Chief College and Career Success Officer

About Breakthrough Central Texas

Breakthrough is the leading college access and success non profit in Central Texas. For more than 20 years, we have partnered with thousands of middle and high school students who aspire to be the first in their family to graduate with a degree or certificate. We make a radical, long-term commitment to students, to and through college, unlocking the power of education and a lifetime of opportunity. We support the whole student with personalized services, work closely with community partners, campuses, and employers, and advocate for our students with lawmakers. Breakthrough students attend 60+ public schools and persist at nearly 100 colleges and universities. The result is that nearly 60% of Breakthrough students graduate from college, compared to 15% of low-income students in our region. Our work has resulted in more than 350 college graduates, with nearly 3,500 on their way, positively impacting families for generations, our region’s educational access, and the Central Texas economy.

Why Work at Breakthrough Central Texas

By working for Breakthrough Central Texas, you will help hundreds of students achieve their dreams of success and receive the high-quality education they deserve. Breakthrough is an organization committed to its students and recognizes that our greatest resource to support them is our dedicated and talented staff. If you believe all young people deserve the opportunity to achieve postsecondary success and you desire to work at an organization committed to its employees and building the strongest team culture anywhere, then join us!

About the Chief of College and Career Success Officer Role

Breakthrough Central Texas seeks a talented and enthusiastic individual to lead the strategic growth and implementation of its fastest growing program, the College and Career Success (CCS) program. The CCS program provides high-quality advising services and programs to students for up to six years after high school graduation to persist in and graduate with a postsecondary education. The overall goal of these efforts is to increase the rate of success and the number of students graduating with a diploma or certificate. Participants in Breakthrough’s programs start early, in middle school or high school. The CCS team picks up the support of these individuals after high school graduation, playing the critical role of helping students stay connected to the program and realize their definition of postsecondary success. The CCS program currently serves nearly 1,400 individuals and is projected to grow to approximately 2,000 by the end of the decade.

The Chief College and Career Success Officer is responsible for all services offered to young adults in the Breakthrough’s College and Career Success program. The CCCSO supervises a large and growing team of more than 20 professionals and AmeriCorps members in their efforts to provide advising and programs for students to enroll, re-enroll, transfer, persist, and graduate with a degree or certificate. The role is responsible for the team’s learning and development and ensures all have access to high-quality tools to carry out their roles, such as curriculum documents, advising checklists, protocols, and data platforms and reports. In addition, the role is critical to building and maintaining many of Breakthrough's strategic partnerships, especially with institutions of higher education (IHEs) serving significant numbers of Breakthrough students. As a member of the Leadership Team, the CCCSO reports to the Executive Director and collaborates most significantly with the Chief High School Programs Officer, who oversees all services for high schools students in the 12-Year Program, and the Chief College Access Officer, who oversees all services for high school students in Breakthrough’s Schoolwide Program. The CCCSO supervises two Directors of College and Career Success, and indirectly supports the full CCS team in their roles. Specific responsibilities of the CCCSO include:

Strategic Leadership for the College and Career Success Team

• Lead the strategic development, implementation, and continuous improvement of Breakthrough’s College and Career Success (CCS) program.
• Establish clear, measurable goals for college enrollment, persistence, credit momentum, and degree completion, and ensure the team uses data and research to drive progress toward these outcomes.
• Create and maintain advising protocols, program frameworks, and service-delivery models that ensure high-quality, equity-centered support from postsecondary entry through completion.
• Develop and oversee targeted interventions for students at high risk of stopping out, including financial aid strategies, academic supports, and crisis-response systems.
• Stay current on emerging research, policy trends, and best practices to inform program design and strengthen student outcomes.
• Oversee the integrity, accuracy, and usefulness of all CCS data, including enrollment data, financial aid information, transcripts, case notes, and student progress indicators.
• Lead the development and refinement of systems, tools, workflows, and dashboards that enable the CCS team’s student monitoring and strong performance against organizational goal outcomes.
• Partner with the Data and Research team to implement evaluation processes and learning cycles that translate insights into program enhancements and staff capacity-building.
• Ensure adherence to FERPA, data privacy standards, and organizational data security practices.
• Work closely with the Chief Operations Officer to develop and manage the CCS program budget, including forecasting staffing needs, allocating resources, and ensuring alignment between financial decisions and programmatic goals.

