Director, IT & Security

Role overview Set the strategy and day-to-day practice for IT and cybersecurity across a nonprofit education venture studio and its growing portfolio of incubated initiatives. The role combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution, partnering with internal teams and external vendors to mature systems, strengthen security posture, and embed data stewardship organization-wide.

Responsibilities - Build and maintain a comprehensive inventory of applications, data flows, and integrations to surface risks, redundancies, and optimization opportunities. - Rationalize and optimize the technology stack by evaluating usage, cost, and security posture to reduce duplication and improve interoperability. - Develop and lead the cybersecurity strategy, including policies aligned to SOC 2 and related frameworks, secure architecture across cloud, network, and applications, and incident response. - Implement scalable identity and access management workflows grounded in least-privilege and role-based principles. - Manage the IT vendor relationship, ensure SLAs and data processing agreements are met, and guide shared workstreams such as device management and network security. - Provide advisory support to incubated ventures on IT infrastructure, security practices, and compliance as they scale. - Track metrics, manage audits, and present IT and security performance plus emerging risks to leadership and the board.

Requirements - 10+ years of experience in IT operations, cybersecurity, or technology leadership roles. - Deep expertise in cybersecurity best practices, including SOC 2 and related compliance frameworks. - Strong leadership and communication skills, with experience partnering across operations, finance, data, and program teams. - Hands-on experience with cloud, network, and application security architectures. - Background in vendor management, including oversight of SLAs and data processing agreements. - Proactive, solution-oriented approach balanced with operational rigor.

Nice to have - Experience working with nonprofit or mission-driven organizations and portfolio or venture models. - Background in data classification, retention, and governance.

Benefits and work setup - Remote-first with travel expectations of at least two times per year for in-person team retreats and program events across various US cities. - Core working hours of Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm, with flexibility based on workload. - Stipends that partially cover phone and internet costs, home office setup, and wellness. - Team retreats and in-person meetings throughout the year.