What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director, Early Learning position at PurposePhil Career?
About Valhalla Impact & Valhalla Foundation
Valhalla Impact ("Valhalla") is the philanthropic organization of Scott Cook (co-founder of Intuit) and Signe Ostby. Valhalla invests in and supports innovative organizations aligned with its mission to drive measurable, meaningful improvement in outcomes that matter. Valhalla is a mission-driven organization that strategically integrates philanthropic funding, impact investing, and advocacy to achieve impact, primarily through the Valhalla Foundation.
Valhalla's four focus areas are K-12 Education, Early Childhood Development, Environmental Innovation, and Medical Research and Talent. Valhalla also engages in collaborative philanthropy through The Audacious Project, Blue Meridian Partners, and NextLadder Ventures.
Valhalla applies a rigorous, data-driven approach to philanthropy and supports organizations beyond funding, helping them scale their impact. Learn more at www.valhallaimpact.com
About The Early Childhood Development Program
Valhalla's Early Childhood Development program is driven by a North Star goal: ensuring all children enter school kindergarten ready—defined as being on track across five developmental domains spanning physical, cognitive, social-emotional, executive functioning, and early academic development.
Over the past two years, Valhalla has sharpened its Early Childhood Development strategy around three interconnected priorities: Healthy Development Birth to 3, Early Learning - with a focus on Early Math, and Early Childhood Measurement. While our early learning work is grounded in improving child outcomes in the 5 domains of Kindergarten Readiness, Early Math has emerged as a critical lever for long-term educational and life outcomes. Research consistently shows that early math skill development is among the strongest predictors of later academic achievement, workforce readiness, and economic mobility—yet young children's learning opportunities in math are underdeveloped relative to literacy, with fragmented instructional approaches across PreK and K-2, uneven curriculum quality, and limited investment in teacher preparation and family engagement.
Valhalla's Early Math strategy focuses on improving foundational math learning across PreK through early elementary by strengthening math instruction in ways that increase math-rich interactions between children, teachers and parents. The strategy combines grantmaking, coalition-building, and field activation to help align researchers, practitioners, funders, and state leaders around a shared vision for high-quality early math instruction and scalable systems change.
Responsibilities Of The Role
The Director will shape Valhalla's Early Learning investment portfolio, driving strategy execution aimed at the goal of improving children's access to high quality learning experiences in early mathematics. Reporting to and supporting the Managing Director, Early Childhood Development, this individual will be responsible for shaping and managing an investment portfolio. In practice this includes identifying emerging field opportunities and executing investments that deliver measurable outcomes over time, working in close collaboration with colleagues, investees, policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and fellow funders.
We are looking for a proactive do-er who demonstrates initiative, systems thinking, creative problem-solving, and effective collaboration, driven by a mission to improve outcomes for children and families.
What You Will Do
You Are Energized By The Challenge Of Elevating And Driving Better Opportunities For Children To Master Early Math, And Possess These Critical Capabilities And Experience
Valhalla conducted a comprehensive compensation study to develop transparent salary bands and promotion criteria for each role. The salary range for this position is $208K - $313K. New hires' salaries are typically between the range minimum and midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate's job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process. Valhalla also offers a generous and competitive benefits package.
LOCATION
This role is based in the Bay Area, with approximately 25% travel (including air travel) for grantee engagement, convenings, and other field collaboration. Our team works from Valhalla's Woodside, CA office a minimum of two days/week, with the option to work remotely for the remainder of the week when in-person collaboration is not required. We provide a modest commute stipend for staff who live more than 25 miles from our office.
INCLUSION STATEMENT
Valhalla is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring and developing a team that brings diversity of voices, ideas and approaches to the complex societal challenges we tackle. We strive to be an organization that reflects the perspectives of our partners and the communities we seek to serve and we encourage all interested candidates to apply. All applicants and those who join us as employees will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.
APPLY
We have engaged LNS Partners to support the hiring process. Please submit the following to complete your application to ValhallaECDir@lns-partners.com:
Valhalla Impact ("Valhalla") is the philanthropic organization of Scott Cook (co-founder of Intuit) and Signe Ostby. Valhalla invests in and supports innovative organizations aligned with its mission to drive measurable, meaningful improvement in outcomes that matter. Valhalla is a mission-driven organization that strategically integrates philanthropic funding, impact investing, and advocacy to achieve impact, primarily through the Valhalla Foundation.
Valhalla's four focus areas are K-12 Education, Early Childhood Development, Environmental Innovation, and Medical Research and Talent. Valhalla also engages in collaborative philanthropy through The Audacious Project, Blue Meridian Partners, and NextLadder Ventures.
Valhalla applies a rigorous, data-driven approach to philanthropy and supports organizations beyond funding, helping them scale their impact. Learn more at www.valhallaimpact.com
About The Early Childhood Development Program
Valhalla's Early Childhood Development program is driven by a North Star goal: ensuring all children enter school kindergarten ready—defined as being on track across five developmental domains spanning physical, cognitive, social-emotional, executive functioning, and early academic development.
