Chief Technology and Operations Officer

Position Overview: NorthStar Academy is seeking an experienced Chief Technology and Operations Officer (CTOO) to provide executive leadership for technology, innovation, and organization-wide systems across our growing global online school. This is not simply an IT leadership position. As a fully online school, technology is foundational to nearly everything we do. Our students learn online. Our faculty teach online. Our staff works remotely. Our families and school partners engage with us from around the world. When technology works well, it removes barriers, strengthens relationships, improves learning, and allows people to do their work with excellence. The CTOO will lead NorthStar’s Technology & Innovation department and serve as a strategic partner to the CEO/Head of School and Executive Team. This leader will also partner closely with Teaching and Learning and leaders across NorthStar to strengthen the online learning experience, connect systems and data, improve organizational processes, and help NorthStar prepare for what is next. We are looking for a leader who can steward what has been built while also moving us forward. This person must be able to understand complex existing systems and why they exist, protect what is valuable, identify risk, challenge unnecessary complexity, and lead thoughtful change. The right leader will combine technical depth with strategic thinking, operational judgment, curiosity, and care for people. We need someone who will understand before changing, test before implementing, and continually ask whether there is a better way to accomplish the work.

Key Responsibilities: Provide executive leadership and accountability for NorthStar’s technology environment, department, team, systems, infrastructure, and strategy. Develop and lead a multi-year Technology & Innovation roadmap aligned with NorthStar’s mission, strategic priorities, academic goals, and future growth. Serve as a strategic technology partner to the CEO/Head of School and Executive Team. Evaluate NorthStar’s technology infrastructure, systems, integrations, vendors, processes, and staffing needs and establish priorities for improvement. Establish technology governance and a clear process for evaluating and prioritizing technology investments, platforms, integrations, and initiatives. Ensure technology resources are stewarded wisely, and investments are tied to meaningful organizational needs and outcomes. Anticipate emerging opportunities, risks, and changes that could affect NorthStar as an online school.

Systems, Reliability & Continuity: Provide leadership and oversight for NorthStar’s critical technology systems, platforms, integrations, infrastructure, identity and access management, and digital environment. Learn and document NorthStar’s existing technology architecture, integrations, custom processes, workflows, and dependencies before making significant changes. Identify single points of failure, technology risks, fragile processes, and undocumented dependencies. Ensure critical technology knowledge belongs to the organization rather than one individual through clear documentation, cross-training, backup ownership, and continuity planning. Establish appropriate standards for cybersecurity, privacy, access management, data protection, backups, disaster recovery, and technology risk. Ensure appropriate testing, validation, backup, and quality assurance occur before significant system changes are implemented. Oversee system integrations, implementations, upgrades, troubleshooting, and ongoing maintenance. Ensure NorthStar has appropriate internal or external expertise for specialized technical needs.

Academic Technology & Innovation: Partner closely with Teaching and Learning leadership to strengthen the technology ecosystem supporting curriculum, instruction, course design, assessment, faculty, and the student learning experience. Provide strategic leadership for the systems and integrations supporting NorthStar’s online learning environment. Explore technologies that can strengthen instructional effectiveness, accessibility, faculty efficiency, student engagement, personalization, and the overall quality of online learning. Help NorthStar anticipate how online education is changing and consider what an exceptional online Christian education should look like three to five years from now. Lead the thoughtful and responsible exploration and implementation of artificial intelligence, automation, and emerging technologies in partnership with academic and organizational leaders. Help establish appropriate standards, guardrails, training, and support for emerging technologies. Ensure technology supports excellent teaching, meaningful relationships, and strong pedagogy rather than driving educational decisions.

