Student Success Director

What We’re Looking For:

The Student Success Director is a leadership role within 2U’s Operations organization. This position is responsible for driving student lifecycle outcomes across assigned university portfolios through strategic leadership, operational excellence, and deep institutional partnership.

The Student Success Director provides tactical and operational leadership for smaller or moderately complex university portfolios within the University Operations organization. This position is responsible for managing day-to-day team performance, executing established retention strategies, and driving student lifecycle outcomes. The Student Success Director ensures high-quality student engagement while monitoring data to meet foundational retention, satisfaction, and graduation targets across assigned programs.

Responsibilities Include, But Are Not Limited To:

• Portfolio Health
  • Maintain direct accountability for portfolio performance, tracking key metrics including student retention, satisfaction scores, and credit generation across assigned partnerships.
  • Execute established short- and long-term retention strategies to safeguard revenue and ensure baseline portfolio health.
  • Serve as the senior escalation point for program-level performance, student risk, and institutional concerns.
  • Oversee a portfolio size typically encompassing 5 to 6 Student Success Managers, representing approximately 5,000 to 9,000 active students.
  • Serve as the primary point of escalation for program-level operational hurdles, student risk mitigation, and routine partner inquiries.
  • Ensure team alignment with university policies and 2U's service level agreements to deliver consistent customer service.
• People Development & Retention
  • Provide direct management, coaching, and daily support to a team of 3 to 5 direct reports, primarily consisting of frontline Student Success Managers and Individual Contributors.
  • Conduct regular performance reviews, goal-setting sessions, and tactical skills training to support the professional growth of team members.
  • Facilitate team onboarding and continuous operational training to ensure high standards of student support.
• Operational Excellence
  • Monitor daily and weekly operational dashboards to track team productivity, outreach volume, and student engagement markers.
  • Partner with Data Science and Operations teams to interpret standardized reports, converting data insights into immediate team action plans.
  • Identify operational bottlenecks within the team workflows and implement standardized adjustments to improve efficiency.
• Innovation
  • Translating student and partner feedback for other 2U stakeholders to drive and implement necessary changes and program improvements. This includes but is not limited to technology, Curriculum & Learning, Finance, Program Management and Faculty Success.
  • Proactively identifying risks to program objectives, performance, and metrics, and subsequently driving mitigation plans to improve the student experience.
  • Driving and developing forward looking initiatives, strategies, and processes that impact overall department goals, efficiencies, and effectiveness, while also rebuilding and restructuring those out of date.