Over the past two years, Valhalla has sharpened its Early Childhood Development strategy around three interconnected priorities: Healthy Development Birth to 3, Early Learning - with a focus on Early Math, and Early Childhood Measurement. While our early learning work is grounded in improving child outcomes in the 5 domains of Kindergarten Readiness, Early Math has emerged as a critical lever for long-term educational and life outcomes. Research consistently shows that early math skill development is among the strongest predictors of later academic achievement, workforce readiness, and economic mobility—yet young children's learning opportunities in math are underdeveloped relative to literacy, with fragmented instructional approaches across PreK and K-2, uneven curriculum quality, and limited investment in teacher preparation and family engagement.
Valhalla's Early Math strategy focuses on improving foundational math learning across PreK through early elementary by strengthening math instruction in ways that increase math-rich interactions between children, teachers and parents. The strategy combines grantmaking, coalition-building, and field activation to help align researchers, practitioners, funders, and state leaders around a shared vision for high-quality early math instruction and scalable systems change.
Responsibilities Of The Role
The Director will shape Valhalla's Early Learning investment portfolio, driving strategy execution aimed at the goal of improving children's access to high quality learning experiences in early mathematics. Reporting to and supporting the Managing Director, Early Childhood Development, this individual will be responsible for shaping and managing an investment portfolio. In practice this includes identifying emerging field opportunities and executing investments that deliver measurable outcomes over time, working in close collaboration with colleagues, investees, policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and fellow funders.
We are looking for a proactive do-er who demonstrates initiative, systems thinking, creative problem-solving, and effective collaboration, driven by a mission to improve outcomes for children and families.
What You Will Do
- Shape and execute strategies that strengthen the early math field, by aligning researchers, practitioners, funders, policymakers, and implementation partners around high-quality instructional models, curriculum, teacher support, and family engagement.
- Lead rigorous diligence processes and make investment recommendations that ensure Valhalla's resources, relationships, and learning translate into measurable and enduring field impact.
- Catalyze field action by supporting policy, implementation, technical assistance, and cross-sector partnerships in priority states working to improve early math outcomes at scale.
- Represent the foundation externally with credibility and influence, while contributing to Valhalla's collaborative, mission-driven culture through thought partnership, continuous learning, and collective problem-solving.
You Are Energized By The Challenge Of Elevating And Driving Better Opportunities For Children To Master Early Math, And Possess These Critical Capabilities And Experience
- Well-networked early learning leader bringing multi-disciplinary experience across education leadership, philanthropy, consulting, or adjacent sectors; experience in engaging and influencing a range of field stakeholders, including leadership teams, policy makers, and practitioners.
- Domain expertise in Pre-K/early elementary education and child development, specific background in early mathematics instruction preferred.
- Analytical and systems thinker capable of integrating data, evaluation, and field learning into actionable investment recommendations.
- Strategic decision-maker: defining key priorities, translating strategy into measurable targets and milestones, identifying hard tradeoffs for the portfolio. Continuously interrogating how investments deliver impact.
- Pragmatic, mission-driven collaborator, who centers investee experience, considers diverse perspectives, and models intellectual honesty and continuous learning,
- Exceptional communicator and writer, able to synthesize complexity and convey ideas with clarity and precision, articulating and standing behind an evidence based point of view.
- Training or experience in one or more of the following domains is helpful: business strategy, portfolio or program management, policy advocacy, social science research, and measurement and evaluation; candidates should be comfortable with investment frameworks, data driven decision making, and organizational strategy.
Valhalla conducted a comprehensive compensation study to develop transparent salary bands and promotion criteria for each role. The salary range for this position is $208K - $313K. New hires' salaries are typically between the range minimum and midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate's job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process. Valhalla also offers a generous and competitive benefits package.
LOCATION
This role is based in the Bay Area, with approximately 25% travel (including air travel) for grantee engagement, convenings, and other field collaboration. Our team works from Valhalla's Woodside, CA office a minimum of two days/week, with the option to work remotely for the remainder of the week when in-person collaboration is not required. We provide a modest commute stipend for staff who live more than 25 miles from our office.
INCLUSION STATEMENT
Valhalla is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring and developing a team that brings diversity of voices, ideas and approaches to the complex societal challenges we tackle. We strive to be an organization that reflects the perspectives of our partners and the communities we seek to serve and we encourage all interested candidates to apply. All applicants and those who join us as employees will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.
APPLY
We have engaged LNS Partners to support the hiring process. Please submit the following to complete your application to ValhallaECDir@lns-partners.com:
- Your resume
- A video approximately five minutes in length in which you respond to these prompts:
- What sparks your interest in philanthropy and the Director role at Valhalla?
- Why do you think math is under emphasized in early childhood education? What opportunities to change that came to mind as you read the job description?
- What is your super power and how will you apply it to optimize success in this role?
- A written description (approximately 500 words) of an initiative you led that aimed to galvanize a set of education stakeholders to take action. What was your biggest learning from the experience, and what aspect of the outcome makes you most proud?