TGR Foundation Opportunities

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Chief Learning Innovation Officer

Chief Learning Innovation Officer

TGR Foundation

Architect of the National Program Model | Executive Leadership Team

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer

Team: Executive Leadership Team

Direct Reports: VP, Curriculum and a growing national program team

Location: Flexible with regular national travel

Status: Full-Time, Exempt

Compensation: Competitive C-suite package, commensurate with experience

About TGR Foundation

For nearly three decades, TGR Foundation has worked to create a world where opportunity is universal and potential is limitless. Founded in 1996, the Foundation has reached more than 10 million young people through STEAM education, career-connected learning, college access and scholarship programs, and health and well-being experiences – all delivered through TGR Learning Labs: physical and programmatic hubs where students, educators, and industry partners build the skills, networks, and sense of possibility that change life trajectories.

The Foundation is in its most consequential chapter to date. After more than twenty years of impact from a flagship in Anaheim, TGR is scaling from a single-site model to a multi-market national footprint – from one Lab to five-plus across Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Augusta, and beyond. That transition demands a program model that is coherent, scalable, measurable, and unmistakably best-in-class.

The Opportunity

The Chief Learning Innovation Officer is the architect and operator of TGR Foundation’s national program model – the executive responsible for what the Foundation teaches, how it teaches it, how it measures outcomes, and how it ensures the same standard of excellence in every market.

This is not a traditional Head of Programs role. It is a C-suite builder role for a leader who has designed multi-site program systems before and can do it again at higher ambition and greater pace. The CLIO owns curriculum architecture, program quality, training and delivery, career-connected learning, student pathways and credentials, ed-tech and AI strategy, trades and workforce strategy, cross-lab innovation, and the data systems that tie it all together.

The CLIO reports directly to the CEO, sits on the Executive Leadership Team, and works as a peer to market-facing Executive Directors and Regional SVPs. The mandate is clear: build a program system that scales without diluting, innovates without fragmenting, and produces measurable outcomes the Foundation and its partners can stand behind.

We are looking for a builder, not a theorist – a leader who has operated at the intersection of education, workforce, technology, and scale, and who is energized by the move from “good programs in one place” to “coherent national system.”

Core Responsibilities

The CLIO’s mandate is organized across ten pillars:

1. National Program Architecture & Curriculum System

  • Design and own a centralized, best-in-class STEAM curriculum system that serves every TGR Learning Lab and every program modality.
  • Build and govern a national curriculum repository, integrating internally built, partner-built or sponsored, and selectively purchased curriculum.
  • Make and enforce clear build-versus-partner-versus-buy decisions; codify the criteria, the review cadence, and the owners for each.
  • Establish curriculum governance, standards, and packaging so content is cutting-edge, hands-on, trainable, and scalable in every market.

2. Program Quality, Accountability & Performance

  • Define and enforce the national program quality standard; make explicit what “great looks like” in every Lab, every program, every cohort.
  • Build the quality system - observation protocols, audits, mixed-methods data, and feedback loops - that translates standards into consistent delivery.
  • In partnership with Regional SVPs, hold Executive Directors accountable for student recruitment, program performance, and student outcomes; surface and act on underperformance with speed.
  • Close the loop: ensure quality signals drive investment, remediation, and national learning - not just reporting.

3. Training & Delivery Systems

  • Build a national onboarding, training and professional development system for the Learning Labs that turns curriculum into consistent, high-fidelity delivery across markets.
  • Own the core PD roadmap for internal instructional staff - onboarding, certification, ongoing development, and leader pipelines - and draw a clear line between what is national and what is local.
  • Scale external professional development inquiry-based instructional practice; expand innovations such as teacher externships, industry-embedded PD, and peer learning across Labs.
  • Position TGR Foundation as a recognized leader in educator professional development, externally and in the field and ensure that it is centralized as a core part of the TGRF Theory of Change.

4. Career-Connected Learning (CCL) Strategy & Execution

  • Own and expand the Career-Connected Learning model - Learning About Work, Learning Through Work, and Learning At Work - as a signature TGR offering.
  • Align curriculum, student pathways, and corporate partnerships into a single coherent CCL experience from first exposure to on-ramp into careers.
  • Partner with Development to match corporate sponsors to the right program experiences; ensure funder outcomes and student outcomes are co-designed, not bolted together.
  • Own execution of corporate-facing program experiences, including the quality, consistency, and measurable impact that make sponsors want to renew and deepen.

5. Student Pathways, Credentials & Postsecondary Alignment

  • Build structured learning pathways in every priority program area – e.g. AI, drones, multimedia, biotech, trades, arts and beyond - designed as entry → intermediate → advanced → real-world application.
  • Stand up a badging and credentialing system that aligns to student pathways: certificates, micro- credentials, and credentials that are meaningful to students, employers, and postsecondary partners.
  • Evaluate and deploy credentialing platforms (e.g., Accredible) or build internal solutions where external tools fall short.
  • Expand the Earl Woods Scholar Program alongside market growth and broaden college-access model beyond four-year pathways to include trades, technical routes, and workforce-aligned outcomes.

