Chief Business Officer

World Education Services (WES) aims to foster economic, social, and educational inclusion for immigrants, refugees, and international students in the U.S. and Canada. We envision a future where everyone is able to put their education, experience, and skills to work anywhere in the world.

About the Organization

World Education Services (WES) is a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to helping immigrants, refugees, and international students achieve economic, social, and educational inclusion in the United States and Canada. Since 1974, WES has helped people learn, work, and thrive in new places and helped society recognize the value of people's education and experience.

Our credential evaluation business is foundational to the organization's history, mission, and strategy. For over 50 years, WES has served as a global leader in the field of credential evaluation, helping over 4 million people advance their educations and careers and build futures in new countries. In recent years, we've expanded and accelerated our impact, and now serve nearly 500,000 individuals with credential evaluations annually. As an innovative social enterprise, WES also leverages its credential evaluation operations to support a variety of mission-oriented partnerships, programs, and policy and philanthropic initiatives to advance economic inclusion for immigrants and their communities.

As WES looks ahead to its next 50 years, we have adopted an ambitious 10-year strategy to help enable and accelerate access to good work for immigrants – a future in which everyone benefits from an inclusive economy that enables immigrants to thrive. That strategy will require WES' credential evaluation operations to be highly focused on strategic growth, customer experience, innovation, and digitization. The Chief Business Officer will be a critical leader in guiding and delivering upon this focus, and in partnering with the Executive Leadership Team to more broadly realize WES' goals at the enterprise level.

Our Values

We look for people who embody our values:

• Opportunity – We open doors so people can build better futures.
• Inclusion – We become stronger, more creative, and more resilient when we embrace diversity.
• Equity – We uphold fairness and justice in our work and actions.
• Enterprising – We are resourceful, inventive, and driven.
• Expertise – We challenge ourselves to be the best at what we do.

Organization Website

For more information on World Education Services, our mission and our work, please visit our website.

About the Role

As WES looks to the future, we are seeking an exceptional operational leader to serve as our next Chief Business Officer. Responsible for driving the strategic and operational direction of WES's core credential evaluation business, the Chief Business Officer will lead efforts to optimize service delivery, enhance customer experience, and identify opportunities for sustainable delivery and growth. They will oversee the organization's commercial operations for its core products, ensuring WES continues to thrive as a financially independent, mission-driven social enterprise. With a focus on innovation, efficiency, and strengthening WES's solid foundation, the Chief Business Officer will develop and implement strategies, systems, and processes that enable the organization to operate effectively while expanding its reach and impact.

This is a unique opportunity for a forward-thinking, impact-driven executive to drive operational excellence within WES's core business, transforming customer experience and ensuring WES's continued success as a social enterprise while deepening its impact on global mobility and education access.

Key Responsibilities

• Managing the credential evaluation operations, driving operational excellence in service delivery and identifying ways for WES to continue to operate as a non-profit social enterprise in a financially independent, self-sustaining model
• Ensuring WES' core business operations (credential evaluations) run optimally, working with the department leaders and teams across the different functional areas and within different geographies, setting clear priorities and measurable goals to optimize the delivery of high-quality evaluation reports on time, on budget, and in line with customer needs
• Developing and executing strategic plans to drive growth and profitability in the core business operations, working with key leaders across the organization to identify new revenue streams through the development of enhancements specifically for our core products and services
• Overseeing the integration of solutions, systems, and frameworks that enhance our capabilities, drive improvements to the customer experience, provide enhanced analytical or processing capabilities and enable the core business to scale or pivot where appropriate
• Identifying ways and approaches to align operations and core business strategies with the enterprise strategy and external market opportunities
• Fostering a culture of innovation, encouraging the contribution of ideas for new approaches to our core products, processes, and services
• Serving as an exceptional organizational leader, manager, and coach with a high degree of emotional intelligence who develops strengths in others and models effective data-driven decision making
• In partnership with the broader Executive Leadership Team, helping to develop, refine, and execute the vision, mission, strategy, and plans for the organization

Who You'll Work With

• You will report to Esther Benjamin, CEO.
• You will lead a division of ~230 employees, with 5 direct reports: Head of Production, Chief Transformation Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Revenue Officer (including Sales, Marketing and Customer Solutions and Core Product Management teams), Chief of Staff (Business Division).
• You will frequently collaborate with executive leadership, functional heads, and other key

Required Skills and Experience

• 15+ years of relevant business experience, with a minimum of 10 years leading operations and commercial teams in organizations of $50M or more
• Strong commercial experience in a high volume environment (ideally both B2B and B2C); experience with knowledge-based enterprises and/or e-commerce a plus
• Strong experience operating in a global context, including navigating cross-cultural environments and working with teams and operations based in the global south
• Stellar critical and analytical skills with a track record of driving growth and setting ambitious, data-driven strategic plans, informed by data and external market conditions (e.g. government policy and regulations, economic conditions)
• Exceptional customer orientation with an eye towards ensuring strong customer satisfaction through growth, innovation, and operational excellence
• Experience building and leading high-performing, data-driven teams; ability to coach and develop others to achieve ambitious outcomes and foster a culture of accountability.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills with internal and external stakeholders, including the ability to prioritize, negotiate, and manage expectations effectively
• Collaborative and engaging leader who understands how to balance commercial needs within a social enterprise operating model
• Experience partnering with an executive team and working with a Board of Directors
• Personal qualities of honesty, integrity, credibility, commitment to quality, customer-centricity, and dedication to the mission of WES
• Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally, approximately 25%
• A Bachelor's degree (Master's degree strongly preferred) in a relevant area or commensurate business experience, with relevant skills in business operations

Salary

The salary range for this role is $275 - $325,000, with a target 30% incentive.

Benefits

• Health insurance options tailored to the US or Canada
• Vision & Dental Insurance options tailored to the US or Canada
• Flexible and supportive work arrangements with generous vacation time
• Paid family leave benefits
• Retirement plans with competitive matching provisions
• Paid professional development including tuition reimbursement, professional fees reimbursement, student loan repayment, and skills development
• A focus on wellness with a suite of wellness activities, corporate gym membership, and EAP support

Application Instructions

Qualified individuals, please apply: https://www.on-ramps.com/jobs/3393