Senior Director, State Policy & Strategy Western Region

Senior Director, State Policy & Strategy - Western Region College Board - Global Policy & External Relations Location: This is a fully remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes. Type: This is a full-time position About the Team The Global Policy & External Relations Policy and Advocacy team shapes the policy, partnership, and external conditions that allow College Board programs to reach more students and retain public trust. The team sits at the intersection of program strategy, state policy, government relations, higher education, state and district partnerships, engagement, research, and external influence. The State Policy and Strategy function is a new state growth strategy vertical within Policy and Advocacy. It is designed to move College Board from reactive state work to a disciplined, proactive model that names the few state moves that matter most, aligns leaders on tradeoffs, and turns enterprise priorities into sequenced state plans. About the Opportunity States are making consequential decisions about course access, assessment, career-connected learning, credit recognition, teacher credentialing, and the future meaning of college and career readiness. These decisions shape whether AP, SAT Suite, BigFuture, and career-connected initiatives can reach students at scale - and how College Board grows its programs in an increasingly complex state policy environment. The Senior Director, State Policy and Strategy - Western Region will own a portfolio of state strategies that translates College Board's policy priorities into sequenced, actionable state plans. This means building the fact base for Western Region states, identifying where state conditions create opportunity or risk, making the case for where to invest and where to hold, and aligning internal partners around the plays that matter most. This is a senior strategy role with real influence over where College Board places its bets at the state level. Success requires the ability to synthesize complex political and policy landscapes quickly, work fluently across multiple policy domains without needing to own any single one, and lead cross-functional teams toward clear decisions in an organization where expertise, relationships, and execution are distributed across many strong partners. In this role, you will: Build and Own Regional State Strategy Develop and maintain a current fact base for every Western Region state - including policy conditions, political and governance dynamics, coalition strength, program opportunities, implementation barriers, and risk. Translate that intelligence into concise state plans that show the complete picture: goals, current and pursued policies, external actors, internal owners, available levers, sequencing, and implementation needs. Recommend priority states and plays to the Executive Director based on policy opportunity, student reach, adoption potential, feasibility, and College Board priorities. Connect regional strategy to AP, SAT Suite, BigFuture, and career-connected education priorities - including 0-to-1 AP growth, SAT School Day, AP Career Kickstart, and BigFuture opportunity pathways. Align regional planning to College Board planning cycles, legislative sessions, and sales cycles so state work moves from episodic response to deliberate sequencing. Translate Policy Priorities into State Strategy and Rapid Response Translate policy priorities, analysis, and issue guidance developed by subject-matter experts into regional state strategies. Identify where state conditions create the strongest opportunities for AP, SAT Suite, BigFuture, and career-connected priorities. Assess state-specific timing, political feasibility, governance pathways, coalition strength, opposition dynamics, and student-reach potential. During legislative sessi ns, triage b