Teach For America
Managing Director, Program Initiatives & Impact
🇺🇸 Hybrid - Detroit, MI
🕑 Full-Time
💰 $90K - $120K
💻 Project Management
🗓️ December 18th, 2025
Edtech.com's Summary
Teach For America is hiring a Managing Director, Program Initiatives & Impact. This role leads strategic initiatives to strengthen the educator pipeline, align regional and national priorities, and advance the 2030 goal. The Managing Director drives coordinated efforts across program, research, and external affairs teams to enhance the corps member experience and position TeachMichigan and TFA Detroit as statewide leaders in education.
Highlights
- Lead as Regional Point of Contact between Detroit/Michigan and national teams to ensure seamless corps member and fellow experiences.
- Develop and manage strategic partnerships with districts, credentialing bodies, and community organizations to support educator certification, retention, and student outcomes.
- Provide strategic leadership for corps member learning journey design, including pre-service onboarding, training sessions, and alumni induction.
- Oversee key programs such as the Detroit Summer Learning Institute and Ignite Fellowship, focusing on coaching quality and partner engagement.
- Drive cross-functional strategic initiatives aligned with TeachMichigan’s 2030 goal, accelerating regional impact and statewide educational excellence.
- Participate in statewide coalitions, advisory councils, and policy forums to influence educator pipeline and retention efforts.
- Contribute to enterprise-level regional team priorities including summer learning, weekend programs, and fellowship selections.
- Require a minimum of 7 years of relevant experience, including at least 3 years in management, with background in Michigan school or district leadership.
- Must possess strong collaboration skills, change management experience, and ability to manage complex projects and teams effectively.
- Salary range is $90,000 to $120,300 aligned with Tier A geographic cost-of-labor index.
Managing Director, Program Initiatives & Impact Full Description
ROLE TITLE: Managing Director, Program Initiatives & Impact
POSITION REPORTS TO: VP, Strategy & Campaign Leadership
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis through January 2026
LOCATION: The Michigan team's office is in Detroit. The role will require on-site work with educators in communities across Michigan, approximately 3-4 times per month.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
Teach For America Detroit/Michigan (TFA Det/MI) seeks an exceptional leader to drive strategic initiatives that strengthen our educator pipeline, align regional and national priorities, and advance our 2030 goal. You will play a pivotal role in shaping and sustaining the learning journey of educators in our network, particularly our corps members, from their earliest preparation to their lasting impact in classrooms and communities across the state.
As a key architect and bridge between the regional and national teams, you will bring coherence and strategy to the corps member experience, ensuring every training, coaching interaction, and partnership reflects a unified vision of excellent teaching and leadership. You will lead cross-functional efforts that integrate program, research, and external affairs priorities, translating big-picture goals into coordinated plans that improve outcomes for both educators and students.
This role is designed for a strategic and agile leader who thrives at the intersection of systems and execution, someone who can foster alignment across complex teams, transform insights into innovation, and anticipate what the work requires next. By weaving together national resources, regional priorities, and school-level realities, you will ensure that every educator in Michigan experiences a seamless, high-quality continuum of development while positioning TeachMichigan and TFA Detroit as statewide thought leaders driving educational excellence.
WHAT YOU'LL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR
Strategic Partnerships & Cross-Team Integration (40%)
Hold responsibilities for Regional Point of Contact (RPOC) and senior liaison between Detroit/Michigan and national teams (CMALD, Admissions, Selection, Matriculation, Partnerships), ensuring strategic alignment and a seamless corps member and fellow experience from recruitment through alumni hood.
- Drive the implementation of the vision and strategy for district and national partnerships that drive placement quality, educator retention, and student outcomes.
- Build and manage high-impact partnerships with M-ARC, credentialing bodies, and district leaders to ensure all corps members are certified, prepared, and positioned for success.
- Oversee and strengthen the Ignite Fellowship through continuous improvement, evaluation, and partner engagement.
- Support strategic relationship management with districts and community organizations to integrate and scale initiatives such as Ignite tutoring and corps programming.
- Guide systems for partnership tracking, learning, and accountability that enable corps members, fellows, and districts to achieve measurable results.
Corps Member Development & Learning Experience Design (30%)
Provide strategic leadership for the design and execution of the corps member learning journey from pre-service through alumni induction, ensuring coherence across regional and national models.
- Provide strategic leadership and support for the vision, design, and delivery of the Detroit Summer Learning Institute, ensuring excellence in logistics, coaching quality, and partner engagement.
- Ensure corps member development experiences, including pre-service onboarding, practicum training, in-year summits, and content learning, are high-impact and outcomes-driven.
