Director of Growth Operations

Join Cartwheel to help tackle the student mental health crisis. 

Kids spend most of their days in the classroom. And teachers and staff, who play a vital role in their development, are often the first to notice when something is off. But with 1 in 5 young people struggling with mental health, schools are getting crushed by a downward spiral in student crises and staff burnout.

With large increases in federal funding for schools and the rise of telehealth, schools are reimagining what mental health support can look like. 

Cartwheel is a seed stage startup building technology-enabled mental health services that put schools at the center. We see our role as supporting on-campus counselors, psychologists, and school social workers who see kids every day. Instead of going around them, we collaborate with them. This means: 

• Earlier intervention
• Higher student and family engagement in care
• Better coordination among the trusted adults in a student’s life 

Kids shouldn't just aspire to get out of bed and drag themselves to class. They should be able to experience joy. They deserve to envision and build a life they’re excited to live. If you join Cartwheel, you’ll help make this vision a reality for millions of students across the country. We’re backed by top investors including General Catalyst, BoxGroup, and Able Partners, and we're looking for scrappy, mission-driven teammates to join our team.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As Director of Growth Operations, you’d be among Cartwheel’s first non-clinical team members. Your mission will be to chart a course for Cartwheel to scale from a pilot program in Massachusetts to a national program serving hundreds of school districts and millions of students. In doing so, you’d lay the foundation for Cartwheel to become the leading partner for schools nationwide in tackling the student mental health crisis.

This role combines strategy and execution, and you’ll have full autonomy to work across our existing leadership team as well as school district leaders, policymakers, clinicians, and potential partners. You would propose your own goals, workplan, and budget as needed.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Develop a new state expansion strategy and roadmap to launch in 2-3 key states

• Prioritize new states for expansion (e.g., analyzing potential addressable student population, regulatory environment, payer landscape, competitive landscape)
• Develop a roadmap for launching in these new states by August 2023
• Execute on this roadmap, owning key pieces and directing others on our team to achieve the milestones you have set out for success

Grow our Care Team 3-5x by Summer 2023 to meet the needs in existing + new states

• Build a staffing model to help us understand how we can sustainably meet the demand for care from our partner school districts. Estimate the need for therapy, psychiatry, and case management hours, accounting for variables such as seasonality of demand, caseload expectations, regulations, etc.
• Help develop target compensation levels and structure (e.g., salary vs. bonus, compensation for non-clinical time such as team meetings)
• Develop and execute a Care Team hiring strategy that will get this team in place by Summer 2023 ahead of the next school year. For example, help set hiring goals and milestones, prioritize outreach channels for hiring, develop and coordinate an interview process, and lay the groundwork for a long-term, scalable hiring engine.

Help establish Cartwheel as the go-to partner and thought leader in school-based mental health services in Massachusetts and our 2-3 new states

• Create a shortlist of opportunities for Cartwheel to share our program and learnings with education and public health communities
• Create a shortlist of key leaders and work with our co-founders to broker relationships
• Develop a timeline for these opportunities and direct our leadership team to execute

WHO YOU ARE 

• Unshakable desire to work at a rapidly-growing seed stage company
• Ability to juggle priorities, create your own structure, wrangle stakeholders, make decisions with imperfect information, and flex between tactical and strategic needs
• Ability to build trust and credibility with a wide range of stakeholders, including senior leaders in education, healthcare, and government. This isn’t a back-office role.
• Open minded, asking and accepting tough questions with grace
• Energetic, optimistic, resilient, and empathetic
• 4+ years of experience in operating and/or management consulting roles
• Experience working in healthcare or education technology

The above is a summary of the role, not an exhaustive list. If you think that you have most of the above but not everything, please apply. We'd love to hear from you.

DETAILS ABOUT THE ROLE

Start date: ASAP

Compensation: You’ll join a team of mission-driven colleagues who will respect, empower, and go to bat for you. This is a full-time, salaried position reporting to the CEO. Based on candidate experience, the expected cash compensation is $110,000-$140,000, plus equity, generous health insurance, 3 weeks of PTO, and additional paid sick time.

Location: Hybrid in-person and remote, including quarterly in-person team retreats and co-locating as needed, particularly in the first few weeks/months. Boston or NYC preferred but not required.