Partnership and Institutional Relationships

• Design, negotiate, and implement innovative partnership models with higher education institutions and nonprofit partners, including shared advising structures, data-sharing agreements, micro-grant models, and coordinated persistence initiatives.
• Build and steward relationships with institutional leaders, administrators, and community partners to address systemic barriers and improve student outcomes.
• Manage partnerships with scholarship providers to ensure aligned, coordinated supports for students.
• Maintain and expand contracts, MOUs, and/or formal agreements that advance shared partnership goals.

Talent Management and Staff Development

• Supervise, support, develop, and evaluate the Directors of College and Career Success, while also providing strong team leadership to all CCS staff members so that they are positioned to deliver high- quality programs and services.
• Lead recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and retention efforts to build a diverse, high-performing team.
• Create performance management systems, professional development structures, and leadership pathways that strengthen staff skills and team performance.
• Foster a healthy, inclusive, high-trust culture within CCS and help shape positive organizational culture across Breakthrough.

Organization-Wide Leadership

• Serve as an active member of the organizational Leadership Team, supporting successful implementation of Breakthrough’s strategic plan and organization-wide priorities.
• Partner with leaders across departments to ensure alignment of services and seamless student pathways across middle school, high school, and college success programming.
• Collaborate with the Development team to identify resource gaps and design proposals or funding strategies that strengthen CCS program sustainability.
• Report, alongside the Executive Director and Leadership Team members, to the Board of Trustees on program impact, progress, and challenges.
• Represent Breakthrough in local, statewide, and national forums focused on postsecondary access and persistence, sharing insights from our work and contributing to broader field learning.
• Liaise with Breakthrough's Development and Communications team members, as needed, to support fundraising, messaging, and organizational storytelling.

About You

You are a strong candidate for the Chief College and Career Success Officer role if, above all, you are a champion for increasing social and economic opportunity through educational attainment. You are a servant leader, and feel at your best in deep relationship with the communities in which you serve and in collaboration with others you work and partner with. You love to design and build, comfortable with being a leader of a team executing current services and also preparing for growth. You bring content expertise in education, youth and adult development, postsecondary readiness and persistence, and partnership development. You will also bring experience or demonstrated capacity to:

• Lead in a school, district, higher education institution, or college-success nonprofit, including knowledge of best practices in leadership and evidence-based postsecondary access and success practices.
• Drive innovation and develop programs from idea to impact to scale, particularly initiatives that involve collaboration with postsecondary partners.
• Build partnerships by establishing clear collaboration protocols, cultivating trust, and communicating shared goals and outcomes effectively.
• Create and improve systems that support program efficiency, effectiveness, and performance management.
• Manage complexity by exhibiting sound judgement and thoughtful decision making in ambiguous situations, responding with flexibility and a bias toward thoughtful action.
• Approach conversations and decisions with openness and humility, and awareness of identity, power, and privilege.
• Create the conditions for high performance and talent retention by setting priorities, delegating effectively, managing conflicts, stewarding team culture, and coaching the team to ensure progress toward goals.
• Lead collaboratively with other teams and department heads to set strategic vision, ensure alignment, maintain operational efficiency, and create meaningful impact.
• Deliver or oversee strong postsecondary advising to skillfully support young adults to cultivate a sense of belonging, connect to campus resources, identify strong ‘fit’ institutions and programs, complete degree steps, explore careers, and address barriers to their continued enrollment.
• Align systems, structures, and resources to support student success, and organize complex projects to achieve defined outcomes.
• Communicate Breakthrough’s mission, student stories, and community strengths to diverse audiences through compelling and inclusive messaging strategies.
• Prioritize effectively and consistently deliver on commitments in a timely manner.

Reporting and Supervising Relationships

The CCCSO will report to the Executive Director and will be a member of the Breakthrough Leadership Team. Direct reports will include Directors of College and Career Success and, indirectly, the CCCSO will support the professional staff and AmeriCorps members working on the team.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary between $105,000-$142,000 depending on experience and qualifications.
• Health, dental and vision insurance(Breakthrough pays 100% of employee premiums)
• Life insurance
• Matching 401K retirement plan
• Thirty days of PTO annually, with immediate accrual, recognizing that staff have lives outside of work
• Additional leave benefits, including company holidays and FMLA eligibility (varies by year)

Breakthrough Central Texas provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Compensation and Benefits

• Competitive salary between $105,000-$142,000 depending on experience and qualifications.
• Health, dental and vision insurance(Breakthrough pays 100% of employee premiums)
• Life insurance
• Matching 401K retirement plan
• Thirty days of PTO annually, with immediate accrual, recognizing that staff have lives outside of work
• Additional leave benefits, including company holidays and FMLA eligibility (varies by year)