- Partner with corps member coaches and national teams to strengthen instructional growth, leadership development, and long-term educator success.
- Oversee alumni induction experiences that reinforce continued leadership and connection within the TeachMichigan network.
Strategic Initiatives (20%)
Advance TeachMichigan and TFA Detroit's 2030 goal and long-term sustainability by leading strategic initiatives that strengthen our program model, partnerships, and statewide influence.
- Lead cross-functional initiatives that align program, research, external affairs, and leadership team priorities to accelerate regional impact.
- Support the leadership team in shaping and executing against the 2030 goal, topline goals, and strategic direction, including our talent agenda, growth and partnership strategy, and innovation priorities.
- Represent the region in statewide coalitions, advisory councils, and policy forums that advance educator pipeline, preparation, and retention efforts.
- Identify emerging opportunities and partnerships that position TeachMichigan and TFA Detroit as a statewide thought leader and catalyst for educational excellence.
Regional Team Priorities (10%)
Contribute to enterprise-level priorities throughout the year. Our team takes an "all hands on deck" approach to these events, requiring each team member to contribute their capacity and time. These enterprise-level priorities include:
- Detroit Summer Learning Institute (June and July)
- EmpowerEd Weekends (2x per year, October and April)
- Fellow Selection (throughout the Spring)
- Corps Member & Ignite Fellow selection (throughout the Fall and Spring)
YOUR EXPERIENCE
Your areas of knowledge and expertise that matter most for this role (minimum qualifications):
- Minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience, including at least 3 years in management
- A collaborative style and robust experience in lateral collaboration
- Experience in school or district leadership in Michigan, resulting in a deep understanding of how schools operate and how school leaders make decisions
- Track record of successful management experience of others to grow in their craft
- Ability to manage others to effectively track tasks, assess progress, and follow through on the execution of plans through exemplary systems for managing across a team
- Independent self-starter with a high degree of personal responsibility and capacity for self-managing to build structure and drive results around ambiguous workstreams
- Experience in change management and in leading from ambiguity to clarity
- Superb interpersonal skills and a strong "EQ," with a proven ability to engage, motivate, and inspire others to action through verbal and written communication
- Experience in program design and execution
- Understanding of the arc of learning for novice teachers
- Ability to thrive in change, operate with optimism in hard times, and bring joy to hard work
- Strong organization systems with an ability to track multiple moving pieces and ensure deliverables are met promptly.
- Exceptional attention to detail with an ability to produce high-quality materials for external and educator audiences.
- Ability to hold, lead, and contribute to multiple projects at once, and the ability to flex across altitudes, from individual coaching to system-level challenges.
- Expertise in best practices for school leaders; can translate expertise into coaching and/or professional development sessions
BONUS (preferred qualifications)
- Ability to gather data (qualitative and quantitative) to inform perspective; deep desire and commitment to gain context on the environment and experiences of fellows
- Entrepreneurial mindset, willing to build, test, and iterate the design of products and spaces, and solve problems with creative solutions
- Proactively solicits feedback and implements coaching into their work products and ways of operating
- Would be described as a servant leader, who can lead by decentering self and investing in the growth and learning of others
YOUR FUTURE TEAM
Teach For America Detroit/Michigan (TFA Det/MI) is pursuing a bold goal: by 2030, twice as many economically disadvantaged children in Michigan will reach key educational milestones that set them on a path toward economic mobility and a future filled with possibility. Achieving this vision requires recruiting and retaining high-impact educators across the state, developing them into exceptional teachers and system-level leaders who deliver meaningful results for their students and communities, and connecting them with coalitions of leaders advancing the policies and practices that drive greater equity and educational excellence.
The State of Michigan invested $35 million to scale this work, now called TeachMichigan, affirming the promise of innovative talent strategies and expanding fellowships in partnership with districts across seven diverse regions of the state. Since then, our community has grown to more than 500 educators reaching over 120,000 students. We are evaluating and sharing results that inform statewide strategies for educator recruitment, development, and retention. Today, TeachMichigan represents more than a program. It is a statewide movement committed to transforming education and carrying forward TFA Detroit's promise of One Day across Michigan.
YOUR COMPENSATION
The applicable salary range for each U.S.-based role is based on where the employee works and is aligned to one of 3 tiers according to a cost-of-labor index in that geographic area. Starting pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include education, training, experience, location, business needs, or market demands. New hires are typically brought into the organization at a salary between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint, depending on qualifications, internal equity, and the budgeted amount for the role. The expected salary ranges for this role are set forth below. These ranges may be modified in the future.
Salary Tier A: $90,000 - $120,300
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