Position

Reporting to UNITE-LA's Vice President of Public Policy, the Senior Director of Regional Business Engagement is passionate about meaningfully engaging the business community in Los Angeles and California in issues related to education and talent development along the cradle to career spectrum (prenatal-career). The Senior Director will develop relationships with targeted leaders from business, trade, and professional associations in Los Angeles and more broadly in California to advocate for early care and education, K-12 education, higher education, and talent development, including issues related to immigration, justice reform and opportunity youth broadly. The Senior Director will help activate business leaders to advocate for policies that ensure an equitable education and workforce development system for Los Angeles youth and families.

About Us

Over the past 25 years, UNITE-LA has established itself as a trusted cross-sector intermediary, dedicated to supporting the development of effective public education and workforce development systems locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally, so that all children and youth succeed in college, career and beyond. Utilizing a networked approach, we work across systems, sectors, institutions, and divides to bring together business, education, government, community-based organizations, philanthropy to co-design impactful solutions to the most pressing education and workforce issues, with a special focus on resilient youth populations.

Through the intersection of programming, policy, and systems change efforts, UNITE-LA works to increase access to high- quality early childhood education, develop career pathways in high-growth industries, improve college access and success, and ensure workforce readiness, especially for individuals with high barriers into the workforce.

Job Description

• Coordinate tactics between UNITE-LA's Policy, Programs, and Systems team leads to develop and innovate new opportunities to engage business community in education and workforce development efforts.
• Develop innovative initiatives to support business engagement in education and workforce development efforts in communities across Los Angeles and California.
• Organize introductory meetings between UNITE-LA program/initiative leads and regional/statewide business leaders to discuss priorities in cradle-to-career education.
• Identify key areas of advocacy alignment between UNITE-LA and the business community
• Coordinate between UNITE-LA's local/statewide business engagement efforts and national business engagement efforts.
• Identify and cultivate strategic partnerships that will advance fundraising and business efforts to improve education and workforce outcomes.
• Coordinate and document all regional/statewide business engagement efforts within ULA.
• In partnership with policy staff, develop and prep business leaders to participate in key legislative deadlines to advance policy, programming, and systems change related to youth and families.
• Promote and elevate the work to external audiences, including chambers, businesses, and philanthropy.
• Lead, manage and convene roundtables, host events, provide technical assistance, curate content for business-friendly communications, elevate promising and best practices for education and development issues amongst business organizations, etc.
• Help grow funding to develop new and support existing programs through funder cultivation, proposal development, reporting outcomes and other stewardship activities.
• Engage in all-hands-on-deck UNITE-LA projects and events.
• Engage in other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Years of experience:
  • Minimum of ten years of relevant work experience
  • Bachelor’s degree
    • An additional four years of relevant work experience can be substituted for the educational requirement
• Type of experience:
  • Experience working with a chamber of commerce or other business organizations is required.
  • Experience successfully developing, implementing, growing, and managing projects and/or programs is required
  • Experience serving as an intermediary between the business community, institutions of education and other community stakeholders on education and talent development issues is required
  • Experience with CRM systems and website content management is desirable
• Other skills and abilities:
  • Demonstrated ability to build relationships and collaborate with a broad array of stakeholders (e.g., business community executives, education leaders, foundation program officers)
  • Demonstrated ability to develop partnerships to launch, grow and/or execute programming or projects
  • Excellent strategic thinking and ability to develop creative ideas and innovative solutions
  • Demonstrated ability to execute multiple projects on deadline
  • Highly motivated and organized
  • Ability to work well independently and as a part of a team
  • Excellent written and verbal communications skills

Salary: Commensurate based on experience. Our competitive benefits package includes paid sick leave, vacation, work-life harmony time, paid holidays, 401(k) participation, health, vision and dental and flexible spending accounts, and more. UNITE-LA promotes and embraces and values a culture of work-life harmony with flexible schedules and offers employee growth development plans to support pathways forward.

UNITE-LA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to developing and sustaining a diverse workforce, because we believe that it makes our organization stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, gender, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or age. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.

To apply, please submit your resume and cover letter to [email protected]. Please include Senior Director, Regional Business Engagement in the subject line of the email.

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