Senior Associate Partner, Policy

Use your ability to develop innovative solutions to seemingly intractable problems and your policy expertise, project leadership, and people management skills to ensure young people achieve outcomes that lead to fulfilling lives and flourishing communities.

Senior Associate Partners at Bellwether bring a nuanced understanding of relevant issues in education, a keen strategic lens, strong analytical and writing capabilities, a strong network in the field of education, a sense of curiosity coupled with an ability to engage across lines of difference, and an entrepreneurial spirit. Content expertise paired with entrepreneurialism is particularly important given that Senior Associate Partners contribute to business development and the financial sustainability of the organization as well as the day-to-day management of Policy projects and teams. Senior Associate Partners are members of Bellwether’s leadership team and support Bellwether’s growth and functioning — both internally and externally. Given the national scope of Bellwether’s work and the organization’s flexible working style, professionals are able to work where they have built their lives. Approximately 20%-30% travel may be required.

Senior Associate Partners are education policy generalists who are called upon to manage projects covering a diversity of education topics. For this Senior Associate Partner role, we are specifically seeking individuals with a background in postsecondary finance and pathways policy, particularly at the state level. These content areas include, but are not limited to, policies governing the funding for public two- and four-year institutions of higher education. This role will work closely with Bellwether team members focused on postsecondary and pathways policy issues to lead and manage existing work primarily within these topic areas, with the remaining portion of the role focused on sourcing new opportunities to further our work and partnerships in this space and other core responsibilities of a Senior Associate Partner.

About This Position

Bellwether’s Policy and Evaluation team undertakes both field-facing work, such as published reports and resources, and client engagements, in which we work with education organizations to help them answer their most pressing questions. The Senior Associate Partner may lead project teams to serve clients and the field, manage projects in collaboration with a project lead or adviser, provide direction to project analysts, serve as a team leader (often leading the development and managing the performance of individual team members as well as owning specific team initiatives on an ad hoc basis), contribute to business development (see below), and (specific to this SAP role) provide leadership and management of work focused on postsecondary finance and pathways issues.

In this context, the Senior Associate Partner’s primary responsibilities and duties will be to:

• Serve as project lead and/or project manager for a portfolio of Bellwether’s education policy work, sustaining and growing its best-in-class advising work and field-facing presence. In particular, this role will have a significant focus on postsecondary finance and pathways issues. Relevant topics include:
  • State Postsecondary Finance — State funding policies supporting two- and four-year public institutions, including perspectives on opportunities for improvement to current state approaches in service of goals around student and institutional equity, adequacy, and value.
  • State Financial Aid — Policies and programs providing assistance to help students address the costs of postsecondary attendance, including perspectives on opportunities to address the diverse and changing needs of postsecondary students.
  • Postsecondary Quality and Improvement — State approaches to ensuring quality across higher education institutions and programs, including perspectives on opportunities to facilitate improvement.
  • Postsecondary Student Success — Approaches to identifying and supporting student success in meeting goals for academic progress, the completion of degrees and credentials, and entry into career.
  • Transitions to Postsecondary Pathways — Policies related to early postsecondary opportunities such as dual enrollment or transfer between higher education institutions.
  • Short-Term Credentials — Policies related to non-degree training, credentials, and professional certifications offered at higher education institutions and other settings such as employment sites.
• Advise senior client executives and build strong ownership across client teams.
• Represent Bellwether externally (as appropriate to expertise), including, but not limited to, speaking at conferences, participating on panels, and writing.
• Support business and client development efforts, initially serving as a co-seller with other members of the leadership team with the expectation of growing more self-directed business development over time. This may include projects cross-staffed with Bellwether’s Evaluation and Strategic Advising practices.
• Supervise and manage members of the Policy team and provide coaching, professional development, and mentorship of staff members at various levels.
• Advance Bellwether’s organizational priorities and contribute to the execution of its strategic plan, including facilitating ongoing cross-organization efforts to continue growing our depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise in postsecondary education-related topics, a priority defined in our current strategic plan.
• Develop, sustain, and enhance relationships with senior executives, funders, and other leaders in the field. Cultivate a culture in which Bellwether’s team and work benefit from the open exchange of questions and ideas in the service of thoughtful, relevant analyses that advance excellent and equitable outcomes.
• Integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into work with clients and in leadership of teams.

The successful Senior Associate Partner candidate brings a sophisticated, deep understanding of the overall education policy landscape. They have expertise and a strong interest in postsecondary finance and pathways policy issues but may also have general or deep expertise in other education policy areas, such as early childhood or K-12 education. This leader possesses excellent written and verbal communication skills as well as a strong analytic toolkit. In addition, this candidate has a well-rounded interpersonal skill set with the capacity to cultivate and build strong senior client relationships, work effectively in a team environment, lead iterative processes that enable joint problem-solving and inclusive decision-making with clients and teams, and mentor and support the professional development of team members. Colleagues who thrive at Bellwether are entrepreneurial, self-directed, empirical, and curious. They welcome the opportunity to grapple honestly with competing ideas and perspectives, anchoring in a commitment to civil discourse and respect for others and grounding in facts and evidence. They maintain an open mind and willingness to adapt perspectives and mindsets in response to new or updated information, and they champion the idea that a range of perspectives is critical in the pursuit of the best possible solutions to promote equity and excellence in educational opportunities and outcomes.

Qualifications

• An understanding of the educational challenges and disparities facing underserved students in the United States, and a specific interest in postsecondary finance and pathways issues.
• Expertise across multiple postsecondary finance and pathways topics as described above and ideally demonstrated across multiple roles of increasing seniority.
• Demonstrated strong leadership skills; ability to attract, build, mentor, coach, and direct a high-performing, cohesive team.
• Significant experience leading complex projects and teams to successful outcomes, including managing client engagements and relationships.
• Experience supporting business development and revenue generation, which could include contracting, proposal writing, scoping, and budgeting.
• A commitment to Bellwether’s core values, including diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to Bellwether’s work to address policies and practices that lead to inequitable outcomes for marginalized groups.
• Ability to model a high degree of reflection and self-awareness, build trusted relationships across lines of difference, and seek out and respond to perspectives different from one’s own.
• Comfort with representing an organization externally at convenings and in public-facing writing.
• Experience fostering client relationships, including:
  • Asking probing questions of clients to identify their underlying needs beyond their stated requirements.
• Proactively developing a deep understanding of the client’s context and opportunities to provide appropriate analysis and recommendations.
• Bringing a solutions mindset and a bias for action to the work.
• Aligning processes with those of the client to make it easier to work together.
• Uncovering and addressing the root causes that may be impacting client success.
• An excellent track record of leading people, including:
  • Leveraging strong project management skills to ensure a common understanding of goals, objectives, and processes; communicating clearly and delegating authority and accountability to the team as appropriate.
• Setting up forums or practices to reinforce independent and open communication among team members at various levels, and effectively managing up, down, and laterally.
• Giving a team broad visibility inside an organization and publicly recognizing the accomplishments of individuals and of the group.
• Coaching team members in various roles to support their growth and development.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role for incoming team members is $165,250 to $190,000 annually with eligibility for an annual performance bonus targeted at $23,750 based on individual and organizational success. While the final offer amount will be determined by multiple factors — including previous experience and content knowledge — and may vary from the stated range, Bellwether is committed to transparency, and all offers align with our compensation philosophy.

Bellwether provides competitive compensation and an attractive benefits package that includes a performance bonus based on individual and firm success, health care coverage, and a 401(k) plan with matching employer contributions.