Executive Director, EaR Strategy & Alignment, Public Affairs

College Board – Engagement and Reach (EaR) Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid. All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes. Role Type: This is a full-time position About the Team The Engagement and Reach (EaR) division advances College Board’s mission by shaping how our work is understood, experienced, and acted on—helping protect the organization’s reputation while accelerating engagement and growth. We are a high-performing, collaborative team of communicators, marketers, creatives, and strategists who work together to deliver clear, compelling stories and turn them into creative, data-informed work that drives engagement, adoption, and real results. We partner closely with leaders across the organization to shape strategy, influence decisions, and amplify the impact of College Board’s highest-priority enterprises in service of our mission. About the Opportunity As the Executive Director, EaR Strategy and Alignment, Public Affairs, you are a policy communications strategist who knows how to build a campaign around an idea, not just a product. You bring deep experience marshaling media, evidence, and stakeholders to advance a specific policy or legislative agenda, and you're comfortable doing that work in complex, high-visibility, and often politically charged environments. You serve as the primary EaR integrator for policy, research, and stakeholder initiatives, embedded across Global Policy and External Relations (GPER), Learning and Assessment (L&A), Higher Education, Membership, and Access (HMA), and other College Board teams with policy or external affairs priorities. You bring the range to move between these groups and spot connections they may not see in each other's work. In this role, you lead EaR’s involvement across Public Affairs end to end, owning strategy development, intelligence-informed counsel, and measurable results without direct financial ownership. You work closely with divisional leadership to translate legislative agendas, research roadmaps, regulatory developments, and stakeholder priorities into integrated communications campaigns, align messaging, media strategy, sequencing, and risk management, and drive EaR-led execution through disciplined cross-functional coordination. You also coordinate closely with other Strategy and Alignment Partners supporting AP, the SAT Suite, and BigFuture to ensure seamless EaR support for their policy priorities. In this role, you will: Serve as the Single-Threaded EaR Leader for Public Affairs Own coordinated strategy and measurable outcomes across Public Affairs disciplines, while discipline leaders retain execution ownership within their respective domains Act as the primary day-to-day EaR contact for GPER, L&A, HMA, and other policy-adjacent teams Operate as a senior embedded partner within divisional leadership teams Provide strategic counsel on communications approach, sequencing, and risk Escalate conflicts or alignment gaps as needed and ensure timely resolution Lead Integrated Policy and Research Communications Strategy Translate legislative agendas, regulatory developments, research roadmaps, and stakeholder priorities into coordinated communications campaigns Develop structured campaign plans that align messaging, media strategy, executive positioning, stakeholder sequencing, and risk mitigation Identify opportunities to proactively shape policy and research narratives in priority markets and moments Align communications strategy in support of priority partnerships, endorsements, and sponsorships that advance policy, research, or stakeholder objectives Ensure communications strategies evolve as policy, regulatory, research, or partnership dynamics shift Lead special initiatives ranging from program launches to enterprise pilots Orchestrate the EaR Studio Model Define business needs and align them to a flexible bench of EaR domain experts functioning as a Studio, including media relations, messaging and editorial, insights and intelligence, digital amplification, creative, and copyediting resources Ensure the right expertise is engaged at the right time based on program priorities Ensure efficient internal communications and knowledge sharing within and across Studios Maintain momentum as policy, research, or stakeholder priorities evolve and ensure changes are reflected across EaR workstreams Leverage Intelligence and Foresight to Strengthen Impact Integrate policy landscape analysis, media intelligence, stakeholder insights, and narrative tracking into campaign planning Anticipate emerging risks or moments of heightened scrutiny and coordinate proactive or rapid-response strategies Provide divisional leaders with clear insight into external dynamics and communications implications Drive Execution, Measurement, and Reporting Provide high-level project management across initiatives to keep work on pace Establish clear goals, metrics, and reporting tied to business and EaR outcomes Own impact reporting; Monitor performance and recommend adjustments to improve results Develop and implement effective processes, tools, and systems to support efficient, consistent, and high-impact execution for all priority initiatives and projects. Communicate progress, risks, and outcomes to divisional and EaR leadership What Success Looks Like By the end of the first 12 months, a successful Executive Director, EaR Strategy and Alignment Partner will have: Established themselves as a trusted, credible embedded partner to GPER, L&A, HMA, and other policy-adjacent teams, with a consistent presence at leadership tables and strong executive-level relationships. Led the development and execution of an integrated annual EaR plan aligned to policy agendas, research release calendars, stakeholder priorities, and defined business outcome