Portland State University’s 44-acre downtown campus—with its hundreds of educational and community programs—is one of the key urban institutions that will spark our city’s revitalization. It is no exaggeration to say that our city’s future and vitality depends on PSU students and alumni, more than 150,000 of whom live and work in the metropolitan area.
PSU is one of the most diverse institutions of education in the state, with more than half of its incoming first-year class identifying as BIPOC. Nearly a quarter of its students are parents. Half are the first in their family to attend college. When PSU graduates enter the workforce, families transform, communities prosper, innovation expands, and our economy grows.
There are lots of jobs in data and technology out there. But if you are a nonprofit leader committed to changing what is possible for our city and driving in tangible ways toward equitable success and justice for diverse communities, then there is no more meaningful place to bring your talents and your passion than the PSU Foundation. We are a team of colleagues dedicated to advancing PSU’s vital mission and supporting one another’s achievement and learning.
The Opportunity
The Vice President of Data and Technology is responsible for the vision, strategic direction and execution of our Data and Technology team and portfolio of work. This role will lead a team that provides the data, analytics, and insights to ensure the efficient operation and innovation of PSU Foundation’s philanthropy and lead the ideation, design and build of solutions from our data estate that enables new revenue opportunities.
The VP will lead the creation and management of data-driven performance management tools including dashboards, reports, and KPIs to drive process standardization and excellence, and support business growth through development of effective forecasting and analytical capabilities.
In this role, the VP will work to identify, prioritize and resolve systemic data quality issues, proactively complete issue resolution and leverage data value across the whole organization. The VP is a key leader in defining and creating a data culture that aligns with and further enables growth and quality.
This is a senior leadership position with system-wide responsibility for all aspects of PSU Foundation’s philanthropy and engagement analytics, including developing and implementing long-range strategy and planning. This role has a significant cross-collaboration element requiring the Vice President to work with all PSU Foundation staff, managers, leadership and external stakeholders of the organization. The Vice President supports and upholds the Foundation’s mission, purpose, values and culture and is to remain sensitive to both organizational needs and employee goodwill.
Duties & Responsibilities
- Recruits, manages and develops a team of analytical and technical professionals to support data quality, system stability and performance management initiatives.
- Provides high-level thought leadership, articulates vision for how key metrics/attributes relate across the organization.
- Manages relationships with the University, Foundation Board, and other stakeholders; represents the Foundation on various workgroups and committees as assigned.
- Creates and manages the IT and Data Management budget.
- Accountable for ensuring that data related business requirements are clearly defined, communicated, documented, and deployed to analytic solutions.
- Collaborates with the Senior Leadership Team to lead the definition, development and management of KPIs to drive revenue growth across the organization.
- Establishes the data solutions roadmap; accountable for the design, build, deployment, and management of data solutions and architecture across multiple technology platforms.
- Accountable for the development and continuous improvement of a suite of analytical reports and dashboards to enable effective management of business operations.
- Collaborates with leaders across the organization to establish a formal data ownership model for specific data domains to support various organizational data and technology initiatives.
- Accountable for the development and implementation of data quality standards, data protection standards and adoption requirements across the organization.
- Accountable for defining indicators of performance and quality metrics and creating guidelines to ensure compliance with data related policies, standards, roles and responsibilities, and adoption requirements.
- Enforces data standards adoption and compliance across the end state platforms as part of ongoing governance process.
- Accountable for leveraging data intelligence to identify critical patterns, behavior, cycles, and rhythms of business.
- Evaluates and recommends emerging technologies that will expedite or enhance the operational, donor/alumni engagement and/or development process.
- Accountable for ensuring IT and data system reliability, stability, fidelity and scalability.
- Accountable for enforcing, enabling and improving ETL and integration principles, standards, and guidance to support analytics, business intelligence, and application development needs.
- Accountable for ensuring data quality, fidelity and organizational value.
- Accountable for ensuring a timely and accurate knowledge base, supporting documentation, training, work instructions, and SOPs as needed or directed including proactive communication to business partners.
