United States
Be Structured Technology Group
Thomas Edison State University
Director, Digital Experience and Engagement
United States
Trenton, New Jersey, United States
Summary
Director, Digital Experience and Engagement
Thomas Edison State University was founded in 1972 to break down barriers to degree completion. Fifty years later, it proudly serves a diverse body of adult students with innovative and professionally relevant academic programming in a predominantly online delivery. Our team of high-energy student-focused professionals is welcoming new members who are making their mark in education and are ready to help change the lives of thousands of adult students across New Jersey and around the world.
The Director, Digital Experience and Engagement provides strategic and operational leadership for the University’s digital engagement ecosystem. The director is accountable for the portfolio of platforms that enable coordinated, accessible, secure, and audience-centered interaction across recruitment, enrollment, learning, student support, employee services, completion, alumni engagement, and other University relationships.
The University’s customer relationship management system is the role’s immediate anchor platform, but not its organizational boundary. The portfolio is expected to include the student portal and may expand to enterprise email and text messaging, notifications, chat and conversational services, knowledge tools, appointment and form technologies, communication preference management, and responsible AI-enabled engagement capabilities.
The director works primarily with University departments and service owners to translate institutional goals, audience needs, and business processes into a coherent technology roadmap. The role convenes partners across LITS, Admissions, University Communications, Student Success, Academic Affairs, schools, and other units. It owns enabling platforms, channel architecture, technical governance, product roadmaps, and service outcomes; it does not replace the institutional voice, brand, editorial, or campaign ownership of University Communications and functional offices.
D30: $130,000 – $135,000
102 West State Street Trenton, NJ 08608
Candidates who are excited by changing lives, committed to the success of all and want to be challenged by new and innovative opportunities, should submit an application.
Learning, Innovation, and Technology Solutions (LITS)
Thomas Edison State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer
Leadership Scope
- Establish Digital Experience and Engagement as a collaborative, enterprise-facing function rather than a single-product administration team.
- Serve as LITS product and portfolio owner for assigned engagement platforms, with authority to recommend standards, consolidation, investment, lifecycle decisions, and operating models.
- Develop internal platform expertise during the Element451 implementation in partnership with the named University implementation lead and prepare LITS for sustainable technical stewardship after implementation.
- Provide enough technical depth to guide architecture, integration, configuration, privacy, security, and vendor decisions while coordinating hands-on engineering with the appropriate LITS teams and vendors.
- Build a high-trust operating model in which ownership is clear, delivery is shared, and cross-functional partners are engaged early.
Essential Responsibility Areas
Portfolio strategy and governance
- Develop and maintain a University-wide roadmap for assigned digital experience and engagement capabilities, linking investment decisions to institutional priorities and audience outcomes.
- Inventory and rationalize engagement platforms; clarify the intended purpose, audience, lifecycle, owner, and integration pattern for each channel and product.
- Establish standards for platform selection, configuration, channel use, permissions, accessibility, privacy, records, communication preferences, automation, AI, and lifecycle management.
- Convene a cross-functional governance structure that defines decision rights without displacing the content, policy, or business-process authority of partner offices.
CRM and engagement platform stewardship
- Partner with the University’s named Element451 implementation lead to build LITS platform knowledge, document the operating model, and prepare for long-term technical stewardship.
- Own assigned platform roadmaps, configuration standards, release planning, administrative practices, service levels, vendor relationships, and support escalation models.
- Translate functional needs into prioritized platform requirements and coordinate integration, identity, security, data, and infrastructure work with Enterprise Business Systems, Enterprise Technologies, Data & Analytics, and vendors.
- Ensure that roles, environments, documentation, testing, change controls, recovery plans, and knowledge transfer support reliable operations.
Digital experience and portal leadership
- Lead the authenticated portal as an enterprise digital front door, with clear product ownership, roadmap, governance, and measures of usefulness.
