Director of Data Strategy & Performance

Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) — a world-renowned education and poverty-fighting organization based in New York — seeks an enthusiastic, dedicated, and mission-aligned Director of Data for our After-School, Community, and Early Childhood programs. The Director of Data Strategy & Performance provides strategic leadership for data governance, performance management, analytics, reporting, and data-informed decision-making across the Deputy Program Officer’s portfolio. Reporting directly to the Deputy Program Officer, the Director establishes the vision, standards, systems, and management routines that enable program leaders to use reliable data to assess performance, identify risks and opportunities, strengthen execution, and improve outcomes for scholars and families. The Director serves as the senior program-side leader for cross-portfolio data strategy and directly supervises the Assistant Directors of Data. The Director provides formal supervision, performance management, coaching, role expectations, and technical leadership for the Assistant Directors of Data, while Managing Directors maintain a dotted-line relationship to support portfolio alignment, responsiveness, and day-to-day partnership. The Director will partner with organizational teams in IT Evaluation, HR, and other functions to strengthen Salesforce (Zora) usage, data quality and governance, dashboards and scorecards, OKR and core-metric monitoring, and the integration of data into ongoing performance management and strategic planning routines. The ideal candidate is a strategic and systems-oriented data leader who can set direction, build organizational capacity, lead complex cross-functional initiatives, develop staff, and translate complex information into clear insights and recommendations for senior leadership.

Responsibilities

Set and execute the cross-portfolio data and performance strategy in partnership with the Deputy Program Officer; Establish portfolio-wide standards for data governance, metric definitions, data quality, reporting cadence, documentation, and accountability; Provide strategic oversight of data integrity, completeness, timeliness, and consistency across Salesforce (Zora) and other approved systems; Lead cross-portfolio data audits, reconciliation processes, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action planning; Identify systemic gaps, duplication, workflow inefficiencies, and reporting limitations and sponsor scalable solutions; Advise the Deputy Program Officer and senior program leaders on data strategy, performance trends, emerging risks, and opportunities; Own the design and continuous improvement of cross-portfolio dashboards, scorecards, and executive reporting; Lead analysis across programs and sites to identify patterns, performance gaps, outliers, emerging risks, and opportunities; Translate complex quantitative and qualitative information into executive-level analyses, data stories, recommendations, and decision points; Lead the data strategy and preparation for monthly data walks, performance reviews, quarterly business reviews, strategic planning, and other leadership routines; Partner with Managing Directors and Directors to establish targets, monitor performance, assess variance, identify root causes, and develop responsive action plans; Commission and lead deeper analyses on priority questions; Partner with IT, Evaluation, and program teams to define business requirements and prioritize reporting enhancements; Support the development of scalable dashboards, automated reporting, templates, and tools; Oversee testing, implementation, documentation, adoption, and change management for new data processes and reporting solutions; Stay current on relevant data, analytics, visualization, and performance-management practices; Directly supervise the Assistant Directors of Data, including goal setting, regular supervision, coaching, performance management, professional development, workload management, and accountability; Partner regularly with Managing Directors to align data priorities; Provide strategic and technical leadership to Assistant Directors of Data; Establish consistent supervision, team meetings, portfolio reviews, and performance routines; Build the data literacy of Managing Directors, Directors, and other program leaders; Develop training, tools, protocols, and guidance; Lead complex, high-priority data, performance-management, and continuous-improvement initiatives; Establish governance structures, project plans, milestones, decision points, risk-management approaches, and accountability mechanisms; Convene and lead cross-functional workgroups; Use data to support organizational learning, program design, implementation monitoring, resource planning, and continuous improvement; Represent the Office of the Deputy Program Officer in relevant cross-organizational data and performance-management forums; Perform other leadership responsibilities and special projects as assigned

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university (master's degree preferred) in data analytics, information systems, statistics, business, education, social sciences, public administration, or a related field; 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in data management, analytics, performance management, program strategy, program operations, or a related field, including significant leadership responsibility; Demonstrated experience leading data or performance strategy across multiple programs, departments, sites, or stakeholder groups in a complex organization; Demonstrated experience directly supervising, coaching, and developing managers or senior data professionals, including performance management, goal setting, and accountability for results; Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and/or Google Sheets and strong experience with data visualization, dashboarding, and business-intelligence tools; Experience with Salesforce or another enterprise CRM/data-management system; Salesforce experience strongly preferred

Nice to have

Master's degree; Advanced experience with Power BI, Tableau, or comparable business-intelligence and visualization platforms; Experience supporting senior leaders with portfolio-level performance reporting, strategic analysis, and decision support; Experience in youth development, education, nonprofit, social services, community-based programming, or another complex multi-program environment; Experience with public-sector, funder, or contract reporting requirements and translating compliance requirements into sustainable operating practices; Experience leading change management related to data systems, reporting practices, or performance-management processes; Experience leading teams in a matrixed environment with direct and dotted-line reporting relationships strongly preferred

Benefits

Highly competitive base salaries; Paid time off; Employee referral bonus; Career Advancement; No-cost health insurance; Life Insurance; Short-and long-term disability; Additional voluntary benefits; Wellness discounts; Commuter benefits; Financial wellness perks; Additional Benefits (Discounts on flights, hotels, theme parks, concert tickets, and more.)