goals, fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusion, growth and excellence  

• Align the team roles and responsibilities to achieve team goals and manage individuals toward their goals 

• Ensure effective communication across all levels, promote transparency, and drive alignment of team’s capacity to organizational and divisional priorities 

• Manage time-sensitive requests of the team from internal stakeholders 

• Provide coaching and support to staff in the development and delivery of presentations to ensure they deliver results 

• Identify emerging staff professional development needs and align individual and team supports accordingly  

• Partner with VP to drive overall departmental staff engagement alongside peers leading teams in the AP Product Strategy department 

Development and Execution (15%) 

• Collaborate with colleagues across the organization to design, execute and revise activities that lead to higher ed acceptance and to colleges’ and universities’ credit commitments 

• Employ data to measure and highlight gaps in policies and their impact on students, and to otherwise shape our core messages about the impact of credit policies 

• Design and manage high-impact advisory councils to help steer our credit policy work and provide meaningful guidance on critical areas of opportunity and risk 

• Develop and execute strategies for expanding AP credit in 2-year colleges, requiring you to understand variation in strategy required for influencing 2-year institutions (including message, decision-makers, and aligned incentives)  

• Broker new credit and placement models for AP courses taught within the career and technical education space  

• Secure new and strengthen existing statewide and systemwide credit policies to maximize value to students and families 

Broadscale Outreach and Constituent Engagement (15%) 

• Exponentially expand faculty awareness of course and exam content standards and of student outcomes  

• Build and own strong relationships with select key university partners and other influential stakeholders  

• As needed, represent the team at external convenings and events 

• Support external facing teams with knowledge of credit availability and need as well as the best tested messages 

About You 

You have: 

• 10+ years of experience in higher education leadership or educational nonprofit leadership or college access leadership, with at least 5 years in a role managing cross-functional teams and providing strategic leadership 

• Critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, enabling you to navigate challenges and propose solutions that balance competing priorities 

• A strong strategic mindset, able to connect the dots between different areas of work  

• Outstanding communication skills, capable of conveying complex ideas to a range of audiences, from senior leadership to project teams to external stakeholders 

• Strong relationships and a track-record of effective outreach to and engagement with campus decision-makers  

• A passion for innovation, always seeking out new opportunities to achieve your goals and broaden your impact 

• Effective storytelling in service of compelling others to action 

• An eye for detail and quality, ensuring that all communications meet the required standards for college credit and placement decision-makers 

• Ability to assess talent, align resources with priorities, set clear objectives, and ensure goals drive actions across the team 

• The ability to travel 6-8 times a year to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business 

• Authorization to work in the United States 

About Our Process   

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled   

• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.    

About Our Benefits and Compensation 

College Board offers a competitive benefits and compensation program that attracts top talent looking to make a difference in education. As a self-sustaining non-profit, we believe in compensating employees equitably in relation to each other, their qualifications, their impact, and the relevant market.  

The hiring range for a new employee in this position is $152,000-$210,000. College Board differentiates salaries by location so where you live will narrow the portion of this range in which you can expect a salary.  

Your salary will be carefully determined based on your location, relevant experience, the external labor market, and the pay of College Board employees in similar roles. College Board strives to provide our best offer up front based on this criteria.  

Your salary is only one part of all that College Board offers, including but not limited to:    

• A comprehensive package designed to support the well-being of employees and their families and promote education. Our robust benefits package includes health, dental, and vision insurance, generous paid time off, paid parental leave, fertility benefits, pet insurance, tuition assistance, retirement benefits, and more 

• Recognition of exceptional performance through annual bonuses, salary growth over time through market increases, and opportunities for merit raises and promotions based on increased scope of responsibility 

• A job that matters, a team that cares, and a place to learn, innovate and thrive 

You can expect to have transparent conversations about benefits and compensation with our recruiters throughout your application process. 

About Our Culture  

Our community matters, and we strive to practice and improve our culture daily. Here are some headlines:  

• We are motivated to positively impact the educational and career trajectories of millions of students a year  

• We prioritize building a diverse and inclusive team where every employee can thrive, and every voice is heard 

• We are a dynamic hybrid team, giving staff members the choice to either be fully remote or hybrid if they live close to a College Board office. Hybrid employees go into offices every Tuesday and Wednesday 

• We offer a transparent approach to promotions and merit raises, annual performance-based bonuses, and how to grow your career here over time 

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