About New York Junior Tennis & Learning

For over fifty years, New York Junior Tennis & Learning (NYJTL) has honored its founder Arthur Ashe’s legacy by celebrating the diversity of children, encouraging them to reach their highest potential through free tennis and academic programs. NYJTL is the largest provider of youth tennis and education programs in the nation, providing services in 100 unique sites across all five boroughs while reaching nearly 90,000 kids. In addition, NYJTL designed, funded (with NYC), built and operates the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning in the South Bronx. All NYJTL community tennis and after school programs are offered at no cost to its participants.

The mission of NYJTL is to develop the character of young people through tennis and education for a lifetime of success on and off the court. It believes life skills gained through tennis, academics, healthy living, and character development are a catalyst for long-term achievement.

Position Summary

The Director of Training & Development is a senior leader responsible for owning and advancing NYJTL’s afterschool employee learning and development system for it’s after-school programs. This role serves as the central steward of training infrastructure, ensuring that all elements of the employee journey from onboarding through growth are intentionally designed, consistently implemented, and continuously improved.

Reporting to the Chief Education Officer, the Director of Training & Development will lead ACES (NYJTL afterschool department) through the implementation of a newly refined employee development journey, partnering closely with talent and recruitment, HR, program leadership, and site leadership to ensure systems function effectively in real-world conditions. This role guides the critical “in-between” phase of testing, adjusting, and strengthening development tools while also reinforcing NYJTL’s internal talent pipeline by making staff pathways visible, equitable, and connected to meaningful growth opportunities. Through data, feedback, and lived experience across the organization, the Director identifies readiness, surfaces leadership potential, and supports succession planning in alignment with the mission of quality afterschool programming for students across NYC.

The ideal candidate is comfortable operating in complexity, and sees ambiguity as an opportunity to build greater clarity and alignment.

Primary Responsibilities

System Design & Oversight

Serve as the design owner for NYJTL’s after school department training and development systems, ensuring alignment to organizational priorities, staff experience, and youth development principles
Own the integrity of the Training → Coaching → Performance → Growth Cycle across the organization
Uses qualitative and quantitative insights to monitor the effectiveness of training systems over time, identifying patterns, gaps, and opportunities for refinement as the organization grows.
Partner with the Chief Education Officer, program, and site leadership to ensure consistent, high-quality implementation of ACES academic curriculum across all school-based and community sites

Staff Development & Growth Pathways

Lead the rollout and ongoing refinement of core training assets, including:
- Foundational training library
- Coaching templates
- Performance trackers and evaluation tools
- Presentation standards and facilitation expectations
Partner with program managers and site leadership to embed training tools into day-to-day workflows
Support a clear, organization-wide curriculum rollout plan, including mechanisms for tracking curriculum implementation and instructional fidelity across sites
Develop and implement leadership and classroom management training modules that strengthen instructional practice and learning environments across schools

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Implementation Guidance

Work closely with talent recruitment and HR to align onboarding, training and evaluation
Collaborate with program leadership to monitor implementation and identify support needs
Partner with senior leadership to inform strategic decisions related to talent development, succession planning, and system evolution
Design and facilitate curriculum training for education specialists, and site leaders, including onboarding and ongoing professional development

Continuous Improvement & Data-Driven Decision-Making

Use data, feedback loops, and observation to identify where adjustments are needed
Lead updates to training , tools, and structures through a clear change management process
Facilitate leadership calibration and “train-the-trainer” efforts to ensure fairness and consistency
Develop and maintain a measurement approach for learning initiatives (participation, completion, application, coaching follow-through, and observable shifts in practice), sharing insights with leadership to guide priorities
Reinforce protocols for providing regular, curriculum-aligned coaching and instructional support to education specialists, including clarification of lesson plans and expectations
Lead the revision and ongoing maintenance of staff-facing curriculum guides that outline grade-level objectives, rubrics, and expectations, updating materials on a semester basis
Collaborate with cross-functional partners to analyze annual curriculum evaluation data and lead curriculum edits and refinements based on findings (including the 2024–25 school year)

Required Skills/Experience

Bachelor's Degree required in: education, youth development, or other relevant discipline preferred.
Minimum 7 plus years' experience working in an education related/youth development field
Systems-Thinking: Ability to see how tools, people, workflows, and decision rights interact across the employee journey, and to design learning systems that hold together under real-world conditions.
Implementation Leadership: Experience bringing newly designed systems to life — translating strategy into practice, supporting adoption, and adjusting based on what works on the ground
Adaptability: Comfort operating during periods of iteration, testing, and refinement; able to lead confidently through ambiguity without rushing to premature closure.
Collaboration: A relationship-centered approach to partnering across talent recruitment, HR, program leadership, site leadership, and senior leadership to move shared work forward.
Data Fluency: Ability to use qualitative and quantitative data to assess effectiveness, identify trends, surface gaps, and inform continuous improvement of training systems.
Change Leadership: Experience guiding organizations through transitions by clarifying what is changing, what is staying the same, and how people are supported throughout.
Communication: Skill in translating complex systems into clear, plain-language experiences for staff and leaders at all levels.
Fair Access-Mindedness: A commitment to ensuring learning, development, and growth opportunities are accessible, fair, and consistent across roles, sites, and backgrounds.
Influence: Confidence presenting ideas, facilitating alignment, and navigating differing perspectives while maintaining trust and forward momentum.
Execution: Willingness to balance strategic leadership with hands-on work — building, refining, and sustaining systems alongside others rather than above them.
Care Orientation: A belief that clarity, predictability, and well-designed systems are forms of care that reduce burden and support people in doing their best work.

Job Type

Full-time

Salary Range

$85,000 – $95,000

Benefits

Medical
Dental
Vision
Life Insurance
Long-Term Disability
Flexible Spending Accounts

NYJTL values the diversity of the people we hire and inspire. Diversity at our organization means fostering a workplace in which individual differences are recognized, appreciated, respected, and responded to in ways that fully develop and utilize each person’s talents and strengths without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/affectional preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by law. We center equity in all our work and in our hiring practices.

New York Junior Tennis & Learning jobs

Director of Training and Development