- Accountable for the design and implementation of enterprise data warehouse and data stores, while ensuring high levels of data availability, quality, security, and maintainability.
- Leads team in providing technical guidance and resolving performance issues across the organization.
Performs additional duties as assigned.
Supervisor Responsibilities
- Lead and motivate a team of 5-8 staff members.
- Build authentic relationships with staff and invest in their professional development and growth.
- Create learning and development opportunities for the team based on identified needs and passions.
- Serve as a champion of PSUF culture and participate in organizational initiatives and change that promote culture making and building.
- Carry out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with organizational policies.
- Hire and train staff; plan, assign, and direct work; conduct regular performance evaluations and address complaints or performance issues.
Education & Experience Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Business Administration, or other related field; or equivalent education/experience. Master's Degree, preferred.
- At least 12 years of progressive experience managing IT infrastructure, Big Data Systems, and data analytics projects required. Experience must include Data Governance, Data Workflow and Data Quality management.
- At least 10 years of related leadership experience, managing small to medium-sized teams and participating in strategic senior leadership decision-making at the VP-level and above. Experience presenting to Board of Directors and external stakeholders required.
- At least 10 years of experience creating and managing organizational KPIs.
- Data management experience in higher education, philanthropy or non-profits, highly preferred.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Requirements
- Proven track record of effectively leading people and managing the intricacies of dynamic teams within or across complex organizations.
- Big-picture orientation, with a demonstrated ability to understand and analyze information, trends and situational needs to identify challenges and opportunities and to envision solutions and strategies for sustained organizational success.
- Strong decision-making practice that is positive, solution-oriented and organizationally focused.
- Excellent communication skills and high emotional intelligence; the ability to communicate technical information to a wide variety of audiences, including non-profit leaders, development staff, and non-technical stakeholders.
- Proven track record of managing and leading projects from start to finish and can successfully manage and coordinate people to deliver effectively.
- Proven experience building and maintaining relationships with necessary stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization, at every level.
- Ability to manage multiple deadlines and priorities simultaneously.
- Self-motivated and require little guidance to tackle projects, tasks and priorities.
- Knowledge of and experience with query and markup languages.
- Knowledge and experience with predictive data modeling, regression analysis, and strategic prioritization of data strategy to support improved revenue generation.
- Expertise working with CRM systems and databases.
- Skills in gathering, aggregating data, documenting, mapping, and analytics.
- Knowledge of and experience with the functions, capabilities, and applications of data warehousing and business intelligence.
- Ability to identify and troubleshoot problems and challenges to find effective solutions even in complex, high-stakes or high-stress situations involving sensitive or confidential information.
- Ability to create and collaborate within an equitable and inclusive team environment, and to communicate effectively within the context of diverse behaviors, orientations, identities, and cultural backgrounds.
Other Essential Information
- Department: Data and Technology
- Work Days/Hours: Full Time, 40 hours/week, Monday-Friday
- Work Type: We currently have a hybrid work model at the PSU Foundation. This position will be required to work at least 24 hours/week on Portland State University campus and the remainder of the work week may be worked remotely in Oregon or Washington.
Compensation and Benefits
- Annual Compensation: $180,000-$205,000 (depending on experience)
- Full Time Employee Benefits: We are proud to say that we have one of the leading benefit packages for Nonprofit organizations in Oregon. Highlights of our benefits package includes:
- 100% employer paid medical coverage on our “base-plan” for employee coverage. Two additional buy-up plans are offered.
- 34 days of paid time off every year available after a 90-day initial employment period
- 11 company paid holidays
- Up to 12% employer contributions to an eligible employee’s 401(k) plan
- Employer paid Long Term Disability and Life Insurance coverage
- Portland State University affiliated employee benefits
- For a full list of our awesome full-time employee benefits, please visit: https://www.psuf.org/careers
PSU Foundation is an EEO employer. To learn more about the foundation, our strategic direction and our financial impacts, please visit: https://www.psuf.org/about-psu-foundation
