Join our team

The Holdsworth Center seeks a Director of Superintendent Pipeline who believes in the promise of public schools to deliver excellent results for every student, and who believes their unique skills and inner purpose would be a great match for Holdsworth’s mission, culture and values.

Our organization & mission

Driven by the belief that teachers and students thrive with great leadership, The Holdsworth Center builds stronger leaders for Texas public schools. Founded as a nonprofit in 2017 by Chairman Charles Butt, Holdsworth provides world-class leadership development programs and services within districts and at its Campus on Lake Austin, a one-of-a-kind place dedicated to the idea that public education holds worth.

Our founder, Charles Butt, believes educators deserve rigorous professional learning in a world-class setting and envisioned the Campus as a gift to hardworking educators and a testament to the importance of public schools. The serene and peaceful setting allows teams of educators to step back from the day-to-day and see their challenges and opportunities more clearly.

Our work

Leadership is not a skill people are born with—it can be taught. That’s why we offer world-class leadership programs, coaching and other services unparalleled in the education field.

In our programs, superintendents, principals, teachers and other educational leaders engage with some of the nation’s top experts in their fields from a variety of sectors, including preK-12 and higher education, government and business.

In some of our partner districts, we embed Holdsworth consultants to work hand-in-hand with central office leaders to define what great leadership looks and help them build custom solutions to identify and develop future campus leaders, place them in leadership roles and support them as they progress in their leadership journey.

Our culture & values

We have three core values at Holdsworth: Drive for Excellence for Every Student, Be of Service and Believe in People. Our values flow from the vision and beliefs of our founder, Charles Butt, and guide our daily words and actions, bringing meaning to the work we do.

Purpose & responsibilities

One of the most critical challenges facing public education is effective and sustained leadership. In the past several years, there has been renewed anxiety about the superintendent role. While news of departing superintendents and the extraordinary pressures of the position have dominated headlines, the weakness of the superintendent bench has only grown. The reality is that, though the headlines are attracting more attention, the underlying weaknesses of the superintendent pipeline are not new.

It is crucial to have capable and resilient superintendents leading all districts in Texas to confront the challenges ahead. To achieve this objective, we need to take a comprehensive approach, which includes investing in identifying promising candidates for future superintendent positions, enhancing their leadership skills, matching them to districts where they can make an impact, and providing them support during their initial years as a superintendent.

To meet this challenge, The Holdsworth Center created a Superintendent Pipeline team in 2023, building from the success of its inaugural program to support superintendents, the Superintendent Leadership Program, which began in 2021 and welcomed its fifth cohort in 2025.The Director, Superintendent Pipeline will serve as a key leader on this team, advancing Holdsworth’s abilities to identify the highest potential future superintendents for Texas, including leading one of our newest initiatives, Aspiring Superintendent Insights.

Responsibilities:

• Identify high-potential superintendent candidates in Texas
  • Develop methods to identify and encourage talented leaders in education to pursue the superintendency
  • Lead the implementation and scaling of Aspiring Superintendent Insights, a unique experience for aspiring superintendents to learn about the role and their own strengths and areas of growth
  • Research, create, and update competency models to identify the most important skills for success in the superintendent role
  • Create models and methods for assessing candidates against superintendent competencies to provide feedback and encourage them in their growth journey
  • Evaluate, recommend, and implement other methods for identifying high-potential superintendent candidates in Texas
• Lead a team of individual contributors to advance the work of identifying and encouraging future superintendents
  • Effectively manage team members and guide, support and coach team to achieve goals
  • Lead an engaged team culture where every team member is thriving in their role
  • Determine ideal staffing scenarios for the future of Aspiring Superintendent Insights, including partnering with Holdsworth’s Superintendents-in-Residence
• Work collaboratively with the Superintendent Pipeline team to cohesively implement all of the team’s pipeline initiatives
  • Work closely with the Managing Director, Executive Superintendent-in-Residence, and Director, Superintendent Pipeline Programs to ensure seamless execution of team’s priorities across the superintendent pipeline
  • Support the broader work of The Holdsworth Center and its mission
  • to develop leadership in K-12 public education in Texas

Prior experience & capabilities:

Desirable candidates will have a range of prior experience and capabilities. We expect that strong candidates may have a range of experiences, including K-12 leadership, non-profit leadership, executive search experience (private sector or non-profit), and more. If you believe you have the skills and creative insight required to excel in this role, we encourage you to apply.

You’re a strong candidate if the following attributes describe you:

• You have strong alignment with our organizational values—Believe in People, Be of Service, Drive for Excellence for Every Student.
• You’re a creative, flexible thinker with an entrepreneurial spirit.
• You have a strong ability to imagine and design new systems; You can both ideate and implement at high levels. You want to both create the strategy and take action to implement the strategy.
• You’re skilled at using data to develop insight into and solve complex problems – previous experience working with databases and data visualization is a plus.
• You can synthesize lots of complex information and communicate in a way that is easy for others to understand, both verbally and in writing.
• You’re not only comfortable navigating ambiguity, but you find enjoyment and excitement in the ambiguity of bringing shape to new initiatives and finding answers to new questions. You don’t mind pivoting your strategy (or abandoning something that’s not working) when you discover something new.
• You’re comfortable working both independently and working in close collaboration with other team members.
• You’re able to establish relationships and credibility with external audiences quickly.
• You have strong planning skills with an ability to think and strategize for the long-term.
• You can work with a team to organize all the pieces of a large effort from beginning to end while attending to the big picture and all of the details, with a focus on both relationships and results.
• You have a strong track record of people leadership: you’re an excellent coach and you empower others to do their best work.
• You have a strong desire to learn, grow, and get better through feedback.

Geography

Candidates must live in Texas, with preference for the Austin area. If the candidate lives in Texas outside of does not live in the Austin area, regular travel (up to several times per month, up to 50% depending on the month) to the Campus on Lake Austin will be required to work with the team in person and/or to support the implementation of the team’s work on-site.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary Range: $120,000 - $135,000
• Compensation for the role will depend on several factors, including but not limited, to your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience. The Holdsworth Center also factors internal pay equity in evaluating compensation.
• This position is eligible to participate in company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short-term and long-term disability coverage, four-weeks of paid time off annually, employee assistance program, participation in a 401k program that includes a company match, and many other additional benefits.