Our mission is to create economic transformation. By training low-income adults to launch and advance careers as software engineers, we help our Fellows go from earning $18,000 to over $90,000 starting salary on average, adding an estimated $2M in lifetime earnings. Pursuit partners with leading companies like Blackstone, USV, Citi, Peloton, and Uber to employ Fellows in career-defining engineering roles and supports them with on-the-job training to ensure potential translates to performance. Since 2013, Pursuit has created ~$1B in total lifetime wage gains, creating lasting economic mobility that spans generations.
Pursuit’s proven solution is built on two interconnected components: training (which includes community development, Core pre-job training, and Commit on-the-job training) and a financial product (known as Bond). However, growing training alone will not meet the magnitude of need nor solve new societal challenges ahead. The typical expectation is to expand our training to other cities, but this will not come anywhere close to creating good jobs for millions of low-income Americans. Instead, our strategy for scaled impact is to evolve our financial product and create tools for other organizations, jobs, and places. We believe that this will not only create good jobs for millions of low-income Americans but will also generate a new trillion-dollar market directly tied to results in the long term.
We are One Big Team
The passionate and collaborative team at Pursuit gives its all to achieve our mission. And it’s not just staff. We work with employer partners that love hiring our Fellows because they are so well prepared, ranging from big financial firms to scrappy startups, and everything in between. We also activate and engage hundreds of volunteers that come from all areas of the tech industry. These experts and professionals help keep our curriculum fresh and our standards for achievement high by participating in our admissions process, as well as program-specific activities such as interview training, DemoDays, Hackathons, and Capstone projects.
As the VP, Business Operations, you’ll play a pivotal role at Pursuit owning strategic initiatives that will enable Pursuit to scale and meet our ambitious outcomes across sales, investments, philanthropy, product and Fellow job attainment. Your primary focus will be to develop structures and processes to understand and drive progress to goals across all business units. You’ll work directly with Pursuit’s executive leadership team, as well as with key external stakeholders, including investors, employers, and donors representing premiere companies across industries. such as Blackrock, Union Square Ventures, Jobs For the Future (JFF), Robin Hood and more, to drive priority initiatives. Our ideal VP, Business Operations candidate will be strategic and hands on, with strong executive presence and an ability to take on business challenges of varying complexity.
As the VP, Business Operations you will:
- Enable Pursuit to meet our outcomes by ensuring clarity and alignment around goals, and ensuring teams and projects are managed and tracked effectively.
- Oversee and own implementation of recurring, org-wide business operations processes, e.g. quarterly business reviews, annual planning, etc.
- Translate overarching company goals into actionable strategies for business units, teams, and individuals, tailored to specific timeframes for performance evaluation and project planning.
- Drive cross-functional strategic initiatives, structuring projects to enable goal attainment and ensuring they meet the internal and external stakeholders needs.
- Develop and oversee comprehensive metrics, including key performance indicators (KPIs) and outcomes, for evaluating and reporting on business performance across various units, employing a waterfall approach to ensure thorough tracking and analysis that meets the needs of different stakeholders, such as donors, investors, fellows, and board members.
- Own design and management of Pursuit data systems at an organizational level and the Fellow journey, managing our Strategy and Ops manager, and Systems and Data Manager
- Establish foundational processes, reporting, and KPIs for new business units. Specifically, establish Pursuit’s sales enablement function to empower our new Go-To-Market team (comprising Sales, Partnership Success, Investor Relations, and Philanthropy) to meet their ambitious revenue targets, through effective tracking, managing, and reporting on ongoing deal flow through Salesforce.
- Own weekly review of KPIs with the Executive team, driving strategic and operational interventions and holding business leaders accountable to outcomes.
- Support the implementation of new processes and systems to enhance operational effectiveness.
What you need to be considered for the VP, Business Operations role:
- At least 15 years of experience in hands in strategic or operational roles, with experience leading business operations for at least two different companies where you were able to drive business outcomes
- Experience leading business operations at a company going through rapid growth or change.
- Demonstrated experience driving executive leadership accountability to KPIs through strong project management/managing up.
- Relentless drive toward enabling teams to meet outcomes
- Intellectual curiosity; commitment to dive deep into understanding the problem and driving solutions to address root cause issues
- HIgh business acumen, with an ability to understand priorities for different customer groups
- Excellent project management skills with an ability to build cross-functional coalitions to achieve company wide results
- Experience managing successful implementation of recurring company-wide processes such as annual planning and quarterly business reviews.
- Comfort working directly with the executive team and translating high level strategic initiatives into operational workflows/projects.
- Experience overseeing data management and workflows for Salesforce or similar CRM
- High bar for operational excellence
- Knowledge of a variety of tools to employ to drive efficiency and workflow improvements
- Comfort working in a fast-moving environment with limited direction.
Where you’ll work:
- On site, 4 days per week, in our Long Island City Office
Salary & Benefits:
The salary range for this role is 200,000-250,000 base + incentive compensation.
The compensation range above is for the expectations as laid out in the job description, however, we are often open to a wide variety of profiles and recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated to you as a candidate.
Pursuit offers:
- Great culture where transparency, respect, teamwork, and kindness are valued
- Competitive compensation in base, plus bonus and a full benefits package
- 401k Match
- Unlimited PTO and an all-Pursuit summer break the last week of August and a week-long holiday the last week of December
- Flexible, hybrid work schedule with catered lunches once a week and delicious snacks
- An opportunity to work at the intersection of tech and social impact, and make a direct impact on the communities of those we serve.
Pursuit values diversity:
Our team has a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and we value the richness that diversity brings to our organization. We welcome new perspectives and affirm that all employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, age, familial or marital status, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, gender identity or expression, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other classification protected by federal, state, or local law. Pursuit is an equal opportunity employer.
