First State Educate (FSE) is a Delaware-based nonprofit focused exclusively on strengthening the effectiveness of local school board governance. School boards make consequential decisions about budgets, superintendent oversight, policy direction, contracts, and long-term strategy, yet most board members are elected without formal governance training. FSE builds the infrastructure that supports stronger governance through structured board development, decision-support tools, consulting engagements, research translation, and a statewide digital Knowledge Hub.
Our work operates upstream: improving governance capacity so districts can implement well, evaluate honestly, and improve over time.
The Organizational Landscape
FSE operates across several integrated bodies of work that collectively build governance infrastructure statewide. The organization includes:
1. governance and policy research
2. structured board training and consulting services
3. digital product development through the Knowledge Hub
4. civic engagement initiatives including candidate support and public forums
5. earned-revenue professional services
6. statewide events and partnerships; and
7. communications and public-facing content production.
These workstreams are interdependent. Consulting informs product design. Research informs training. Civic engagement strengthens governance capacity. Revenue discipline sustains platform growth.
The Operating Architect will work across all of these domains, to validate quality and accuracy of subject-matter content and ensure structural coherence, financial alignment, and disciplined execution.
Purpose of the Role
We are seeking an Operating Architect (Chief of Staff) to design, refine, and steward the internal operating model behind this platform, ensuring that growth is disciplined, revenue is aligned, and complexity remains coherent over time.
FSE’s work requires both external leadership and internal precision. As the organization expands, the Executive Director’s time must increasingly focus on revenue generation, partnerships, and statewide positioning. This role exists to extend that capacity by building and running the internal system that allows the organization to perform at a higher level.
You will serve as a close strategic partner to the Executive Director, translating direction into structured execution, strengthening operational discipline, and ensuring that the platform holds as it grows.
Specifically, you will:
- Convert strategic direction into sequenced execution across all workstreams
- Establish clear workflows and decision-making processes
- Align earned revenue activity with disciplined financial management
- Make performance visible through structured reporting and dashboards
- Ensure that growth does not outpace infrastructure
When this role is functioning well:
- Strategic decisions cascade into execution without constant re-sequencing
- Revenue performance is disciplined and visible
- Cross-functional work remains coherent as scope expands
- Executive time shifts toward revenue growth, partnerships, and long-term positioning
This role is measured by the organization’s ability to expand its work, strengthen its operating discipline, and absorb new revenue and partnership opportunities without destabilizing the platform.
The Person
- You are drawn to complex systems because you know how to bring order to them. You diagnose before reacting. You prefer clean execution over visibility. You absorb feedback and refine quickly. You value standards.
- You take pride in systems that hold. You enjoy bringing structure to complexity and creating clarity where others see moving parts, whether that means sequencing a statewide governance training rollout, aligning consulting engagements with revenue forecasts, or turning board-level strategy into executable internal plans.
- Financial discipline matters to you. Operational precision matters to you. You measure performance because you expect performance. You are comfortable building dashboards that make consulting revenue visible, clarifying the workflow behind Knowledge Hub product releases, or tightening the cadence around board training delivery.
- You are steady in proximity to strong leadership and comfortable translating strategic direction into structured execution. You do not require constant instruction. You do not dramatize friction. When governance conversations become politically complex or operational timelines tighten, you stabilize rather than escalate.
- You think in systems. You see dependencies quickly and sequence work instinctively, understanding how policy interpretation, digital infrastructure, consulting services, and civic initiatives intersect. You are as comfortable reviewing financial forecasts as you are mapping operational workflows. You care that revenue aligns with mission and that growth remains disciplined.
You increase the institution’s capacity to absorb growth, strengthening discipline, clarity, and execution as the platform expands.
Contract-to-Hire Structure
This role will begin as a contract engagement with defined authority and scope. The contract phase is a live evaluation of executive tempo, judgment, and operating discipline. During this period, alignment will be assessed across:
- Executive Tempo & Agility: maintaining momentum and thinking clearly in dynamic conditions
- Strategic Quality of Thinking: anticipating implications and framing tradeoffs
- Translation Capacity: converting direction into sequenced, executable structure
- Team Leadership & Discipline: building accountability and strengthening capability
- Revenue-Integrated Prioritization: sequencing work with financial intelligence
The expectation during the contract period is real operational ownership. If pace, judgment, and execution align, the role will transition into a full-time executive leadership position with long-term institutional responsibility.
