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Executive Director, EaR Strategy & Alignment, Public Affairs

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College Board – Engagement and Reach (EaR)

Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid. All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes.

Role Type: This is a full-time position

About the Team

The Engagement and Reach (EaR) division advances College Board’s mission by shaping how our work is understood, experienced, and acted on—helping protect the organization’s reputation while accelerating engagement and growth. We are a high-performing, collaborative team of communicators, marketers, creatives, and strategists who work together to deliver clear, compelling stories and turn them into creative, data-informed work that drives engagement, adoption, and real results. We partner closely with leaders across the organization to shape strategy, influence decisions, and amplify the impact of College Board’s highest-priority enterprises in service of our mission.

About the Opportunity

As the Executive Director, EaR Strategy and Alignment, Public Affairs, you are a policy communications strategist who knows how to build a campaign around an idea, not just a product. You bring deep experience marshaling media, evidence, and stakeholders to advance a specific policy or legislative agenda, and you're comfortable doing that work in complex, high-visibility, and often politically charged environments. You serve as the primary EaR integrator for policy, research, and stakeholder initiatives, embedded across Global Policy and External Relations (GPER), Learning and Assessment (L&A), Higher Education, Membership, and Access (HMA), and other College Board teams with policy or external affairs priorities. You bring the range to move between these groups and spot connections they may not see in each other's work.

In this role, you lead EaR’s involvement across Public Affairs end to end, owning strategy development, intelligence-informed counsel, and measurable results without direct financial ownership. You work closely with divisional leadership to translate legislative agendas, research roadmaps, regulatory developments, and stakeholder priorities into integrated communications campaigns, align messaging, media strategy, sequencing, and risk management, and drive EaR-led execution through disciplined cross-functional coordination. You also coordinate closely with other Strategy and Alignment Partners supporting AP, the SAT Suite, and BigFuture to ensure seamless EaR support for their policy priorities.

In this role, you will:

Serve as the Single-Threaded EaR Leader for Public Affairs

  • Own coordinated strategy and measurable outcomes across Public Affairs disciplines, while discipline leaders retain execution ownership within their respective domains

  • Act as the primary day-to-day EaR contact for GPER, L&A, HMA, and other policy-adjacent teams

  • Operate as a senior embedded partner within divisional leadership teams

  • Provide strategic counsel on communications approach, sequencing, and risk

  • Escalate conflicts or alignment gaps as needed and ensure timely resolution

Lead Integrated Policy and Research Communications Strategy

  • Translate legislative agendas, regulatory developments, research roadmaps, and stakeholder priorities into coordinated communications campaigns

  • Develop structured campaign plans that align messaging, media strategy, executive positioning, stakeholder sequencing, and risk mitigation

  • Identify opportunities to proactively shape policy and research narratives in priority markets and moments

  • Align communications strategy in support of priority partnerships, endorsements, and sponsorships that advance policy, research, or stakeholder objectives

  • Ensure communications strategies evolve as policy, regulatory, research, or partnership dynamics shift

  • Lead special initiatives ranging from program launches to enterprise pilots

Orchestrate the EaR Studio Model

  • Define business needs and align them to a flexible bench of EaR domain experts functioning as a Studio, including media relations, messaging and editorial, insights and intelligence, digital amplification, creative, and copyediting resources

  • Ensure the right expertise is engaged at the right time based on program priorities

  • Ensure efficient internal communications and knowledge sharing within and across Studios

  • Maintain momentum as policy, research, or stakeholder priorities evolve and ensure changes are reflected across EaR workstreams

Leverage Intelligence and Foresight to Strengthen Impact

  • Integrate policy landscape analysis, media intelligence, stakeholder insights, and narrative tracking into campaign planning

  • Anticipate emerging risks or moments of heightened scrutiny and coordinate proactive or rapid-response strategies

  • Provide divisional leaders with clear insight into external dynamics and communications implications

Drive Execution, Measurement, and Reporting

  • Provide high-level project management across initiatives to keep work on pace

  • Establish clear goals, metrics, and reporting tied to business and EaR outcomes

  • Own impact reporting; Monitor performance and recommend adjustments to improve results

  • Develop and implement effective processes, tools, and systems to support efficient, consistent, and high-impact execution for all priority initiatives and projects.

  • Communicate progress, risks, and outcomes to divisional and EaR leadership

What Success Looks Like

By the end of the first 12 months, a successful Executive Director, EaR Strategy and Alignment Partner will have:

  • Established themselves as a trusted, credible embedded partner to GPER, L&A, HMA, and other policy-adjacent teams, with a consistent presence at leadership tables and strong executive-level relationships.

  • Led the development and execution of an integrated annual EaR plan aligned to policy agendas, research release calendars, stakeholder priorities, and defined business outcomes.

  • Implemented a clear Public Affairs operating rhythm within EaR, including structured campaign planning, intelligence sharing, and sequencing discipline, ensuring the right expertise is engaged at the right time despite evolving policy or research dynamics.

  • Demonstrated fluency in the full capabilities of the EaR division, enabling them to efficiently assemble and organize Studio teams to support priority policy, research, and stakeholder initiatives.

  • Reduced time-to-impact for priority initiatives by clarifying ownership, sequencing work, and proactively surfacing risks and dependencies.

  • Delivered measurable progress toward priority policy, research, or stakeholder milestones supported by coordinated communications strategy, while meeting agreed EaR performance standards for narrative alignment and execution quality.

  • Established clear goals, baselines, and reporting frameworks for Public Affairs communications performance, with regular communication of results, insights, and recommended optimizations to divisional and EaR leadership.

About You

To qualify for this role, you must have:

  • 10+ years of experience in public affairs, policy communications, or strategic communications, including significant experience within complex, high-visibility, politically sensitive environments

  • Experience supporting state or federal legislative or regulatory initiatives through communications strategy

  • Strong communications strategy background, including experience designing and executing integrated campaigns that marshal media, messaging, and stakeholder sequencing across policy and research initiatives

  • Proven ability to lead cross-program or cross-organizational strategy in complex, matrixed settings, building trust and influence without direct authority and working through ambiguity Exceptional writing skills, with demonstrated ability to translate complex policy or research content into clear, compelling narratives

  • Experience collaborating with research or subject matter experts to align publication releases with strategic messaging and media engagement

  • Proven ability to assess external landscapes, anticipate risks and opportunities, and recommend effective engagement strategies

  • Strong rapid response and crisis communications experience in politically or publicly sensitive environments

  • A goal- and metric-oriented mindset with experience using data and insights to guide strategy and measure impact

  • Executive presence, including the ability to represent EaR credibly with senior program leaders, navigate complex conversations, influence decision-making, and communicate clearly and confidently

  • Ability to manage multiple initiatives, priorities, and stakeholders simultaneously

  • Ability to travel 4 to 7 times per year to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business

All roles at College Board require:

  • Authorization to work in the United States for any employer

  • A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work

  • Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and a comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.

  • Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

  • A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.

  • A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.

  • A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success.

About Our Process

  • Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

  • 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.

What We Offer

At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck—we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

  • The hiring range for this role is $152,000 – $230,000.

  • Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.

  • We aim to make our best offer upfront—rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.

  • We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.

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