Associate Director, Provider Partnerships

Overview

OVERVIEW:

Year Up is seeking an innovative, thoughtful Associate Director, Provider Partnerships to recruit youth-serving training providers into a talent ecosystem where their participants can gain access to good jobs with the nation’s top employers.

A key element of Year Up’s strategy to close the Opportunity Divide involves building a talent ecosystem that efficiently and equitably connects Opportunity Talent (OT) seeking upwardly mobile career pathways to good jobs with top employers who currently lack a streamlined mechanism for accessing this talent at scale. Key components of this Scalable Solutions include engaging with employers and Year Up’s sales organization to capture employers’ middle-skill hiring needs and barriers; a scalable mechanism for assessing, providing “last mile training”, coaching, matching, and placing OT into work-based experiences with employers; building, curating, and managing a robust and scaled “supplier network” of OT-serving training providers; and creating repeatable and cost effective “enablement solutions” that will leverage Year Up’s 20 years of experience to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the training provider universe in preparing career-ready talent at scale. By 2025, Year Up envisions scaling the Scalable Solutions to place 50,000+ OT annually in an effort to dramatically scale Year Up’s impact and meet our mission of closing the Opportunity Divide.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Provider Partnerships (Lead), the Associate Director, Provider Partnerships focuses on actively identifying and cultivating strong partnerships by assessing, marketing to, and ultimately onboarding individual training providers and provider networks to Year Up’s Scalable Solutions. As part of the Scalable Solutions and Enablement Solutions team, they will work closely with teammates to design and test “through providers” pilots that address the needs of OT and employers, while relentlessly advancing the Scalable Solutions ecosystem agenda.

In building rapport with training providers, they will develop a deep understanding of provider training capabilities, as well as job placement and marketplace connection needs. They will show outstanding professionalism and confidence interacting with senior leaders across the provider ecosystem (e.g., in higher education, workforce development organizations, CBOs, for-profit coding bootcamps) and carry primary responsibility for negotiating partnership agreements with providers. The Associate Director, Provider Partnerships will have tangible targets for recruiting providers, developing and delivering on expansion opportunities, participant placement rates, and issue resolution with a focus on partner satisfaction.

Given that the Scalable Solutions construct is currently at an early stage of visioning, creating and piloting, individuals on the team should be ready and excited for a fast paced, innovative, dynamic team environment. Emphasis will be placed on audacious thinking, challenging orthodoxies, rapid testing, willingness to fail, and a learning, risk tolerant mindset. Candidates should feel comfortable with a team-oriented approach to creating something new, working with ambiguity and comfortable with change, having an external focus, and a willingness to work cross functionally and to build trusted relationships and buy-in inside and outside Year Up.

In keeping with Year Up’s values, the Associate Director will also have the opportunity to interact with Year Up students as a mentor, and group facilitator, and advocate, participating in building a positive educational environment.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Training Provider Partnerships

• Assist in establishing partnerships with training providers (community colleges, CBOs, private training providers, workforce development organizations, etc.) who can provide a strong source of Opportunity Talent for job opportunities or work-based learning experiences
• Employ consultative selling techniques to understand training provider’s training capabilities, incentives, job placement and marketplace connection needs, and barriers to success
• Manage relationships with key stakeholders (including providers themselves but also funders, umbrella organizations, public sector actors, key influencers and funders, etc.) by providing responsive and high-quality customer service
• Support partnership design activities with providers to identify optimal points of convergence with partnership journey, negotiate key partnership responsibilities, and develop MoUs
• Create, organize, and implement trainings to onboard training provider partners to Scalable Solutions matching, participant data, and enablement platforms
• Work with training provider partners to understand how public workforce dollars or other funding sources may be utilized to support Scalable Solutions activities focused on OT job placement

Team Collaboration

• Collaborate effectively with key cross-functional internal partners, including Program Delivery, Talent Solutions Design and Practice Change, as well as key shared services partners (e.g., IT, R&E, finance, marketing, etc.)
• Proactively contribute to overall Scalable Solutions team; brainstorm with and challenge teammates to drive creative solutions
• Within Scalable Solutions team, prioritize key cross-functional collaboration. For example: Work with Employer Solutions teammates to ensure provider network is designed to effectively fulfill employer needs; Work with Enablement Solutions teammates to test enablement approaches and gather provider feedback from the field

Year Up Citizen

• Live the values of Year Up and integrate them into one’s work on a daily basis
• Participate in special projects and initiatives that support the effectiveness, growth, and impact of Year Up
• Serve as student advisor/mentor, and at times participate in Learning Community with local site

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 5+ years’ experience in account management in a service-based environment
• Proven track record of successfully building and maintaining internal and external relationships to develop constructive partnerships, as well as desire to engage externally with Scalable Solutions stakeholders
• Ability to navigate, understand, and manage partner pipeline, generate leads and close partnership negotiations
• Deep understanding of the training provider universe, including the unique needs of different segments
• Ability to flex and add value between high-level strategy and detail-level operations
• A professional and resourceful style with the ability to work independently and as a team player, take initiative, and manage multiple tasks and projects at a time
• Bring an open mind and willingness to constructively challenge perspectives of team members and your own viewpoint
• Have an excitement about innovation and a willingness to rapidly test assumptions, take risks, and fail and learn
• Embrace and proactively seek out differences of opinions, experiences, and perspectives in an effort to arrive at better, more informed conclusions
• Experience leading cross-functional teams, displaying excellent communication skills and ability to navigate complex organizational structures
• Strong change management skills
• Passion for working with young adults, an unshakable belief in their potential and a strong commitment to the mission of Year Up
• Understands the Opportunity Divide and its drivers
• Willingness to travel as necessary to support project execution (up to 25% typical)

Year Up is a national 501(c)3 workforce development organization committed to ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, education, and justice for all young adults-no matter their background, income, or zip code. Employers face a growing need for talent while millions of talented young adults lack access to meaningful careers. These inequities only further perpetuate the opportunity gap that exists in our country-a gap that Year Up is determined and positioned to close through three interconnected strategies: providing targeted skills training and connections to livable-wage employment for students and alumni; empowering others to serve and support young adults; and changing systems that perpetuate the opportunity gap. Year Up’s intensive training program utilizes a high expectations, high support model where students learn in-demand technical and professional skills and apply them during a corporate internship. Year Up has directly served more than 35,000 young adults since its founding in 2000. Year Up’s nationwide presence includes Arizona, Bay Area, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Greater Atlanta, Greater Boston, Greater Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, the National Capital Region, New York City/Jersey City, Pittsburgh, Puget Sound, Rhode Island, South Florida, Tampa Bay, and Wilmington.

COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY:

Year Up actively engages individuals from all backgrounds. We are committed to embracing diversity within our organization because we firmly believe that diverse employee teams help us to achieve our best organizational outcomes and provide the most effective support to our young adults as we work to close the Opportunity Divide. We are deeply dedicated to creating and maintaining an inclusive and supportive work environment. Learn more about our commitment to diversity: http://www.yearup.org/about-us/careers/commitment-to-diversity/

As an equal opportunity employer, Year Up is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified individuals and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, parental status, genetic information or characteristics, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

TO APPLY:

Please submit a thoughtful cover letter and resume through our website.

Note that applications without a cover letter will not be considered. We respectfully request no phone calls.