- Organize experiences around audience needs, tasks, and lifecycle moments rather than University organizational boundaries.
- Coordinate content, alerts, transactions, search, personalization, accessibility, and integration with University Communications, functional offices, web leadership, and LITS platform owners.
- Use research, service data, and feedback to identify friction and prioritize improvements across student, employee, mentor/faculty, and other University experiences.
Cross-functional service and journey enablement
- Help departments map audience journeys, communication needs, interventions, and handoffs, and then apply enterprise platforms to support them.
- Facilitate shared design decisions among Admissions, University Communications, schools, student services, academic and administrative offices, and LITS teams.
- Define escalation paths and coordination practices for urgent, sensitive, high-impact, or cross-channel communications.
- Promote reusable patterns, templates, and communities of practice so departments can collaborate freely while maintaining enterprise standards.
Platform operations, vendors, and resources
- Develop annual plans, budgets, staffing recommendations, contract strategies, service expectations, and lifecycle plans for the portfolio.
- Lead assigned staff and coordinate matrixed project teams, consultants, and vendors; set clear priorities and follow-through expectations.
- Manage platform risks, incidents, maintenance, adoption, technical debt, and vendor performance in collaboration with security, infrastructure, application, data, and service teams.
- Maintain decision records, platform documentation, ownership maps, and practical support knowledge.
Measurement, adoption, and continuous improvement
- Define outcomes and measures for reach, engagement, task completion, service adoption, satisfaction, reliability, accessibility, and platform value.
- Work with Data & Analytics and functional partners to create appropriate dashboards and insight loops without duplicating institutional analytics ownership.
- Lead adoption and change-enablement efforts for new or improved platforms, including communication, training, documentation, and stakeholder readiness.
- Use evidence to prioritize improvements, retire low-value tools, and reduce fragmented or contradictory digital experiences.
People and organizational leadership
- Recruit, develop, coach, and evaluate staff with strengths in platform administration, business analysis, digital product ownership, workflow, communication technology, and service design.
- Create role clarity and development paths for staff transitioning from legacy application responsibilities into modern engagement-platform work.
- Model collaborative, non-territorial leadership and represent Digital Experience and Engagement on the LITS leadership team and University committees.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Strategic product and portfolio leadership across CRM, portals, digital communication, service, or related enterprise platforms.
- Strong technical fluency in SaaS administration, configuration, integrations, APIs, identity, data flows, privacy, security, accessibility, release management, and service operations - sufficient to direct specialists and make sound tradeoffs.
- Ability to translate institutional goals and audience needs into roadmaps, governance, requirements, operating models, and measurable outcomes.
- Demonstrated facilitation, influence, and conflict-navigation skills in a matrixed environment with shared ownership.
- Knowledge of higher-education student and employee lifecycles, digital accessibility, data privacy, responsible AI, and change management.
- Excellent written, verbal, presentation, vendor-management, and staff-development skills.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in information systems, business, communications technology, digital experience, higher-education administration, or a related field; an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered.
- Seven years of progressively responsible experience with enterprise platforms, digital products, CRM, portals, technology-enabled service delivery, business analysis, or a closely related area.
- Three years of leadership experience involving staff, vendors, major projects, cross-functional governance, or enterprise product ownership.
- Demonstrated experience leading complex platform implementation, adoption, governance, or continuous improvement across organizational boundaries.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s degree in a relevant discipline.
- Experience in higher education and familiarity with CRM, student information/ERP, learning management, portal, identity, service management, and analytics ecosystems.
- Experience with Element451 or a comparable higher-education CRM; digital experience platforms; journey orchestration; communication automation; knowledge or conversational AI technologies.
- Experience building a new organizational capability or redirecting legacy roles toward a future-state operating model.
*TESU strives to offer a flexible work environment while balancing the operational needs of the University. As such, we have several options for hybrid-work schedules. Positions determine what type of hybrid-work schedule is available and, if necessary, adjustments are made to support University operations.
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