General Manager, National Math Stars
New Program
$150-175k
More information about location
Developing the mathematical talents of extraordinary students
Be an early applicant
Developing the mathematical talents of extraordinary students
1-20 employees
Be an early applicant
$150-175k
More information about location
1-20 employees
Company mission
To ensure mathematically extraordinary students from all communities have the resources they need to reach the frontiers of math and science.
Role
Who you are
- Excitement for our mission and goals
- Understanding of the needs of highly gifted children and their families
- Entrepreneurial drive to build new programs, processes, and structures from scratch
- Comfort with ambiguity and high level of autonomy
- Experience as a founder or early employee at a start-up (for- or non-profit)
- Experience managing and improving operations through a period of rapid growth (e.g., by identifying and quickly onboarding suitable tools, vendors, contractors)
- Experience conducting user research and designing/improving user experiences
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to gather and interpret quantitative and qualitative data (including through experimentation), and to use that data to inform decision-making
- Understanding of the advanced math / STEM enrichment space (previous experience with STEM enrichment is a plus but not required; STEM degree a plus but not required)
What the job involves
- We launched National Math Stars with our current support program, which is geared towards high-need families. It provides them with significant scholarships, fully funded courses and camps, individualized guidance, mentoring, and community gatherings to achieve exceptional outcomes
- This program currently serves 71 students and is in the process of recruiting a third cohort, of 100 additional Stars, from across six states. In response to overwhelming demand from families with talented kids and in service of achieving our goal of supporting top talent from all communities, we will be launching a new program
- We envision this program will be much larger (with cohorts of thousands, not hundreds) and will admit students from every community (including high-income). The support this program offers will be lighter-touch, lower-cost, and more community-driven, but will still significantly improve participants’ chances of extraordinary achievement in math and science
- In the 2025-26 school year, in addition to growing our current support program, National Math Stars will pilot a scalable, lower-cost program that can serve a large number of equally talented (but not necessarily high-need) Stars and families
- Our General Manager, New Program will be responsible for designing this program, running the pilot, and building out the team and tools to scale it up. Taking our learnings from operating the Stars program so far, they will build with the aim of sustainably supporting ~4,000 new Stars per year, empowering them with the resources, guidance, mentorship, and community to reach the frontiers of math and science
- Develop and run a new venture pilot
- Pick a set of scalable supports to pilot as this program offering
- Working with our outreach and admissions team, identify 200-250 candidates to participate in the pilot (and a waitlist for expanding the pilot)
- Directly support all pilot families
- Identify and set up “force multiplier” tools that enable impactful support at this scale
- Experiment with various forms of support (e.g., text-based advising, webinars, newsletters, on-demand calls)
- Experiment with various ways to build community scalably (e.g., online forums, interest clubs, parent-organized meet-ups)
- Set up data tracking systems and feedback mechanisms to ensure we can measure participant progress and satisfaction
- Manage a ~$150K budget (in 2025; more to be allocated in 2026) for tools, software licenses, and direct participant support (e.g., mailings, competition fees, scholarship pool)
- Potentially expand scope of pilot over the course of the year (i.e., admit additional families from the waitlist)
- Prepare for future program design and growth
- Identify specific, measurable “north star” metrics for program success, within the categories of engagement/retention and math progress/outcomes
- Through supporting families, identify the most impactful resources and interventions
- Determine the best existing software tools and vendors to support this program
- Determine gaps in off-the-shelf tools and whether/what we need to develop in-house
- Identify feasible advisors-to-families ratio for future growth
- Sketch out team design and long-term costs for future growth
- Support other departments and overall strategy
- Stay closely aligned with Head of Programs and Head of Partnerships, gathering and sharing learnings that could impact program delivery, outreach, and/or admissions
- Regularly report on progress to Leadership Team and Board of Directors
- In collaboration with CEO and Leadership Team, advise on pace of growth, target geographies, and other strategic decisions
- After the conclusion of the initial pilot in 2025-26, the CEO and General Manager, New Program will work together to re-define the role. If we’ve landed on a proven, scalable support model, this could evolve into a team leadership role over a new National Math Stars department
Application process
- 30 minute screening via Zoom with member of hiring team
- 60 minute deep dive with CEO
- Take home task & 60 minute team interview
- Follow up interviews as needed
- Reference check
Our take
Some kids are math whizzes from a young age, but without the right support, their talent often goes unnoticed. Furthermore, many families don't have the resources to keep these kids challenged and growing.
National Math Stars (NMS) is helping, by finding top 2nd and 3rd grade math students and supporting them through high school. The company does so by offering them an impressive $100,000 in free coaching, classes, STEM trips, and family guidance.
Its a very exciting venture and one that's gaining traction. With strong results in Texas, the company is now expanding to Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. With students already achieving big things, it will be interesting to see the company continue to grow.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Leadership
Ilana Walder-Biesanz
(Founder & CEO)Previously spent over 2 years at Bain & Company as a Consultant and Manager. Prior to that, they were a Business Operations Consultant at Ilana Walder-Biesanz Consulting, a Teaching Assistant at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an Associate/Senior Product Manager at Yahoo.
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