Sr. Director, Pre-License

Position Overview:

As a core member of the combined Property Professions leadership team, the Single-Threaded Leader (STL) for Pre-License owns the start of the customer relationship. This role owns the end-to-end pre-license outcome for qualifying education across the ecosystem - from acquisition through course completion and licensure - and is accountable for both revenue/contribution and cost.

The role has two inseparable pillars: (1) new-customer acquisition excellence - the modern growth-marketing motion of discovery, funnel, and conversion that wins customers efficiently - and (2) product-experience excellence - the learning experience that keeps students engaged, drives completion, and helps them pass. Together these drive satisfaction and referral and feed the post-license CE, Membership, and Professional Development engine.

This role authors the pre-license engine that every brand runs on, directing matrixed resources from Marketing, Product, Operations, and Shared Services against QE outcomes rather than managing those functions directly.

What You'll Do

• Own the Pre-License outcome end to end. Own revenue and contribution and manage the cost line across the ecosystem, including enrollment growth, first-attempt pass rate, completion rate, and CAC by channel and state, from acquisition through licensure.
• Drive new-customer acquisition. Lead the growth-marketing motion - modern discovery (SEO/GEO, content), paid search/social for license intent, conversion rate optimization (CRO), lead-to-enrollment, and referral/partnership channels.
• Deliver product-experience excellence. Own the student experience that drives engagement and completion, including exam-prep tooling, at-risk intervention, AI tutor/advisor capability, and instructor quality; first-attempt pass rate is the core product promise.
• Build satisfaction and referral into a growth engine. Design the pre-license experience to drive NPS, referral, and repeat business, seeding the entire downstream customer lifecycle.
• Own the QE→CE handoff. Jointly own the attach playbook (the 30- to 90-day post-pass welcome, sales, and campaign motion) with the Post-License STL, with the Ecosystem President as tie-breaker on seam disputes. Hand off newly-licensed customers, along with structured student data (completion velocity, exam performance, at-risk signals), to the post-license engine at the point of licensure.
• Author and standardize the pre-license operating model. Establish a single acquisition → enrollment → completion → pass motion run by national and LDB brands on a shared platform and shared playbooks, keeping the method uniform while allowing brand-level local execution.
• Deploy AI across the QE workflow. Drive adoption of acquisition AI (bidding, nurture, lead scoring) and outcome AI (at-risk detection, adaptive exam-prep, AI tutor/advisor), tracking AI adoption as an operating metric.
• Direct matrixed functional resources. Pull resources from Marketing, Product, Operations, and Shared Services against QE outcomes; own the acquisition and product-experience roadmap, channel and budget allocation within the QE P&L, and conversion/pass-rate targets.
• Maintain 100% state compliance status for pre-license at all times; this is a non-negotiable operating constraint on the role.
• Run the operating cadence. Lead a weekly review of funnel and outcome metrics (CAC, conversion, completion, pass) and own the QE quarterly plan within the Annual Operating Plan (AOP).
• Escalate appropriately. Escalate brand-level positioning conflicts, shared-platform tradeoffs, and spend above the agreed threshold to the President, Ecosystem.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• 12-15+ years in growth, general management, or operations leadership within a high-volume, funnel-driven consumer or prosumer business.
• Demonstrated ownership of both acquisition and outcome: an acquisition-and-conversion P&L at scale (CAC, conversion, unit economics) combined with ownership of a product or experience that drove completion and outcomes - candidates must show ownership of both, not just one.
• Growth-marketing fluency across modern discovery/SEO/GEO, paid channels, CRO, and marketing automation, paired with product or experience ownership.
• Experience in PE-backed or high-accountability environments where execution is measured, reported, and consequential.
• Preferred: experience with regulated/accredited or state-approved curriculum and multi-state compliance.

Required Education

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Operations, or a related field.
• MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Required Technical and Specialized Skills

• Growth marketing: modern discovery (SEO/GEO, content), SEM/paid social, CRO, marketing automation, CRM pipeline management, partnership marketing.
• Product and learning experience: LMS/experience design, exam-prep tooling, at-risk analytics, engagement/completion optimization, instructor-quality signal management.
• Regulatory and compliance operations: 50-state approval/filing for RE and appraiser QE, in partnership with Shared Services Legal & Compliance.
• Unit economics: CAC by channel/state, conversion economics, and contribution margin at the enrollment level.
• AI-first deployment: acquisition AI (bidding, nurture, lead scoring), outcome AI (at-risk detection, adaptive exam-prep, AI tutor/advisor), and content AI (authoring with subject-matter-expert validation); ability to size a team AI-first and track adoption as an operating metric.