**This position can be located in either Kansas City or St. Louis.

Vivo Missouri

Vivo Missouri is a nonprofit private school network building innovative, recovery-focused high schools designed for young people who want different paths to success. Our schools combine rigorous, project-based academics with strong recovery supports, internships, and real-world learning to help students reconnect to purpose, community, and their future. We believe in high expectations, deep relationships, and continuous improvement, and we are relentless in pursuing outcomes that change life trajectories. At Vivo, adults and students learn, build, and grow together in service of meaningful, self-directed lives.

Vivo schools are Big Picture Learning schools, immersing students in work they are passionate about in order to develop skills, habits, and knowledge to actualize their post-high school plans and contribute positively to their communities. Teachers serve as advisors to a small group of 15 students and work with those students to develop individualized learning plans that include a substantial amount of learning through internships, apprenticeships, and rigorous, interest-based projects. Our schools align to Big Picture Learning’s Ten Distinguishers and our leaders embody the Leadership principles of Love, Breakthrough Leadership, Learning Organization, and Student-Aligned School Design. 

Employment Status

This is a full-time, exempt, at-will position. The Executive Director reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). 

Position Overview

The Executive Director (ED) is the senior operational leader for Vivo Missouri, responsible for translating the organization’s vision into scalable, high-performing systems that support multiple school sites statewide. The ED directly supports School Leaders and serves as the organization’s top leader for business operations, finance, human resources, compliance, and organizational systems.

This role exists to reduce complexity, increase clarity, and enable scale—freeing the CEO to focus on vision, fundraising, and growth. The Executive Director brings discipline to execution, builds strong managers, and ensures that academic, recovery, and business systems are documented, repeatable, and operating at a consistently high level of excellence across 2–4 sites.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate Vision into Scalable Operations: Leads the development, documentation, and continuous improvement of core organizational systems. Ensures that academic, recovery, and business processes are clearly defined, repeatable, and aligned to agreed-upon standards of excellence. Ensures programs align with mission and quality standards; monitor KPIs and impact metrics.  Establishes and maintains a shared organizational understanding of what is “tight” (non-negotiable) and what is “loose” (site-level flexibility) to support both fidelity and innovation.
• Leadership & Management of School Leaders: Directly supervises and supports School Leaders, ensuring they are hired, onboarded, developed, and retained effectively. Builds leadership capacity so School Leaders are successful in meeting their goals. Provides clear expectations, coaching, feedback, and accountability aligned to organizational goals.
• Financial & Operational Discipline: Oversees finance, HR, compliance, risk management, and operational infrastructure. Ensures expenses remain within approved budgets, financial controls are strong, and the organization maintains 100% compliance with all regulatory, fiscal, and authorizer requirements. Leads the development and execution of mitigation plans for key organizational risks.
• Organizational Systems & Execution: Designs systems that ensure work gets done with consistency, quality, and follow-through. Drives execution discipline across the organization by setting priorities, monitoring progress, and removing obstacles. Uses data and dashboards to surface issues early and support effective decision-making.
• Culture, Communication & Alignment: Establishes a clear cadence of communication and accountability, including executive meetings, all-staff updates, and regular performance reviews. Leads the development and adoption of mission-aligned operating principles that guide how work gets done across Vivo. Implements systems to measure staff engagement, satisfaction, and feedback, using results to inform improvement and retention strategies.
• Talent, Performance & Coaching: Serves as the organization’s top people manager. Builds and supports strong managers, holds leaders accountable for results, and ensures performance expectations are clear and fair. Partners closely with the CEO to maintain focus on the right priorities and prevent organizational drift.
• Recovery-Aligned Leadership: Demonstrates a deep, authentic understanding of recovery—through lived experience or close personal connection—and ensures organizational decisions honor the realities of recovery-centered school environments. Brings credibility, empathy, and practical wisdom to leadership conversations and systems design.
• Strategic Leadership & Board Partnership: Lead strategic planning with the Board and CEO, and ensure alignment between operations and long-term goals.  Serve as the primary liaison between the Board and staff, preparing reports and ensuring board directives are implemented.

Salary and Benefits:

• Salary $110-140K
• Participation in the health benefits package
• Eligible for participation in 401K and Roth plans (optional)
• Paid time off / Paid sick leave / Parental leave / FMLA
• Approximately 3-4 weeks of summer vacation; approximately 5 weeks of school holidays and vacation throughout the school year

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher (Master’s degree or MBA preferred)
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Minimum of 3+ years leadership experience, ideally in a public education (preferred) or behavioral health setting
• (Preferred) Lived experience with recovery
• Fingerprint background check clearance; current eligibility to work in the U.S.