JOB SUMMARY
Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis (BGCGM) is the midst of an unprecedented organizational transformation requiring a strategically oriented leader to serve as the Director of Career Development at the Juice Plus+ Technical Training Center, leading a body of work that’s focus is to deliver an optimal Club experience and prepare members for 21st Century careers. The Optimal Club Experience encompasses the five key elements of positive youth development, high yield experiences and targeted programs that assist organizations in accomplishing BGC’s three priority outcome's areas of academic achievement, good character and citizenship, and healthy lifestyles. The Optimal Club Experience connects youth to the Club, ensure that members participate frequently and stay engaged to develop 21st Century Skills and demonstrate good character.
Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, the ideal Director of Career Development, will have experience in adult learning and education, positive youth development with five or more years of progressively responsible leadership experience. Physically located in Memphis, TN, the new Director of Career Development, must be a culture leader, establishing a creative and relentless focus on impact that balances big-picture ideas, with a rootedness in the realities of how to lead scale program activation across the more than 7 Clubs that define the BGCM model of impact.
The Ideal Candidate
Successful leadership will require a savvy relationship builder. The Director of Career Development will work in collaboration with Club leaders, BGCM colleagues, corporate partners, higher education, and other non-profit leaders. The Director of Career Development, must be a continuous learner who is a proven leader in youth development, vocational training, and organizational development; action-oriented; understands the needs and demographics of under-served communities; and how BGCM can expand its impact to remain relevant in the lives of “digital natives,” who increasingly live through social media. The most desired candidate will bring expertise that assists BGCM to develop new capability in the area of learning and instructional design, distance learning strategies, agile program implementation, and the cultivation of 21st-century leadership skills for adults and youth. The model Director of Career Development will thrive in an extraordinarily fast-paced work environment that features constant change, emerging priorities, and a need to be field responsive to multiple strategic partners and clients.
Learning Strategies
Design Knowledge of adult development and positive youth development with an ability to design learning strategies and programs to enhance knowledge, skills, and abilities in the areas of youth development, leadership development, management, and organizational effectiveness is essential. The incumbent leader must be a continuous learner with a powerful ability to translate research insights into effective program design and learning experiences for Clubs, youth development professionals, and member youth. A strong ability to accelerate learning innovation through blended learning experiences that combine face-to-face and digital learning experiences is highly desired, with an understanding of evidenced based program design mandatory.
Project Management
An ability to plan, coordinate, implement and finalize high profile programs involving cross functional partners and high profile funders, according to the project’s objectives, and schedule, while overseeing quality control throughout the entire project is fundamental to job role success. This will require an ability to marshal necessary resources, manage team and third-party contractors and/or consultants, while assessing and minimizing project risks.
Leading Complex Teams
Ability to recruit, build, manage and develop teams with significant experience coaching subordinates, developing performance management plans, and working in cross-functional teams, with a premium placed on those leaders that have experience collaborating with resource development, and grant writing teams, to insure a continuing sources of new and legacy revenue streams.
Communication Abilities
A polished ability to present information to corporate partners, community-based organizations, diverse youth, and other audiences is essential, as well as impeccable writing abilities, capable of producing concept notes, literature reviews, data interpretation, and strategy summaries to guide fundraising, reporting, and thought leadership with internal and external audiences.
Strategic Diversity Leadership
A sophisticated ability to leverage the nuance of race, ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ, economic, and other aspects of diversity, in developing culturally relevant training and youth programs, contributing to the organization’s general diversity strategy, and other areas critical to leading in a minority serving organization like BGCM. Specific expertise expanding minority and gender participation in STEM, the academic achievement and social development of youth of color, Latino/a youth, and advancing women and minorities into leadership positions, are specifically sought after qualities.
