Associate Director Project & Portfolio Management

Associate Director, Project & Portfolio Management

College Board – Advanced Placement & Instruction

Location: This is a remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes.

Role Type: This is a full-time position

About the Team

The AP Prototype Development and Evaluation team exists to help AP learn fast and decide well on major innovations that could materially affect outcomes, operations, trust, or costs-to-serve. The team evaluates high-impact program and product changes before the organization commits to build and scale, producing decision-ready recommendations grounded in market requirements, implementation feasibility, directional economics, and evidence from staged pilots. 

The team functions as an internal viability studio, drawing on cross-functional contributors assembled around each initiative to ensure AP pursues innovations that are desirable, workable, sustainable, and aligned to strategy. It also creates the confidence to stop early when the facts don't support moving forward. 

About the Opportunity 

The Associate Director, Project & Portfolio Management is the team's most collaborative and flexible role, bringing structure and continuity to a fast-moving portfolio of prototype and pilot initiatives so work stays organized, on track, and well documented. This role thrives on shifting priorities and ambiguity, moving fluidly between leading cross-functional execution across the portfolio and producing and managing the team's decision-ready documents. The Associate Director owns the operating cadence and knowledge systems that let the team move quickly without losing rigor, ensuring work flows smoothly across contributors and workstreams and that the team's knowledge and artifacts stay easy to find and reuse, and that proposed initiatives carry clear delivery and financial framing before AP commits to build.

In this role, you will:

Program & Project Management (60%) 

• Own project management across the full lifecycle for the team's portfolio of prototype and pilot initiatives, including timelines, milestones, dependencies, and decision gates 

• Coordinate the team's cross-functional work: convene contributors, track commitments, and keep workstreams aligned to charters and deadlines 

• Operate the team's project intake and kickoff process, from intake through retrospective, so each initiative starts and closes with consistency 

• Track risks, blockers, dependencies, open questions and decisions across active initiatives, and escalate items that threaten timelines or go/no-go gates 

• Build and maintain trackers and status reporting that give the team and leadership a clear, current view of portfolio health 

• Support pilot execution by coordinating logistics, stakeholder communications, timelines, and launch readiness activities 

• Maintain visibility across the team's portfolio of active initiatives, pilots, and evaluation efforts, ensuring work remains aligned with strategic priorities  

Knowledge Management and Team Operations (40%) 

• Own the team's document and knowledge management system, including the artifact library, templates, version control, naming conventions, and access 

• Maintain the library of reusable artifacts (pilot charters, decision memos, evaluation plans, project briefs) so they are easy to find, reuse, and hand off 

• Manage document workflows: drafting support, routing for review, and final production of decision-ready materials 

• Capture and organize team decisions, learnings, and process improvements so knowledge persists across initiatives 

• Facilitate agile-style planning including sprint or cycle planning, standups, backlog grooming, and retrospectives 

About You

To qualify for this role, you must have: 

• 4+ years of experience in project or program management, with demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi-stakeholder portfolios across their full lifecycle, (including timelines, dependencies, risks, and decision gates) in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment

• Experience owning knowledge and document management systems, including building templates, version control, and reusable artifact libraries

• Strong writing, editing, and document production skills: able to shape, produce, and route clear, well-structured materials under tight timelines

• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time for team and stakeholder meetings

Preferred qualifications include

• Experience with Agile methodology

All roles at College Board require:

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort with learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively. 

• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal

• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.

• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.

• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success

• Authorization to work in the United States

About Our Process  

• Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

• While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.   

What We Offer

At College Board, we offer more than a paycheck: we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation

• The hiring range for this role is $56,000 - $90,000.

• Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at the College Board.

• We aim to make our best offer upfront, rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data.

• We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live.

You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.