POSITION OVERVIEW

Reporting to the General Manager of Consulting for Amplify Insight, this Executive Director will be responsible for selling Amplify Insight Consulting’s services to the marketplace. He or she will be responsible for achieving quarterly and annual sales targets for the Consulting practice. The successful candidate will be able to leverage existing and build new, trusted relationships with District and State decision makers, and will create new supportive partnerships to generate business opportunities.

THE COMPANY

Amplify (formerly Wireless Generation) was founded in 2000 by Larry Berger and Greg Gunn, who met as Rhodes Scholars at Oxford University. After stints teaching computer skills and mathematics to children in Harlem and Stamford CT, they were inspired to put technology in the hands of teachers and into classrooms. Their first product, called mClass, launched in 2001 (mCLASS); it was an assessment tool created for use with the PalmPilot. Despite having grown in size from simple start-up to a company that employees over a thousand people in offices nationwide, their sentiment remains the same: data and technology are crucial tools in the transformation of education. To date, Amplify has supported more than 200,000 educators and 3 million students in all 50 states.

The Amplify Insight and Amplify Learning divisions grew out of the work of Wireless Generation and as a complement; the Amplify Access division was created shortly thereafter. Each of these divisions sells products independently of one another. Amplify Insight provides districts and states across the country with educational assessment and analytic solutions that measure student learning and drive personalized instruction. By making data actionable in real time, Amplify Insight's products help teachers and administrators assess student progress, adapt to student needs and accelerate student learning. Amplify Consulting Group manages special projects, taking new software ideas from concept to launch. Consulting engagements include strategic advisory services, systems integration, and application and system development for clients including districts, regional centers, states, foundations and organizations. Notable consulting projects include:

ARIS – Client: NYC Department of Education

The Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) is a custom reporting application for the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE). ARIS has been cited by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as a model for the Instructional Improvement System concept in RTTT.

• Development: Amplify led the ARIS development, including data integration, permissioning, usability, reporting and Web 2.0 collaboration tools, and helped New York City roll out the system to more than 90,000 educators serving 1.1 million students.
• Implementation: Amplify created and delivered a training program to 1,497 schools, school support organizations and networks, and critical stakeholders such as union officials and parent coordinators.
• Integration: Online walkthroughs for parents were also launched in nine languages, to give parents unprecedented ability to engage in their children’s education with access to easy-to-understand data.

inBloom – Client: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation/Carnegie Corporation of New York

inBloom provides a cloud-based, open-source system that allows states and public school districts to share data and access third-party applications for sustainable, cost-effective personalized learning. It is being piloted by a consortium of states, brought together by CCSSO.

• Partnership: inBloom is a non-profit organization with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. Amplify partnered with inBloom to custom-build the open-source software that forms the infrastructure for inBloom’s system. The software encourages the ongoing development of compatible applications to better target teaching to student needs.
• Services:
• • Integrating different state systems into a secure, cloud-based repository for various kinds of learning data.
  • Creating customizable dashboards to make student data more manageable and useful for educators.
  • Enabling vendors and developers to create applications and content that can work with the inBloom technology using an application programming interface (API).

School of One – Client: NYC Department of Education

The only education invention to appear on TIME Magazine’s “50 Most Important Inventions of the Year,” School of One teaches the concepts students need to learn at the right moment, using the most effective teaching style for that student.

• Concept: School of One explores what can happen when diverse modalities of instruction, nontraditional divisions of labor, powerful analytics and frequent formative assessment are combined to sequence a child’s learning experiences. The initiative, now in three New York City schools, continues to expand.
• Partnership: As the lead partner to the New York City Department of Education in the creation and ongoing evolution of School of One, Amplify developed the algorithm that manages learning trajectories, instructional content, teaching modalities and resource allocation.
• Technology: School of One creates unique playlists for each student based on sequential skill needs and the most effective learning modality. The technology adapts daily to deliver focused instruction at the appropriate rate of progress for each student to master the skills on his or her playlist.

THIRDSPACE – Client: Mott Foundation

The C.S. Mott Foundation funded the development of ThirdSpace, the free iPhone, iPad and iPod touch application, to address the challenges in-school and after-school educators face in working together to improve individual achievement.

