The posting
About Aspire NorCal
Founded in 1998, Aspire Public Schools has served scholars and communities across California for nearly three decades. Following Aspire Los Angeles’s transition into an independent organization, Aspire’s Bay Area and Central Valley regions will come together to form Aspire NorCal.
Aspire NorCal will operate 22 schools serving approximately 10,000 scholars across Northern California, with schools located in Oakland, Richmond, East Palo Alto, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Ceres.
This evolution comes at an important moment for Aspire. Changes in California’s funding, policy, enrollment, and operating environment have created an opportunity to rethink how the organization supports its schools and scholars in its next chapter. The formation of Aspire NorCal creates an opportunity to strengthen support for schools across teams previously organized by geography, improve the consistency and effectiveness of school support, and create clear accountability systems for organizational and scholar outcomes. The new model will require the organization to balance greater coherence across Aspire NorCal with responsiveness to the different communities and contexts of its schools.
Aspire NorCal enters this transition with a long-standing mission focused on post-secondary success and a deep commitment to educational equity, along with decades of institutional knowledge across its schools and teams. Preserving those strengths while building Aspire NorCal as a unified region will be central to the work ahead.
About the role
The President runs Aspire NorCal's entire non-instructional enterprise: finance, technology, operations, legal, people and facilities. This is a line executive role. The CFO, CTO and General Counsel report directly to the President, with the General Counsel holding a dotted line to the CEO on legal matters, and each of those functions answers to the President for its results.
The President sets the operating priorities and performance routines for the one support office, makes difficult resource and structural decisions, and holds the leaders of each function accountable for execution. Everything the President does is in service of scholar outcomes, and the one support office is built around the needs of schools and communities.
The CEO and President divide the work clearly. The CEO owns the external and instructional face of the organization: the Board, fundraising, authorizers, the Aspire Los Angeles separation at the governance level, and the Chief Schools Officer. Accountability for scholar outcomes rests with the CEO and the Chief Schools Officer. The President runs the internal non-instructional enterprise and works as a peer to the Chief Schools Officer so that schools get the talent, systems and support they need.
Reporting directly to the CEO, the President is the CEO's primary operating partner for the internal non-instructional enterprise, supports the CEO's work with the Board on operations and finance, and represents Aspire NorCal with key stakeholders on behalf of the CEO. The President also oversees the contractual relationship with Aspire Los Angeles, including service level agreements and the Aspire brand and licensing agreements.
This is a build. Over the next two years, the President will lead the non-instructional side of the Aspire Los Angeles separation, stand up one support office for Aspire NorCal, and modernize and right-size the support model through technology and AI, with a leadership team that does the work.
Competencies
Enterprise Leadership and Execution
- Run the internal non-instructional enterprise as the CEO's primary operating partner, translating CEO and Board strategy into clear operating priorities, plans, resource decisions, and measurable results.
- Run the annual planning process for the CEO and establish the routines that track progress, including organization-wide goals, metrics, dashboards, and performance reviews.
- Lead the support office's leadership team around shared priorities, resolve cross-functional conflicts, and ensure decisions are executed.
- Identify organizational barriers to performance and lead solutions that require coordination across functions.
- Ensure the organization's structure, roles, and decision rights support effective execution.
- Lead the non-instructional side of the Aspire Los Angeles separation, with a clean cutover of finance, technology, people, and operations by July 1, 2027.
- Stand up one support office for Aspire NorCal, and modernize and right-size the support model through technology and AI so that every role carries real leverage.
- Set the direction for technology and AI across the one support office; the CTO delivers it.
- Own the services Aspire NorCal provides to Aspire Los Angeles after July 1, 2027, starting with finance, payroll, accounting, and employee services, delivered through the CFO and the people function. Oversee the services agreement and the brand and license agreement, ensuring contractual obligations are met, and the relationship remains strong and trusted.
Team and Organizational Leadership
- Directly manage the CFO, CTO, and General Counsel, and the leaders of operations, people, and facilities, holding each accountable for the performance of their function.
- Select and build the leadership team for the one support office, including the CFO, CTO, and General Counsel.
- Establish a strong operating cadence for the leaders who report to the President, with clear goals, accountability, and follow-through.
