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Join the Blossom Team!

Our Company

Blossom is a bilingual education platform that introduces children to the joy of being a polyglot, enables families to stay connected with their heritage language, and empowers teachers and librarians to serve young learners with diverse linguistic backgrounds. On the Blossom app or website, a user selects a title from a growing library of children’s books, then chooses a first language and a target language, and sees the story come to life in dynamic blends of those two languages. Blossom’s unique pedagogy — Bi-Lingual Story Switching Method (BLSSM) — was developed under a research initiative funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to encourage parent-child conversations about important topics such as nutrition and exercise.

Director of Strategic Initiatives & Development

Remote within the US

About Blossom

Blossom is a bilingual education platform that introduces children to the joy of being a polyglot, enables families to stay connected with their heritage language, and empowers teachers and librarians to serve young learners with diverse linguistic backgrounds. On the Blossom app or website, a user selects a title from a growing library of children’s books, then chooses a first language and a target language, and sees the story come to life in dynamic blends of those two languages. Blossom’s unique pedagogy — Bi-Lingual Story Switching Method (BLSSM) — was developed under a research initiative funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to encourage parent-child conversations about important topics such as nutrition and exercise.

As a versatile platform, Blossom is developing libraries of customized, curriculum-aligned content to support a range of learning objectives, including:

  • Indigenous language preservation and revitalization
  • Growth mindset and STEM success for children in language-minority communities
  • Digital literacy and healthy media consumption habits for culturally and linguistically diverse families

The Opportunity

Blossom is currently in a pre-launch phase. Go-to-market vehicles will include a for-profit ed tech company that focuses on schools, libraries, community-based organizations and other traditional market segments, and a 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings its unique offerings to indigenous communities. This Director of Strategic Initiatives and Development position is created in anticipation of the upcoming launch of Blossom, to establish key partnerships with early customers, philanthropic funders and mission-aligned peer organizations, and will play a pivotal role in shaping the growth and success of our organization. While we are headquartered in NYC, this position can be remote within the United States.

Your Persona

This is an exceptional opportunity for a proven senior executive with a passion for working at the intersection of entrepreneurship, business development and social change. To excel in this role you should command a mixture of the following characteristics:

  • Passionate. You are deeply troubled by the disparities that persist in our education system, and are even more energized about shaping the future of education through innovative solutions. You’ve been on the lookout for an opportunity where your passion, skills and connections can make an impactful difference.
  • Unconventional. You eschew conventional wisdom, business-as-usual, and the status quo. The daunting task of introducing transformative new products to a stoic marketplace does not faze you — in fact, you heartily relish the outsized reward-to-difficulty ratio that accompany disruptive solutions.
  • Proactive. You take initiative to create the conditions for desired opportunities. You anticipate needs before they arise, actively getting ahead of problems and mitigating their impact. While you have low tolerance for inaction, you invest patient capital in cultivating relationships with collaborators and guiding them towards fruition.

Key Responsibilities

The primary duties for this role, and the key outputs it will be tasked to produce, cover the four (4) main areas delineated below. The ideal candidate will maintain laser-sharp focus on these core responsibilities while responding nimbly to evolving priorities and emergent opportunities:

  1. Strategic plan for communicating Blossom’s messages to intended audiences, implementing go-to-market activities, and cross-functional collaboration with our research, product design and engineering teams to integrate market feedback.
  2. Pilot agreements and early-adopter customer contracts with select school districts, library systems, Head Start, and educational organizations. 
  3. Partnerships agreements with influential organizations, including industry advocacy groups, publishers, and media and tech companies.
  4. Funding agreements from foundations, family offices, and other philanthropic or government sources to support our nonprofit arm so that we can make Blossom available to indigenous communities free-of-charge.

Industry Experience

Ideal candidates should come from one of the following backgrounds, with eight (8) or more years of industry experience:

  • Senior management role in ed tech for K-12 learning, second language acquisition, and/or literacy development
  • Strategy, business and partnership development in kid’s media
  • Fundraising in the educational sector, for nonprofits and/or startups

Essential Skills & Qualifications

  • Proven track record of success in business development, especially in the startup context and new projection initiation phase
  • Strong understanding of e-learning pedagogies, ed tech trends, and the early childhood education ecosystem
  • Keen awareness of the challenges faced by school districts in adopting new solutions, including budget constraints and funding mechanisms
  • Understanding of the decision-making processes within school districts, including the role of administrators, school boards, and teachers
  • Excellent at interpreting stakeholder preferences and translating them into proposals, partnership agreements and commercial contracts
  • Ability to think strategically and execute tactical plans to achieve business objectives
  • Highly resourceful in problem solving, embracing ambiguity and pivoting appropriately
  • Demonstrated leadership skills and the ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team

Career Progression

This role will grow in significance as the organization scales and expands. For the appropriate candidate, it can evolve in a number of directions based on interest and achievement. It is anticipated that the Director will, upon attainment of certain performance milestones, expand the team by hiring additional development professionals as direct reports.

Compensation & Benefits

  • Competitive salary commensurate with experience and education, $100K-$125K annually
  • Opportunity for performance bonus, with OTE target of $200K in initial year
  • Medical, dental, vision insurance
  • 401K with employer contribution (even if employee does not contribute)
  • Flexible working location, remote-friendly (in the U.S.)
  • Generous paid time-off & vacation

How To Apply

Email application to jobs@iblossom.com and use "Blossom Director of S.I. & Dev" as the subject. Please include your resume, cover letter and any pertinent attachment(s).

Equal Employment Opportunity

Transcendent Endeavors (parent organization of Blossom) is an equal employment/affirmative action employer and welcomes diverse applicants. Transcendent Endeavors does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital/or parental status, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, veterans status, or any other classification protected by applicable Federal, State, or Municipal Law.

Writers

Writers will create 1,000-word “easy reader” book manuscripts. Responsibilities include:

  • 100-word book pitches based on book instructions, STEM curriculum standards, and growth mindset themes
  • Writing up to 3 drafts per story while incorporating iterative revisions
  • Writing keywords (10), dialogic prompts (1 per page), and follow-up reading comprehension questions
  • Writing is typically done in English and then Blossom manages the translations. However, if you can write in more than one language, we would be happy to discuss this!
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Illustrators

Illustrators will create vector graphic images using Adobe Illustrator. Responsibilities include:

  • Commenting on early story drafts
  • Creating a storyboard based on final story draft
  • Creating approximately fifteen digital illustrations for each story that match the look and feel of existing character and background graphics
  • Converting some illustrations to simpler images with transparent backgrounds, to serve as responses to reading comprehension questions
Apply Now

Apply Now

Email application to jobs@iblossom.com and use the job title as the subject. Please include your resume, cover letter and any pertinent attachment(s).

Apply Now