Chief People Officer

The CPO Opportunity

KIPP NYC is seeking an exceptional Chief People Officer (CPO) to serve as chief architect of the organization's talent strategy, culture, and employee experience, and as a critical member of the Executive Leadership Team.

Reporting directly to the CEO, the CPO will own all aspects of the People function — including talent acquisition and workforce planning; talent development and performance management; organizational effectiveness and change leadership; total rewards; employee and labor relations; HR operations, governance, compliance, and risk management; and equity and belonging — across a complex, multi-entity organization of 1,200+ employees serving thousands of students and families across three boroughs.

This is an enterprise-level mandate requiring both strategic leadership and operational excellence. The CPO will sit alongside the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Development Officer as one of the CEO's core strategic partners, responsible for ensuring that the organization's people strategy scales at the same pace as its budget, its footprint, and its ambition. Early priorities include:

• Strengthening and building areas of an integrated, data-driven People function capable of supporting a $300M+, multi-entity, three-borough organization — with the infrastructure to match near-term execution against long-term scale.

• Modernizing core HR systems (HRIS, performance management, applicant tracking) and exploring AI and modern people-analytics tools to move from reactive HR administration to proactive workforce strategy.

• Partnering closely with the CFO on the transition of payroll into Finance, and establishing a durable, well-defined operating partnership between People and Finance going forward.

• Building a school-leader and central-office leadership pipeline strong enough to support continued growth, with clear succession planning at every critical seat.

• Strengthening recruitment, onboarding, and retention strategies for school-based educators — historically the highest-turnover, highest-stakes talent segment in the network.

• Embedding equity and belonging as operating disciplines, not slogans, across hiring, compensation, promotion, and performance management.

 Key responsibilities of the CPO include, among others:

Talent Strategist and Empowering Culture Leader

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the CEO, Board, and Executive Leadership Team, translating organizational vision into an actionable, multi-year talent strategy.

• Own workforce planning across a complex, multi-entity structure — anticipating hiring needs, succession risk, and organizational design questions before they become urgent.

• Build and protect a culture of high performance, accountability, and belonging at every level of the organization, from classrooms to the central office.

• Advise the CEO and executive team on the people implications of major strategic decisions — including organizational design changes, new school openings, restructures, and shifts in operating models — and lead the people and change-management strategies required for successful implementation.

• Champion a leadership philosophy grounded in clear expectations, coaching, and empowerment — modeling the culture the organization wants replicated at every school site.

• Serve as a senior advisor on organizational risk, governance, and compliance, ensuring that people-related risks are proactively identified, appropriately escalated, and addressed through clear policies, controls, and decision-making processes.

• Lead a team of ~18 (with three direct reports: Managing Director, Talent; Managing Director, People Operations; and Managing Director, People Transformation) across functions of recruitment, employee experience and talent development, people operations and transformation.

Employee Experience, Talent Development, & Equity Leadership

• Design and lead an end-to-end talent lifecycle strategy — recruitment, onboarding, development, performance management, advancement, and retention — tailored to the distinct needs of school-based and central-office talent.

• Build a rigorous, equitable performance management approach that sets clear expectations, supports continuous development, differentiates performance, addresses underperformance, and strengthens teacher and leader effectiveness in service of student outcomes.

• Build a leadership development pipeline for school leaders and rising central-office executives, with defined pathways, competency frameworks, and succession plans for the organization's most critical roles.

• Own total rewards strategy — compensation philosophy, benefits design, and market benchmarking — ensuring KIPP NYC remains competitive for top talent in both the education sector and the broader NYC labor market.

• Lead equity and belonging strategy across hiring practices, compensation structures, promotion pathways, and performance management, in direct service of the organization's broader commitment to racial equity and social justice.

• Build listening infrastructure (engagement surveys, exit interviews, stay interviews) and translate findings into concrete action.

• Ensure managers across the network are equipped — through training, tools, and coaching — to lead, develop, and retain their teams effectively.

Enterprise Builder and Systems Leader

• Modernize HR infrastructure and systems (HRIS, ATS, performance and compensation platforms) to move the People function from manual and reactive to integrated and data-driven.

• Establish and oversee strong governance, compliance, and organizational risk-management processes across the People function, including consistent policies, internal controls, documentation standards, escalation protocols, and compliance with New York State and City employment law.

• Ensure consistent, sound employee and labor relations practices across the organization, including investigations, performance and conduct matters, partnership with legal counsel, and effective engagement with unionized stakeholders.

• Partner with Finance to execute the transition of payroll into the finance function, and establish clear, durable ownership and handoff points between the two teams going forward.

• Build people-analytics capability — turnover, time-to-fill, engagement, pay equity — that gives the CEO, Board, and executive team a real-time view of organizational health.

• Recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing People team, with clear expectations, professional growth pathways, and a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.

• Establish a rigorous operating cadence for the People function — annual workforce planning, compensation review cycles, performance calendars, and executive reporting — mirroring the operational discipline being built in Finance and Development.

*How to Apply: KIPP NYC has engaged the DSG|Koya team to lead this search. To apply or express interest, please submit your materials through this application link.