- Hold every manager to Aspire's "excellent management" standard: managers set the conditions for success and hold teammates accountable for results. This means documented check-ins at least twice a month (more often for new and junior staff), clear goals, regular feedback, development conversations, prompt course correction, and no surprises if a role changes or terminates.
- Build trust and collaboration across executives with different areas of expertise and responsibility.
- Strengthen leadership capacity, succession planning, and organizational effectiveness.
- Ensure senior leaders have the clarity, resources, and support needed to lead their functions successfully.
Service to Schools and Organizational Performance
- Own the performance of every non-instructional function, including financial health, teammate retention, and the quality of support to schools. All of it is in service of scholar outcomes, which are owned by the CEO and the Chief Schools Officer.
- Work as a peer to the Chief Schools Officer to ensure the organization has the talent, resources, systems, and operating support required for strong school and scholar outcomes.
- Use data to identify where the one support office is falling short for schools and ensure timely action, partnering with the Chief Schools Officer on school performance.
- Make sure every function that reports to the President, including Finance, People, Operations, Technology, Legal, and Facilities, serves schools well and is responsive to school leader needs.
Financial Health and Resource Allocation
- Own, through the CFO, the annual budget, multi-year financial plan, and cost structure, making the trade-offs needed for long-term financial sustainability.
- Lead cross-functional decisions about resource allocation, organizational structure, and cost priorities.
- Bring recommendations, with the Chief Schools Officer and CFO, regarding school growth, consolidation, facilities, and potential school closures.
- Ensure major investments are aligned with Aspire NorCal's strategic priorities and demonstrate clear value for scholars and communities.
Culture, Communication, and Change
- Model Aspire's values and reinforce a culture of belonging, high expectations, accountability, collaboration, and joy.
- Lead organization-wide change, including restructuring, new systems, and new ways of working, with transparency, steadiness, and respect.
- Communicate clearly about priorities, decisions, and the reasons behind them.
- Identify and interrupt inequitable practices in the work they lead and influence.
- Build trust between the one support office, schools, and communities.
Requirements
- 10+ years of progressive leadership experience, including significant experience as a senior executive reporting to a CEO, superintendent, or Board.
- Has directly run finance, operations, technology and people functions as a line executive, with those leaders reporting to them, rather than coordinating them.
- Experience leading or integrating a large, complex, multi-site organization. Experience in a charter network, school district, or other organization with a $200M+ budget and multiple regions or sites is strongly preferred.
- A demonstrated track record of improving organizational performance across multiple sites and bringing academic/programmatic and operational leaders together around shared goals.
- Experience managing significant budgets and making major financial and resource tradeoffs.
- Experience leading significant organizational change, including restructuring, turnaround, transformation, or growth.
- Experience working effectively with a Board and complex external stakeholders, including authorizers, districts, funders, labor partners, and community organizations.
- Strong understanding of K–12 education and the realities of school or system leadership; experience in public education is strongly preferred.
- Exceptional judgment, steadiness under pressure, and willingness to make and explain difficult decisions.
- Strong communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to create alignment among stakeholders with different perspectives and interests.
- A genuine commitment to Aspire's mission, values, scholars, families, and communities.
- A bachelor's degree is required. An advanced degree in education, business, public policy, or a related field is preferred.
Location and work arrangement
- Must reside in a county where Aspire NorCal schools are located: San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, or Sacramento.
- Periodic travel required across schools spanning East Palo Alto to the East Bay Area, and Sacramento to Modesto, including attendance at Board of Directors meetings in Stockton.
- In person with work-from-home flexibility to be determined with the CEO.
Benefits
The salary range for this role is $275,000–$300,000 annually, commensurate with experience. This full-time, exempt position offers a comprehensive benefits package, including:
- Eligible for Aspire health benefits
- Retirement through CalSTRS or CalPERS, depending on the role's credential requirements, with a 403(b) option
- Paid time off and additional teammate benefits to be determined in accordance with updated employee value proposition to be shared prior to offer.
Equal opportunity
Aspire Public Schools is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Aspire Public Schools provides reasonable accommodations during the application and interview process. To request an accommodation, please contact [email protected]