Digital Student & Family Experience: Partner across NorthStar to continually strengthen the digital experience of students and families from their first interaction with the school through enrollment, onboarding, learning, support, communication, and graduation. Identify where systems create barriers, confusion, duplication, or unnecessary work and bring appropriate leaders together to develop better solutions. Help create a more connected experience across platforms and departments. Use technology thoughtfully to make NorthStar easier to navigate, more personal, more relational, and more effective for those we serve. Help build a connected and reliable data environment that supports strong organizational decision-making. Strengthen system integrations, data governance, data ownership, accessibility, reporting, and the overall architecture connecting information across NorthStar. Protect the integrity, security, and accuracy of institutional data. Partner with leaders to strengthen reporting and dashboards so they have timely, trustworthy information to understand performance and make decisions. Help NorthStar use data more effectively to understand areas such as enrollment, retention, student success, academic performance, engagement, and organizational effectiveness. Ensure the goal of data work remains actionable insight rather than simply collecting more information.

School-Wide Systems & Improvement: Work across NorthStar to understand how people, processes, technology, and data connect. Evaluate systems and processes to determine what should be retained, simplified, automated, redesigned, integrated, or replaced. Identify unnecessary complexity, excessive manual steps, fragile workarounds, and processes that rely too heavily on individual knowledge. Lead cross-functional technology and systems initiatives that affect multiple departments. Identify root causes rather than repeatedly solving the same problems. Help departments determine whether challenges require a technology solution, a better process, clearer ownership, stronger communication, additional training, or another response. Identify responsible opportunities for automation that reduce repetitive work and create more space for meaningful, relational work. Build systems and processes that are scalable, sustainable, well-documented, and appropriate for NorthStar’s continued growth. Serve as a member of NorthStar’s Executive Team and contribute to the overall health, mission, strategy, and future of the school. Lead, develop, and hold accountable members of the Technology & Innovation team. Establish clear roles, responsibilities, priorities, expectations, and ownership. Build a team culture characterized by excellence, accuracy, responsiveness, curiosity, collaboration, service, and continual learning. Develop people rather than becoming the sole solution to every technical problem. Assess the capabilities NorthStar needs internally and determine when specialized external expertise is appropriate. Translate complex technical issues into clear choices, risks, implications, and recommendations for nontechnical leaders. Lead significant change with clarity, communication, appropriate pacing, training, and follow-through. Build strong partnerships across departments and listen carefully before prescribing solutions. Keep the student, family, faculty, and staff experience at the center of technology and systems decisions. The CTOO does not need to personally be the deepest technical expert in every area of technology. This leader does need the technical depth and executive judgment to understand complex systems, know what good looks like, ask the right questions, identify risk, build and lead the right team, engage specialized expertise when needed, and ultimately own the outcome.

Required Qualifications: Candidates should apply only if they meet the following qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in technology, information systems, educational technology, organizational leadership, education, or a closely related field. Master’s degree in a relevant field. Significant progressive leadership experience with increasing responsibility for technology strategy, teams, systems, operations, or digital transformation. Demonstrated experience leading technology at an organizational or enterprise level, beyond solely providing technical support or administering individual systems. Demonstrated experience leading and developing people, establishing accountability, and building effective teams. Experience developing or executing technology strategy and translating organizational priorities into a technology roadmap. Experience leading complex, cross-functional technology or systems initiatives involving multiple departments and stakeholders. Experience with cloud-based systems, SaaS platforms, system integrations, and complex organizational technology environments. Experience supporting or overseeing LMS, SIS, CRM, ERP, or comparable integrated systems. Strong working knowledge of cybersecurity, data protection, identity and access management, systems integration, technology risk, and continuity planning. Demonstrated ability to analyze complex systems and processes, identify root causes, and lead thoughtful, sustainable improvement. Experience leading technology projects from evaluation through implementation, adoption, and assessment. Experience managing technology vendors, platforms, contracts, or strategic partnerships. Ability to communicate complex technology issues clearly to executive leaders and nontechnical audiences. Demonstrated ability to lead organizational change, build trust, and bring people with you through significant transitions. Ability to balance innovation, security, accuracy, usability, stewardship, organizational capacity, and long-term sustainability.