CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER - UNCLASSIFIED

Posting number: 2026-03135

Department: NDE - DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Job classification: Unclassified

Posting type: Open Competitive

Categories: Education

Summary

The Chief Strategy Officer serves as a strategic partner and trusted confidant to the State Superintendent, helping translate the Superintendent's vision into measurable outcomes for students, educators, and communities across Nevada. This is a senior advisory role operating at the strategic core of the agency. This role requires sound judgment, deep organizational awareness, and the ability to provide a balanced, cross-agency perspective across complex organizational and stakeholder dynamics. The Chief Strategy Officer is responsible for driving alignment across the agency; strengthening internal systems and operations; supporting the Superintendent’s communications and engagement with the state legislature as well as keyboards, commissions, and councils; and ensuring the effective execution of the Nevada Department of Education’s priorities and initiatives. 

The Chief Strategy Officer leads agency-wide coordination, performance management, and executive operations, enabling NDE to operate with clarity, urgency, and coherence in service of its strategic priorities. This role is also responsible for building the internal operating systems that translate strategy into execution and measurable results. Critically, this role is designed to free the Superintendent to focus on the highest-priority decisions and relationships by ensuring information flows well, follow-through happens without prompting, and challenges are surfaced early enough to be addressed proactively.

Examples of duties

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum of seven (7) years of progressively responsible professional experience in strategic planning, performance management, public policy, or organizational leadership, with at least three (3) years in a supervisory or management capacity, ideally in a complex, multi-stakeholder public-sector or mission-driven environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in education, public policy, business administration, public administration, or a closely related field is preferred.
• Experience in public sector or large governmental organizations.
• Knowledge of state education systems, public agency governance and legislative processes, enterprise performance management, and organizational change management.

Qualifications

1. Executive Leadership & Agency Coordination

• Leadership Convenings: Lead the planning, facilitation, and follow-through for the Superintendent’s Cabinet, Director meetings, and cross-functional leadership convenings.
• Strategic Advising: Serve as a thought partner to the Superintendent on strategy, sequencing, and decision-making using synthesized, cross-agency perspectives.
• Strategic Communications: Support the Superintendent in communicating strategically, effectively, and consistently across internal and external settings.
• Relationships & Culture: Support board, legislative, and key external relationships while driving a high-performance, accountable culture.

2. Strategy Execution & Performance Management

• System Building & Execution: Build and execute management systems to track progress on strategic priorities and major initiatives using regular review cycles, performance dashboards, and escalation pathways.
• Organizational Systems & Decision-Making: Improve organizational systems and decision-making processes to reduce bottlenecks, support division goal setting, and ensure data-driven execution across teams.
• Proactive Follow-Through: Serve as a force multiplier by anticipating information needs, coordinating follow-through, and ensuring priorities are consistently translated into action.

3. Boards, Commissions, & Legislative Affairs

• Governance Oversight: Oversee the coordination and management of processes related to the State Board of Education, NDE-connected commissions, councils, advisory bodies, and legislative engagement.
• Operations & Alignment: Ensure high-quality agenda development, materials preparation, and meeting execution that align board and commission work with agency priorities.
• Partner Engagement: Support the Superintendent in building productive working relationships with board members and legislative partners, ensuring engagement is well-coordinated, well-prepared, and reflective of agency priorities.

4. Enterprise Systems & Operations

• Strategic & Operational Alignment: Align enterprise operations with the Department's strategic priorities across current portfolio functions (policy and communications) and potential expanded shared services (technology, HR, facilities).
• Efficiency & Improvement: Lead cross-agency operational improvements, strengthen service delivery, reduce duplication, and recommend system redesigns or consolidations to support overall agency performance.

Supplemental information

We are looking for someone who:

• Has prior experience in a chief of staff, senior policy, strategy, or executive advisory role in government, education, or a comparably complex organization
• Brings strong organizational awareness: able to quickly develop deep knowledge of an agency's people, priorities, and stakeholder landscape and translate that knowledge into better-coordinated, better-informed decision-making
• Demonstrates sound judgment and discretion, including being comfortable synthesizing competing perspectives and offering candid, balanced counsel to senior leaders
• Communicates with clarity and impact, both in writing and in high-stakes verbal settings
• Is a strong project manager who follows through consistently and holds others to the same standard
• Brings emotional intelligence and interpersonal range: equally effective building trust with a classroom teacher, a division director, or a state legislator
• Is deeply motivated by the mission of public education and by delivering results for students and communities across Nevada