6. Health, Wellness & Sport-Based Learning

  • Define and scale a Health & Well-Being program model that uses sport, movement, and wellness practices as vehicles for student development, belonging, and lifelong health.
  • Build and align programming that integrates golf (or other sport-adjacent experiences by market) as a platform for teaching physical wellness, mental wellness, discipline, confidence, and relationship-building.
  • Develop applied learning experiences around the science and STEAM of sport - including biomechanics, performance data, sports media, sports medicine, nutrition, technology, and design - so wellness programming connects directly to the Foundation’s broader learning model.
  • Create clear career-connected pathways tied to sport and wellness, including exposure to professions such as coaching, sports medicine, athletic training, rehabilitation, media, technology, facility operations, and the business of sport.
  • Integrate broader mental health and wellness practices - including mindfulness, stress management, self-regulation, and healthy habit formation - into student experiences in age-appropriate and culturally responsive ways.

7. Innovation, Technology & Future Learning Models

  • Lead the Foundation’s technology-enabled learning strategy - AI-integrated curriculum, digital platforms, and tools that extend learning well beyond the walls of a Lab.
  • Partner with external vendors and technology builders to develop, deploy, and iterate on tools; the CLIO is the product owner, not the engineering function.
  • Establish a rigorous evaluation and adoption process for EdTech, AI tools, and curriculum platforms - with clear criteria for pilot, scale, sunset.
  • Drive innovation across emerging program constructs (Studios, Teams, Clubs, Summer Programs) and new learning models, and bring them through from concept to standard.

8. Trades & Workforce Strategy

  • Define and execute a multi-year strategy for trades and technical pathways as a first-class complement to STEAM and college-access work.
  • Set priority trades by market, aligned certification pathways, corporate partners, and the facility and equipment footprint required to deliver credibly.
  • Integrate trades into the broader program model so students see them as a real option - not a lesser track.
  • Build the employer pipeline that connects trades programming to pass through partners who can support with certifications, apprenticeships, union pathways, and direct hiring.

9. Cross-Lab Innovation & System Building

  • Create the mechanism that captures local innovation from individual Labs and translates it into national program standards.
  • Standardize cross-Lab learning environments, equipment and program constructs so a student in one city and a student in another recognize the same TGR.
  • Enable cross-Lab competitions, showcases, shared curriculum drops, and a shared national student identity.
  • Build a program operating rhythm - national convenings, cross-Lab working groups, program councils - that keeps the system tight as it grows.

10. Data, Measurement & Impact Systems

  • Refine the core program metrics and success indicators that the Foundation will be measured by - internally, by funders, and in the field.
  • Standardize definitions across Labs for retention, completion, conversion, pathway progression, and credential attainment so numbers are comparable and trustworthy.
  • Refine dashboards and reporting systems that make program performance visible to the CEO, SLT, board, and Executive Directors in near real time.
  • Use data to drive decisions - investment, intervention, expansion, and sunset - not just to report after the fact.

Candidate Profile

We are seeking a rare executive who combines strategic architecture with operational execution, education innovation with real-world practicality, and system-building with people leadership. Candidates will typically bring the following profile:

Experience

  • 10+ years of progressive experience in education, workforce development, EdTech, or related fields, with a material portion of that time in C-suite or equivalent executive roles.
  • Demonstrated success designing and scaling program models across multiple sites or markets — ideally inside a national organization, CMO, workforce intermediary, or productized education company.
  • Proven ownership of curriculum strategy and/or productized learning systems at scale; comfort with build-vs-partner-vs-buy decisions and credentialing infrastructure.
  • Track record leading large, distributed teams and holding them to measurable outcomes.
  • Experience across multiple sectors strongly preferred — for example, K–12 and out-of-school-time, workforce and CTE, technology and product.
  • Fluency with data and measurement systems; has built or meaningfully contributed to a program dashboard that executives and funders actually used.

Critical Traits

  • Entrepreneurial and solutions-oriented. Brings clarity to ambiguity and moves with speed.
  • Practical, not theoretical. Educator’s instincts without educator’s abstractions.
  • Strong judgment. Knows when to standardize and when to let markets flex.
  • Credible across audiences. Equally convincing with teachers, operators, CTOs, and corporate partners.
  • Builder’s temperament. Energized by a blank page and by the discipline required to turn it into a system.

Skills & Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in education, public policy, business, or a related field preferred.
  • Executive-level communication, including board- and funder-facing presence.
  • Strong financial and operational acumen; able to own a program P&L and build the business case for program investment.
  • Fluency with modern learning platforms, credentialing tools, and AI applications in education; able to evaluate vendors on substance.
  • Willingness and ability to travel regularly across markets.

Why This Role Matters

The Chief Learning Innovation Officer will determine whether TGR Foundation successfully translates a strong single-site model into a coherent, high-impact national system. Done well, the CLIO makes TGR unmistakably best-in-class across every market and a destination for educators, students, partners, and funders alike. Done poorly, the system fragments as it scales. There is no more consequential internal hire at the Foundation in this chapter.

Base Pay Range

$250k-$280k

This role is eligible for a performance bonus.

Equal Opportunity & How to Apply

TGR Foundation is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a leadership team whose backgrounds and lived experiences reflect the communities we serve.

To apply, please submit a cover letter and résumé as a single PDF to Riley Hubbard at [email protected]. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

As this is a confidential search, we’re unable to respond to individual inquiries or arrange exploratory calls at this stage.