Director of Strategy, Data & Organizational Effectiveness

Position Purpose

The Director of Strategy, Data & Organizational Effectiveness serves as Next Door's executive leader for enterprise strategy, organizational intelligence, performance management, business intelligence, research, evaluation, data governance, and continuous organizational improvement. The position exists to ensure that organizational decisions are informed by evidence, predictive insight, and strategic analysis—not simply historical reporting. This leader transforms data into organizational knowledge that improves outcomes for children, families, employees, partners, and the community while strengthening stewardship of public resources and positioning the organization for long-term sustainability.

The Opportunity

As one of Wisconsin's leading early childhood organizations, Next Door operates across multiple funding streams, regulatory environments, and service models. This role partners with the President & CEO and Executive Leadership Team to connect information across every major function of the organization and translate complexity into strategic action.

Executive Leadership Philosophy

• Lead organizational intelligence—not simply analytics.
• Measure what matters and eliminate measures that no longer create value.
• Reduce reporting burden while increasing strategic insight.
• Promote curiosity, learning, accountability, and innovation.
• Help leaders answer four questions: What happened? Why? What happens next? What should we do?

Enterprise Strategy & Organizational Performance

• Facilitate enterprise strategic planning and annual organizational priorities.
• Develop enterprise KPIs and balanced performance scorecards.
• Lead quarterly executive performance reviews.
• Conduct scenario planning, forecasting, benchmarking, and environmental scanning.
• Support organizational growth initiatives and strategic investments.

Organizational Intelligence & Executive Decision Support

• Integrate operational, enrollment, workforce, fiscal, child outcome, family, fundraising, research, and community data.
• Develop executive dashboards and concise decision briefs.
• Provide strategic analyses for the CEO, Board, Policy Council, and executive leadership.

Head Start, Educare & Continuous Improvement

• Lead Community Assessment, Self-Assessment, performance management, monitoring readiness, corrective action tracking, and continuous improvement.
• Support Educare Learning Network evaluation and organizational learning.

Research, Evaluation & Community Impact

• Lead research partnerships and program evaluation.
• Measure organizational outcomes and return on investment.
• Translate evidence into policy and practice improvements.

Business Intelligence, AI & Innovation

• Lead responsible implementation of AI, predictive analytics, automation, and business intelligence technologies.
• Modernize reporting while ensuring ethical use, transparency, privacy, and human oversight.
• Continuously evaluate emerging technologies that improve organizational effectiveness.

Data Governance & Enterprise Information Management

• Establish enterprise governance for data quality, metadata, validation, report inventory, lifecycle management, and secure information sharing.
• Develop organizational standards for data stewardship.

Risk Management, Internal Controls & Stewardship

• Develop early-warning indicators for compliance, enrollment, fiscal performance, staffing, procurement, attendance, eligibility, and operational risks.
• Support internal controls through anomaly detection, fraud-risk analytics, data integrity monitoring, and stewardship of federal, state, and philanthropic funding.
• Partner with Finance, HR, IT, ERSEA, Development, and program leaders to proactively identify organizational risks.

Leadership & Organizational Development

• Develop organization-wide data literacy.
• Coach leaders in evidence-based decision making.
• Lead cross-functional change initiatives.
• Foster a culture of innovation, accountability, and continuous learning.

Decision-Making Authority

• Recommend enterprise strategic priorities and KPIs.
• Set standards for organizational reporting and data governance.
• Prioritize analytics and evaluation initiatives.
• Advise executive leadership on organizational opportunities and risks.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's preferred.
• 7 years progressively responsible leadership in strategy, analytics, organizational effectiveness, research, performance management, or business intelligence.
• Executive-level communication and facilitation skills.
• Experience with Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Excel or similar tools.
• Experience in nonprofit, education, healthcare, government, or complex mission-driven organizations preferred.
• Head Start/Educare experience strongly preferred.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic thinking
• Systems thinking
• Business acumen
• Executive presence
• Organizational influence
• Data storytelling
• Innovation
• Change leadership
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Ethical stewardship
• Continuous improvement

Measures of Success

Success will be measured not by the number of reports produced, but by the quality of organizational decisions enabled.

• Enterprise performance management embedded across departments.
• Improved Head Start and Educare performance outcomes.
• Reduced manual reporting and higher-quality data.
• Predictive forecasting used for enrollment, staffing, and finance.
• Stronger grant competitiveness and impact reporting.
• Greater organizational agility and measurable improvements for children, families, and staff.

Why Join Next Door

This role offers the opportunity to shape the future of one of Wisconsin's premier early childhood organizations. The successful candidate will influence executive decision-making, modernize organizational intelligence, strengthen public stewardship, and help ensure every strategic decision is informed by evidence, innovation, and mission.

Executive Recruitment Profile

We seek a strategic leader who is equally comfortable presenting to a Board of Directors, facilitating a strategic planning retreat, evaluating research findings, designing enterprise dashboards, and coaching leaders through change. The ideal candidate views data as a strategic asset and believes organizational intelligence is fundamental to achieving lasting impact.