Senior Director, Program Operations

Company Introduction

WorldStrides is the global leader in educational travel and experiential learning. The company was founded in 1967 to provide middle school travel programs to Washington, D.C. and has grown to provide a wide range of programs for more than half a million students annually to over 100 countries around the world. WorldStrides offers experiential learning programs in educational travel, performing arts, language immersion, career exploration, service-learning, study abroad, and sports. Each of these experiences helps students to see beyond the classroom and to see the world – and themselves – in new ways.

Job Description:

As a collaborative and customer-centered leader, this role builds strong partnerships, aligns diverse stakeholders around a shared vision, and drives the design, innovation, and continuous improvement of a nationwide portfolio of educational programs. Working across the organization, the position leads strategic initiatives that deliver exceptional educational experiences and a consistent standard of quality, safety, and satisfaction. This role partners closely with adjacent functional areas — including Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, Technology/IT, and HR — to reduce friction points across the customer journey and create meaningful outcomes for our customers, including students, families, academic partners, and staff.

This role leads and helps shape the Program Operations organization, with the opportunity to build and evolve the team structure to support the business's next phase of growth. The current organization requires thoughtful redesign and right-sizing — driven by the need to align staffing with current business volume, not by performance — and this role will play a central part in building toward renewed growth. This role is accountable for the end-to-end delivery of complex educational programs, ensuring operational excellence through effective planning, execution, and cost governance. This role is accountable for a cost-of-sales budget of approximately $30M and is measured on a combination of participant satisfaction (NPS), quality and safety standards, and gross margin management. The position champions process optimization and change management while maintaining the highest standards of quality, safety, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

This role carries responsibility for participant welfare and safety at all times during program delivery, including off-hours on-call responsibility. The role requires full personal availability and engagement during the peak delivery season (June 1 – July 31), including extensive travel and time away from home; candidates should weigh this expectation carefully against personal and family commitments during the summer months.

Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership for a nationwide portfolio of educational programs by developing and executing vision, priorities, and operational strategies that advance operational excellence goals, educational quality, and participant outcomes.
• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing Program Operations team — building new capabilities where needed while strengthening and stabilizing existing team structures. This role will have real latitude to help define and build the team's future structure rather than inherit a fixed one.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement. Oversee the end-to-end planning, execution, and evaluation of educational programs, ensuring excellence in curriculum implementation, staffing, logistics, materials, housing, training, communications, site operations, and overall program delivery.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders across Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, Technology/IT, and HR to align organizational priorities and implement innovative solutions that enhance operational effectiveness, scalability, and the participant experience, while advancing a culture of teamwork, accountability, and shared success.
• Bring a strategic, business-minded lens to discussions with functional area leaders during program development — weighing cost, feasibility, timeline, and quality against long-term organizational priorities, and shaping decisions that support both the customer experience and business goals.
• Lead strategic operational improvement initiatives across the portfolio, optimizing operational systems and workflows — including identifying opportunities for automation and AI-enabled process improvement — to enhance scalability and participant outcomes while supporting change adoption.
• Monitor program performance through enrollment trends, financial results, operational metrics, quality standards, and key performance indicators; proactively identify risks and opportunities, implement corrective actions, and ensure continuous improvement.
• Ensure programs consistently achieve or exceed organizational goals for participant satisfaction, educational quality, customer service, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) while maintaining safe, engaging, and exceptional learning experiences.
• Direct workforce planning, recruitment, hiring, onboarding, training, and performance management for full-time and seasonal staff to ensure organizational readiness and operational excellence.
• Provide financial stewardship and P&L oversight for the cost-of-sales and operating budget through strategic planning, forecasting, contract administration, resource allocation, and fiscal governance to optimize profitability.
• Ensure all programs are delivered safely, on schedule, within budget, and in compliance with contractual commitments, organizational standards, and established operational objectives.
• Establish clear performance expectations, accountability measures, and operational governance to ensure departmental goals, timelines, quality standards, and service commitments are consistently achieved.
• Serve as the senior operational leader during complex situations by resolving critical issues, managing emergency response and student crises (including off-hours), providing executive decision-making, and communicating effectively with families, partners, and internal stakeholders.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree required, advanced degree preferred.
• Ten or more years of progressive leadership experience in educational program operations, organizational leadership, or a related field (e.g., camps/youth programs, hospitality, large-scale event operations), including responsibility for large, complex, multi-site programs.
• Demonstrated success leading high-performing, cross-functional teams and collaborating across departments to develop and execute strategic initiatives that align operational, educational, and business objectives with organizational mission and growth.
• Proven experience managing directors, managers, and large seasonal, remote, and geographically dispersed workforces while fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Strong business and financial acumen, including strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting, program economics, contract and vendor management, resource allocation, and cost optimization — with demonstrated ability to evaluate trade-offs and drive decisions in a for-profit, margin-conscious environment.
• Demonstrated experience with duty-of-care responsibilities, including on-call emergency response and crisis management involving the safety and welfare of program participants.
• Extensive experience overseeing complex operational logistics, program execution, organizational transformation, and scalable processes in a fast-paced, customer-focused environment.
• Demonstrated expertise in organizational process design, workflow optimization, continuous improvement, and change management, with the ability to lead enterprise-wide operational transformation.
• Experience translating operational requirements into technology solutions and partnering with technology teams to implement systems, workflow automation, and process architecture — including familiarity with how AI and emerging technology can improve efficiency, scalability, and customer experience.
• Exceptional strategic thinking, organizational leadership, communication, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence diverse stakeholders, drive alignment, and deliver measurable organizational results.

What Success Looks Like:

• Customer Experience: Demonstrable improvement in the end-to-end participant and family experience, with cleaner handoffs across functions.
• Financial Performance: A right-sized cost structure aligned to current revenue, disciplined management of the cost-of-sales budget, and a credible path back toward historical delivery scale.
• Educational Quality & Safety: Programs consistently meet quality and safety standards across the full program portfolio and all delivery locations.
• Operational Excellence: Reliable, well-governed delivery across a compressed, high-intensity summer season.
• Change Management & Innovation: Visible progress on process improvement and workflow redesign, with measurable efficiency gains.
• AI & Automation Fluency: A working understanding of where automation adds value, with the judgment to engage the right resources rather than needing to build solutions personally.
• Team Leadership: A stabilized, right-structured team, with credible progress on organizational development.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Recognized by peers across Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, Technology, and HR as a collaborative, business-minded partner.

Work Perks:

• Comprehensive health benefits: medical, dental, vision, life, AD&D, accident, critical illness, disability insurance, FSA/HSA options with employer HSA contributions, and a generous 401(k) match.
• Generous paid time off including 11 paid company holidays, 25 PTO days the first year (prorated), 1 paid volunteer day, 4 mental health days, and bereavement
• Professional development support, including up to $5,250 annually for tuition reimbursement and up to $1,000 for certifications annually
• Opportunities for paid and discounted travel
• Flexible work schedule providing on-site, remote, and hybrid office opportunities
• Encouraged participation in a wide variety of Employee Resource Groups
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and wellness resources, including fitness centers at select locations
• Paid parental, caregiver, and disability leave
• Team Member Discount Program
• Engaging, collaborative, and fun work environment