Chief of People and Culture

Description

Chief of People and Culture

Join a compassionate team of lifelong learners, dedicated to building a strong, intentionally integrated community and making the word a better place in the heart of Washington, DC!

The Organization:

Founded in 2011 as Washington, DC’s first “green” public charter school, Mundo Verde is an EL Education, language immersion school serving over 1,000 students across two campuses. Our core pillars—bilingualism, hands-on learning, and sustainability—guide our innovative educational approach, shaping confident kids who generate sustainable solutions. Students in PK-kindergarten are taught and assessed exclusively in Spanish, and 50 percent of instruction in grades 1-5 is in Spanish. Our mission is to foster high levels of academic achievement among a diverse group of students by preparing them to be successful and compassionate global stewards of their communities.

With the hiring of a new Executive Director in February 2025, the launch of a new strategic planning process in spring 2025, and its fifteen-year anniversary in 2026, Mundo Verde is at an inflection point in its development as an organization. Mundo Verde seeks to build a strong executive team of mission-driven, compassionate leaders who can lead the school in realizing its mission and chart the path for its next phase.

The Call:

At Mundo Verde, we recognize that the adults in our community—teachers, staff, and leadership—are the key to achieving our mission.  The Chief of People and Culture is a central leader to Mundo Verde’s executive team who thrives on making the organization a great place to work, and a great community to be a part of, for a rich and varied group of people, and knows they can bring others along with that vision. This person relishes the challenge of balancing the need for consistency and clarity across an organization of nearly 300 staff with an orientation towards values of compassion and meeting individual needs across our rich community.  This leader will also model and support adults operating as “CREW,” which comes from our Expeditionary Learning roots and means working as one team to get up the mountain.  This will be Mundo Verde’s first Chief of People and Culture, and under a new ED and strategic plan will have a unique opportunity to shape the future of Mundo Verde.

What you will accomplish in this role:

Proactively ensure Mundo Verde is a great place to work by putting in place talent practices that align to our belief that our staff are our greatest asset in achieving our mission for students.

• Work with Mundo Verde’s Executive Director to set and build investment in a vision and strategy for talent management that is aligned to this belief.
• Design and implement a robust, supportive and mission-aligned evaluation system for all Mundo Verde staff.
• Ensure quality supervision and management across the network and both campuses so that all Mundo Verde staff feel supported and well-prepared to serve our students and families.
• Support the Executive Director with executing our adult leadership work to build a staff culture of belonging, collaboration and trust across the range of perspectives in our community.
• In collaboration with the Chief Academic Officer, set the vision for Mundo Verde’s professional development for all staff and ensure delivery of high-quality professional development programming across the network, including identifying and implementing training related to talent issues (e.g. training on supervision).
• Lead the exploration of innovative and evidence-based practices to improve staff satisfaction and retention, such as staffing flexibility.

Lead and develop our team of talent professionals to be the go-to partners for our staff and other departments.

• Supervise and coach our talent team, led by the Director of Human Resources and Senior Director of Talent, helping them provide high-quality resources and support to our staff.
• Lead the talent team in collaboration with other areas of the organization to ensure alignment between our work to attract and support great people with the goals of those other departments.
• Support workforce planning aligned to needs across the organization.
   

Serve as a trusted executive partner with our collective bargaining unit.

• Serve as the lead liaison between the executive team and our collective bargaining unit, and support and develop a strong relationship with our union leadership, including supporting the Executive Director with leading regular Labor Management Committee meetings.
• Provide support for renegotiations for Mundo Verde’s contract with its collective bargaining unit for 2026-2029.
   

Embrace the important work of navigating challenges in talent management in urgent, confidential and mission-critical matters, and serve as Mundo Verde’s representative on talent concerns.

• Lead management of all human resources-related issues and labor relations, and ensure organizational compliance with Mundo Verde’s current collective bargaining agreement.
• Serve as liaison between Mundo Verde’s ED and labor counsel.
• Lead and/or advise on all internal investigations related to personnel issues.
• Model a person-centered, emotionally-intelligent coaching, collaboration and mediation approach for other leaders in the organization when challenges arise.
   

Oversee our policies to ensure we are delivering on our commitments to staff, students and our mission.

• Lead the annual revision and ongoing implementation of Mundo Verde’s personnel policies to ensure alignment with industry best practices and our organizational values.
• Incorporate family and staff feedback into annual updates to Mundo Verde’s family handbook, ensuring alignment with our organizational values.

The tangible good (what you get):

• The starting compensation for this position will be $170,000-$190,000.
• Mundo Verde offers a competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, short/long-term and life insurance, employer contributions to a 401(k), a transportation stipend, and paid time off (28 days of PTO: 8 Sick, 20 Personal), off on holidays scheduled in the school calendar. 

For consideration: MVBPCS is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that does not unlawfully discriminate in any of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or on any other basis prohibited by applicable law.  We welcome candidates from a range of backgrounds to apply.

Qualifications

Who should apply?

Leaders who have:

• 10 years of talent experience with a track record of successfully developing and managing people-centered talent and HR systems, with a preference for experience in education and/or mission-oriented or non-profit organizations.
• Interest in working with a mission-driven executive team to re-establish trust, build staff morale and lead effective change management to build a unified community in service of students.
• Strong understanding of best practices in building culture, employee engagement, organizational design, and HR.
• Experience realizing ambitious goals by setting priorities, anticipating challenges, building and maintaining strong yet responsive systems, managing and implementing a plan, and building team members’ investment and capacity. 
• Expertise and experience in employment law strongly preferred.
• Experience with trauma-informed coaching and/or mediation preferred.
• Some Spanish language proficiency (would be an asset).

Salary : $170,000 - $190,000