• Partnership: Amplify developed the interface to allow users to create, connect and share important in-formation that affects a student’s learning and social development among all the educators who interact with a student — in school, after school and in extracurricular activities.
• Pilot: Preliminary results from the pilot school in Carteret, New Jersey, show that ThirdSpace makes it easier to see patterns develop over time. Sharing relevant, timely information about students sparked inquiry among teachers and after-school educators.
• Next Steps: Based on Amplify’s initial findings, Amplify are updating and piloting the new version of ThirdSpace in two middle schools in the fall 2013.

THE POSITION

Reporting to the General Manager of Consulting for Amplify Insight, the Executive Director will be responsible for selling Amplify Insight Consulting’s services to the marketplace. He or she will be responsible for achieving quarterly and annual sales targets for the Consulting practice. The successful candidate will be able to leverage existing, as well as building new, trusted relationships with District and State decision makers and will create new supportive partnerships to generate business opportunity.

Specifically, the Executive Director will—

• Together with the division head, develop and implement an overall vision and strategy for Amplify Insight Consulting that takes into account national and regional education policies, existing and emerging technology trends in education, staff capacities, and synergies with other Amplify products and services
• Accomplish financial objectives by setting and achieving annual revenue targets, developing an annual budget, developing project budgets and pricing for bids, overseeing invoicing and accounts receivable, analyzing financial performance, and initiating corrective action
• Develop and maintain a pipeline of prospective clients and business opportunity for the Consulting group; build and nurture relationships with Superintendents, District Heads, etc.
• Achieve or exceed quarterly and annual revenue targets by expanding existing business and developing new business
• Deliver professional sales presentations with the ability to develop trusted advisor relationships, persuade decision makers, and close business
• Assist client services in managing client relationships and directing larger, strategic Amplify Insight projects
• Create new service lines and areas of expertise that extend Amplify’s footprint in the K-12 market
• Identify potential consulting service partners and make recommendations based on synergies (through industry knowledge, financial modeling etc.)
• Work with Consulting teams to vision an engagement, participate in scoping conversation, and assist in developing appropriate Statements of Work
• Provide timely and accurate reporting of pipeline, account plans, and territory management activities as required

THE CAREER OPPORTUNITY

For a skilled and ambitious editorial director in the K-12 online curriculum space, this position offers the following career benefits—

• The chance to work with a leader in K-12 consulting in a key revenue-generating role
• The chance to work with an experienced leadership team
• The chance to work in a highly autonomous work environment
• The chance to be compensated well for superior performance by means of an attractive, bonus-weighted incentive plan
• The chance to live and work in the attractive Greater New York area

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

The ideal candidate currently works as a senior sales executive focused on selling a complex, high-end service or technology solution to K-12 school districts. He or she has a strong back-ground in educational technology, and in identifying, engaging, and converting CTOs, CIOs, and other key decision makers at the district level to adopt similar complex technology solutions.

Specifically, this individual has the following—

• Proven success in the high-end, consultative selling of a product or service, ideally to the K-12 marketplace, at the district level
• Personally sold contracts involving multiple decision makers; experience growing revenue and market share
• Specific experience in information management, data warehousing, and data integration
• Experience in public speaking with strong oral and written communication skills in dealing with client liaisons, key users, business and technology partners, and internal staff
• Demonstrated ability to work independently with minimum supervision
• Willingness to travel extensively nationwide
• BA/BS or equivalent experience; MBA or advanced degree desired

The Executive Director will be working long hours to drive the success of the company. This involves a range of personal attributes-- flexibility and adaptability; a great work ethic; strong leadership skills; an ability to analyze and evaluate one’s own (and other’s) performance and to develop plans to improve performance; excellent presentation skills; willingness to take responsibility for both success and failure; a thick skin; self-confidence; a positive attitude about self, company, marketplace; and a strong desire for success.

COMPENSATION

Compensation will include salary and performance bonus commensurate with the individual’s experience.

TRAVEL

Travel will be in excess of 50%.

CONTACT

Resume and cover letter should be sent as Word documents to Ralph Protsik and Lew Weinstein, and also posted on the BSG website. No phone calls please.