Director, Applied Analytics

THE ORGANIZATION

The Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF) is a leading nonprofit venture philanthropy fund dedicated to identifying the nation’s best public charter schools, investing in their expansion, and helping to increase their impact. Our “portfolio” includes 200+ charter school networks that operate 17,000+ schools and serve more than 725,000 students. We are committed to expanding the impact of schools that are closing achievement and opportunity gaps. CSGF operates with the same strategies, discipline, and focus as a venture capital firm by awarding multi-year grants and loans to talented education entrepreneurs building networks of high-quality charter schools that enroll traditionally underserved students. Ultimately, we think the portfolio can grow to serve ~1,000,000 students within a decade.

This is an exciting time to join the Charter School Growth Fund. We are successfully completing CSGF’s 4th fund, building on our 20 year track record of success. CSGF’s “Fund IV” is larger in size and scope than previous funds, with a goal to continue to fuel charter sector growth, accelerate innovation, and strengthen long-term outcomes for students, particularly students of color and those from low-income backgrounds. We continue to prioritize investments in leaders of color as our current portfolio is led by more than 50% leaders of color and more than 50% female leaders. We believe it is vital for the networks we support to be proximate to the lived experiences of the students and communities they serve.

THE OPPORTUNITY

CSGF’s Analytics team is building a world-class data ecosystem and analytics capability to equip organizational leaders with the insights they need to make high-quality decisions on behalf of students and school networks. As part of a restructured analytics team for Fund V, CSGF has created dedicated “translator” roles—a function that sits at the intersection of data and business, bridging the analytics team and the business teams they serve.

The Director, Applied Analytics will own key analytical workstreams for a dedicated portfolio of internal CSGF teams while also driving the strategy for how the Applied Analytics function delivers value across all of CSGF’s business teams. This is a senior individual contributor role that combines deep, relationship-driven analytics partnership with strategic leadership: the Director both does the work and helps shape how all of CSGF uses data to drive our most important decisions. In partnership with the VP, Analytics, the Director drives and informs the vision for the Applied Analytics function—identifying patterns across teams, designing scalable approaches to common analytical challenges, and partnering with the VP to build and refine the function’s norms, scope, and workflows as the team matures.

The ideal candidate is a technically strong, strategically minded analytics professional who builds deep trust with stakeholders, navigates ambiguity with confidence, leads through influence rather than authority, and brings the judgment and initiative needed to shape a new function from the ground up. The Director works as a peer alongside the Manager, Applied Analytics—serving as an informal mentor and thought partner while owning a more senior and complex portfolio. This role has no direct reports and reports to the Vice President, Analytics.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL STRATEGY & FUNCTION LEADERSHIP

Inform the strategy for CSGF’s Applied Analytics function in close partnership with the VP, Analytics—including defining department norms, refining scopes and workflows, and making iterative adjustments to roles and responsibilities as the team matures and organizational needs evolve

Support the establishment of clear working rhythms between the Applied Analytics function and peer Analytics departments, surfacing friction points, and collaborating with the VP to resolve gaps in scope or ownership across departments

Proactively identify complex issues and challenges before they arise across the function and CSGF-wide; own the development of process-level solutions and drive their implementation

Own AI strategy for leveraging AI as an analytical capability—including ad hoc analysis and rapid prototyping—in coordination with the Data Products & Engineering team

Serve as an informal mentor and thought partner to the Manager, Applied Analytics—sharing analytical judgment, offering feedback on approach and communication, and modeling the standard for the function without formal management authority

EMBEDDED TEAM SUPPORT & TRANSLATION

Own the analytics relationship for a dedicated portfolio of internal CSGF teams, developing deep knowledge of each team’s goals, workflows, and data needs in order to serve as a trusted, actively sought-out resource

Manage and execute ad hoc analysis and rapid prototyping using SQL, BI tools, and AI-assisted analytics to answer routine business questions and support timely, data-informed decision-making

Design and implement interim analytical solutions to meet immediate team needs while long-term engineering builds are underway, maintaining data integrity and stakeholder trust throughout

Gather and manage requirements from business team stakeholders, validate use cases, and prototype self-service tools before handing off to the engineering team for fully integrated builds

Exercise independent judgment in prioritizing competing analytical requests across assigned teams, with support from the VP, Analytics; proactively communicate tradeoffs and timelines to stakeholders

Successfully manage the full project management cycle from end-to-end

INSIGHTS & DATA STORYTELLING

Thought-partner with teammates to advise on analytical approach, helping them identify the best framing and methodology for the questions they want to answer

Own the delivery of analyses—from data pull through final communication—presenting findings in clear, user-friendly formats that non-technical audiences can act on

Collaborate with the Data Science team on more complex analyses; contribute to problem framing and own the storytelling of results back to business team users

Produce insights that directly support CSGF’s work with portfolio members, recognizing that many analytical outputs inform school network decisions and student outcomes

Set clear expectations for high-quality analytical communication across the function, modeling what excellent data storytelling looks like and helping elevate the Manager’s analytical outputs

DATA QUALITY & PRODUCT STEWARDSHIP

Direct QA standards for data products from the stakeholder lens across assigned teams, ensuring systematic review processes catch issues that automated back-end processing may miss

Spot and report data anomalies in data products from the stakeholder lens, identifying quality issues that automated back-end processing may not catch; Investigate root cause for errors, report errors to relevant Analytics teammates, and manage stakeholder communications to proactively provide flag issues and/or provide explanation and interpretability where a resolution is not possible

Drive implementation and adoption of self-serve analytics tools across assigned business teams — including onboarding, coaching, and ongoing support

Identify where business questions cannot be answered with existing data or tools; develop well-reasoned recommendations for data warehouse additions, public data infrastructure, self-service tool improvements, and research agenda priorities, and influence their prioritization with the VP and Data Products & Engineering teams.

Maintain active working knowledge of CSGF’s full data stack—data warehouse, BI tools, self-service tools, and public data infrastructure—to credibly advise business teams and inform infrastructure decisions

CAPABILITY BUILDING & SELF-SERVICE

Coach business team members on data literacy, self-service tool usage