Vice President of Programs at Scholars of Finance – New York, New York
Explore Related Opportunities
About This Position
Since 2019, we’ve built a community of 7,000+ students across 60+ universities, raised more than $10M, and earned the backing of founding partners including KKR, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and U.S. Bank. We sit at the intersection of leadership development, finance, and higher ed — a small, fast-moving team playing an infinite game, and we’re growing deliberately.
We’re not a fully built machine. We have a clear mission, strong momentum, and a team that leads with integrity, humility, compassion, and excellence. If that’s the kind of culture you want to build within, we’d like to talk.
As VP of Programs, you’ll own the full student experience — from chapter management and leadership coaching to curriculum development and impact measurement — and serve as an external face of the organization across three stakeholder communities: the corporate partners who hold events with us and believe in our mission, the student chapter leaders we develop, and the peer organizations and industry partners who extend our reach.
This is an Executive Team position. You’ll lead a national team supporting campus leaders at 60+ universities, delivering programming for 4,000+ students annually, and building the systems that make quality consistent and scalable across every site. You’ll represent SOF in rooms that matter — with institutional partners, on campuses, and across the broader finance and EdTech ecosystem.
This role is for someone who has worked in or alongside finance, who moves with urgency, builds things that last, and leads with both authority and genuine care for the people they serve.
- Build and sustain relationships with SOF’s three core external communities: corporate partners including BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, student chapter leaders across 60+ universities, and peer organizations and industry partners across the finance and higher ed ecosystem.
- Represent the organization with integrity and confidence in high-stakes external settings — partner meetings, campus visits, industry events, and conversations with funders and institutional allies.
- Set the standard for how SOF shows up externally — ensuring every touchpoint with students, partners, and peers reflects the mission, values, and caliber of the organization.
- Lead the team supporting student chapter leaders across 60+ university sites — coaching the coaches and building the infrastructure that makes quality consistent at scale.
- Define what a high-performing chapter looks like, and build the playbooks, training, and systems to help every chapter get there.
- Build early-warning systems that surface challenges before they escalate, with responses that are fast, thoughtful, and values-aligned.
- Build and scale the systems that let a distributed, fast-moving team deliver consistently excellent programs across every site.
- Lead impact measurement and student engagement tracking that generates real insight and informs decisions.
- Oversee curriculum development with a bias toward what works — iterating quickly and scaling only what delivers results.
- Maintain a clear pipeline of program improvements: defined hypotheses, honest metrics, fast cycles.
- 10+ years in program management, client-facing leadership, or team leadership — FinTech, EdTech startups, financial institutions, or mission-driven organizations preferred.
- 5+ years managing team members.
- Direct professional experience in finance — You've worked in a banking, investment, corporate finance, or FinTech capacity, or you've worked closely with finance firms managing budgets, coordinating professional services/programs, or managing banking relationships. You need to understand the world our students are entering and be credible to the partners who support them.
- Demonstrated ability to build and scale systems across multiple sites or client accounts simultaneously.
- Track record of external stakeholder leadership: managing corporate partners, clients, or institutional relationships at a senior level.
- Exceptional executive communication — you write with precision, speak with authority, and are fully comfortable as a public face of an organization in high-stakes settings.
- Bachelor’s degree.
- Background in FinTech product, EdTech platforms, or chapter-based / multi-site networks.
- Experience managing or partnering with institutional investors, banks, or financial services firms at a senior level.
- Experience in startups or high-growth companies strongly preferred.
Beyond the resume, we’re looking for someone who:
- Leads from the front —You’re energized by external engagement. You move between a Goldman partner meeting and a college campus and show up fully in both.
- Communicates with authority and compassion — You communicate with excellence in writing, in person, and in rooms that matter. People listen when you speak, and you make everyone in the room feel seen.
- Builds to scale —You think in systems, iterate fast, and aren’t satisfied with something that works once. You want it to work everywhere, every time.
- Moves with urgency —You thrive in fast environments, make decisions decisively, and course-correct quickly without losing your values.
- Leads with humility —You are a servant leader. You know that your job is to make the people around you excellent, and that doing that well is the highest form of leadership.
- Cares about this mission — You know how finance shapes the world. You believe that who leads it matters, and you want to be part of changing it for the better.
- $140,000–$150,000 salary
- 401(k) with 100% match up to 5% of base salary
- Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
- Unlimited PTO with all federal holidays off
- Quarterly team offsites, fully covered
- A team committed to your holistic thriving — spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically
SOF is playing an infinite game. We’re not optimizing for the next quarter — we’re building toward a future where thousands of our alumni are running the world’s most powerful financial institutions with integrity and purpose. The VP of Programs is the person who shapes the stories those alumni will carry with them for the rest of their careers.
This role will own decisions that materially shape thousands of students’ lives and the long-term direction of the organization. If you want to be the person in the room when it matters — with the partners, with the students, and with the team — we’d like to talk.