Executive Director, Customer Support Operations

Executive Director, Customer Support Operations

Location: This is a remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes.

Role Type: This is a full-time position

Our Customer Support Operations team is a combination of vendor management and delivery, specialized technical and Tier 3 support teams, program/product SMEs and forecasting and planning operations to deliver all aspects of a multi-channel support model to ensure success for users, including students, parents, educators, and our state/district partners. We oversee approximately 1.5 million contacts per year across phone, email, and chat and a vendor budget of ~20 million. Our integrated team plays a critical role in leveraging data to advocate for the voice of the customer, partnering across the organization to provide a positive and effective overall customer experience.

About the Opportunity

As the Executive Director, Customer Support Operations, you are a customer operations leader who has run support at scale and is ready to reinvent it. You'll lead all aspects of customer support and service and call center vendor operations for College Board's customers, from students and parents to educators and our state and district partners. You lead a team of leaders who own their numbers, drive performance across large external vendors, and use AI to advance access to support and the accuracy of guidance.

This role is central to that work, driving measurable gains in cost efficiency, contact containment, and customer experience quality across voice, chat, and emerging digital channels. As a key contributor to our Operations leadership team, you will help optimize our digital testing operational structures and support models and build for the future. Behind every contact is a student, parent, or educator who needs an answer, and you make sure they get a good one.

In this role, you will:

Set Vision & Strategy (40%)

• Set the overarching vision and direction for Customer Support Operations as part of the enterprise Operations division, aligning with division priorities and pairing best-in-class support strategies with a strong customer experience differentiated by customer needs and expectations.

• Foster a customer centric mindset and framework for processes, products and decision-making, including AI-assisted self-service and in-app support pathways that reduce friction for students, educators, and state partners.

• Develop a deep understanding of College Board's customer base and work with stakeholders across the organization to provide strong service and address the root of the problem. Bring the voice of the customer, including AI-generated insights from voice and chat interactions, to policy, product, and communication decisions.

• Define clear measurements of success. Develop, monitor, and report on critical measurements and metrics that drive high levels of customer satisfaction. Go beyond service levels, FCR, AHT, and CSAT to measure customer success and the quality of agent guidance, and drive FCR improvements and AHT reductions.

• Set a strategic vendor management and optimization strategy for a wide range of customer support models, including generative AI-powered voice/chat bots, digital platforms insights management, and SaaS in-app support tools, with a focus on access, efficiency, and quality of customer experience.

Provide Team Leadership & Management (40%)

• Lead and develop a remote team of ~4 direct reports, building a high-performing leadership team with shared expectations, candid feedback, and clear accountability. Model a service and team-first mindset that makes psychological safety, collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning the norm.

• Set vision and priorities for the team, track and manage progress to goals, and provide coaching and support to ensure team members meet and exceed goals, remain engaged, and contribute meaningfully to our mission
• Cultivate an inclusive and high achieving culture that enables all team members to live out College Board's Operating Principles.
• Bring proven leadership experience and consistently embody College Board's Manager Expectations in your work.

• Partner with Operations leadership peers to drive a One Ops culture, align on shared priorities and critical dependencies, ensure alignment across teams, and establish a presence as an enterprise leader.

• Establish critical forecasting and workforce planning capabilities, including planning models for call center vendors. Manage work volumes and a vendor budget of ~$25M based on data, and equip Customer Engagement & Experience (CEE) leaders to own their numbers and drive vendor performance.

• Enhance the customer support vendor management function, including forecasting and quality improvements, effective diversification strategies, and oversight of AI-powered support vendors to ensure performance standards and cost targets are met. Anticipate vendor readiness and quality risks and put mitigation plans in place before issues reach customers.

Drive Continuous Improvement & Innovation (20%)

• Provide actionable intelligence and insights through analysis and assessment of all escalation data that comes into the team.

• Advance real-time, executive level reporting disciplines, including test administration insights and analysis of variances, and establish reporting protocols to monitor performance data and drive continuous improvement.

• Analyze escalation data to find and solve for root causes; elevate key trends with leadership and field teams. Make data-driven decisions on continuous improvement for our escalations programs to advance visibility for leadership and field teams with a focus on transparency.

• Foster an innovative culture and champion the use of AI insights to drive evidence-based recommendations that measurably improve cost efficiency, customer experience, and program outcomes.

• Lead the technical and agent readiness infrastructure required to support new product and program launches (e.g., Bluebook Platform pilots), including IVR configuration, agent training requirements and quality measures, agent-AI assistance, and support readiness and escalation structures. Ensure tools, products, and systems deliver the capabilities support teams need.

• Define Customer Service Support requirements for new program and product pilots, and convert pilot learnings into scalable requirements for full launch/es

About You

To qualify for this role, you must have:

• 15+ years leading customer experience or customer support functions, with some related product management, budgeting and forecasting, and workforce management expertise.

• Financial acumen and experience managing a vendor budget at scale, including oversight of large external call center vendors.

• Deep understanding of industry best practices, trends, and technologies related to customer operations and support, support platforms, and in-app support delivery models.

• Proven ability to leverage AI to advance efficiency or deliver actionable product, program, and policy improvement insights for cross-functional stakeholders.

• Demonstrated success managing complex customer escalations.

• A track record of driving operational excellence and delivering exceptional customer experiences, including leading high-visibility projects from start to finish with measurable results.

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-stakes, and dynamic environment and lead teams and stakeholders through transformational change.

• Fluency with data and confidence in making data-driven decisions, paired with strategic thinking and planning skills to build a strategy, connect the dots, and build towards the future.

• A strategic and inclusive leadership style:you set clear priorities, build effective team structures, plan for future needs, and foster a culture of belonging.
• A proven ability to drive performance and growth:you set high expectations, deliver real-time, evidence-based feedback, and coach team members to take smart risks, stretch their skills, and achieve meaningful impact.

• Demonstrated experience building high-performing, collaborative teams, including coaching, developing, and retaining top talent and empowering others through delegation with accountability.

• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, including ability to work with product leads and technologists to drive business requirements and to influence and build relationships across internal and external stakeholders.

• Bachelor's degree (required), Master's/MBA degree (preferred).

• The ability to travel at least once a month to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business.

All roles at College Board require:

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work

• Authorization to work in the United States for any employer

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.

• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input

• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking

• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success

About Our Process

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resumé and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.

What We Offer

At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck-we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We're a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role is $152,000 - $225,000.

• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at College Board.

• We aim to make our best offer upfront-rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.

• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You'll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it's like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.

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