Director of Education
Calgary, Alberta | Full-time, on-site | Senior academic leadership
Compensation: $60,000 to $80,000 annually, plus benefits
READ THIS PART FIRST
This is a senior academic leadership role inside a licensed private career college. It is not an instructor position and it is not a curriculum coordinator position.
If you do not have previous operations experience in the education sector, this is likely not a good fit for you.
We mean that plainly and we are saying it up front to save you time. Running academic delivery inside a regulated institution is a different job from corporate training, from private studio teaching, and from being an excellent instructor. It involves program approvals, audit cycles, instructional hours compliance, student appeals, faculty management, and accountability to a provincial regulator. Candidates who have not lived inside that environment do not get through our process, and we would rather tell you now than after four interviews.
If you have run academic operations at a college, polytechnic, university, or licensed training institution, keep reading. This is one of the best seats in Western Canadian post-secondary right now.
ABOUT NIWE ACADEMY
NIWE Academy is a private career college in downtown Calgary, licensed by Alberta Advanced Education under the Private Vocational Training Act. We have graduated more than 3,500 students since 2012 across hairstyling, barbering, esthetics, clinical aesthetics, nails, and massage therapy.
We are the only Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training approved apprenticeship hairstyling provider in Southern Alberta, and the first beauty college in more than 40 years to win the provincial Apprenticeship RFP Grant. Our student retention runs well above the industry average.
Our ambition is not modest. We intend to become the Harvard of the beauty industry. That requires academic rigour the sector has never had, and this role owns building it.
THE ROLE
Our Academy Dean is moving into a broader company-wide leadership seat. The Director of Education takes over the academic function in full.
You will own academic delivery across every NIWE program. You will lead our Lead Mentors and a team of 14 plus instructors. You will direct a third-party instructional design partner through a full curriculum modernization, and you will carry accountability for our academic regulatory standing.
You will report into senior leadership and work directly with the CEO. This seat carries a standing place on our leadership team.
WHAT YOU WILL OWN
We hire against a written scorecard with weighted, measurable outcomes. Every person in this seat is reviewed against it quarterly. Here is what it contains.
Document the academic function. This is the highest weighted outcome. Our academic operations have run on the judgment of an exceptional leader who is now moving up, and much of it exists in her head rather than on paper. Within your first 180 days you will complete a structured handover and publish the 15 core academic processes with a named owner and a named backup for each. The test we apply: you take ten consecutive business days off and nothing escalates.
Student retention and completion. Hold and improve retention against a benchmark we already beat, report completion and graduation by cohort every month, identify at-risk students within the first four weeks of every intake, and deliver graduate employment reporting at 100 percent completion every quarter.
Regulatory and academic compliance. Maintain clean standing with Alberta Advanced Education, the PVT Act, and AIT apprenticeship approval. Zero adverse findings. Full documentation integrity across student files, attendance, instructional hours, assessment records, and graduate reporting. Audit-ready at all times, with no fire drill when notice arrives.
Instructor performance and bench strength. Put every instructor and Lead Mentor on a written scorecard with a quarterly rating. Complete classroom and floor observation twice a year on every instructor with written development actions. Address underperformance within 90 days of first documented concern. Fill our open Lead Mentor seat in Hair and Barbering with an A-player.
Instructional design partnership. Agree scope, deliverables, and acceptance criteria with our external instructional design team within 45 days. Bring every diploma curriculum into D2L Brightspace, modernized and live, sequenced by enrolment volume. Hold the vendor to the date and the budget, and verify instructor adoption rather than assuming it.
Assessment integrity and exam outcomes. Standardize practical and theory rubrics across every program so two instructors grading the same work land within one band of each other. Drive first-time certification exam pass rates to 90 percent or better.
Scheduling, coverage, and academic operations. Term schedules published 60 days before cohort start. Zero uncovered classes. Kit, product, and equipment availability at 100 percent for every scheduled practical.
Academic budget. Own the departmental budget and deliver inside it. Report and improve instructional cost per student hour without trading away quality.
NIWE Instructor Certification Program. Launch Level 1 with our Esthetics Lead Mentor and certify the first cohort of eight or more instructors. Scope Level 2.
Apprenticeship growth. Maintain our AIT approval, grow apprenticeship cohort volume, and formalize employer partnerships for apprentice placement.
Program portfolio. Review program mix by contribution margin twice a year with a written recommendation on what to grow, fix, or retire. Scope and cost one new program for launch.
Academic team culture. Consistent one-on-ones with every direct report. Instructor engagement measured and held high. Turnover under 15 percent.
Health, safety, and clinic floor standards. Zero reportable incidents. Sanitation and equipment safety audits passed every time.
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
A driver. You have visible urgency. You set a high bar and you get uncomfortable when standards slip. You have raised a standard somewhere against real resistance and you can describe exactly what that resistance looked like. You speak in outcomes and timelines without being asked for the number.
A finisher. This is the quality we weight most heavily and screen hardest for. You have owned work from an ambiguous start to a measurable finish, and you were still in the seat when it landed. You can name three projects with a start date, an end date, and the state of the thing when you left it. Starters are common. We are hiring a finisher.
Formally educated. Bachelor degree in Education, Adult Education, Instructional Design, Curriculum, or a related discipline. A Master degree in Education, Adult Learning, or Educational Leadership is preferred. A Provincial Instructor Diploma, PIDP, CTDP, or equivalent adult-education teaching credential is highly valued.
Post-secondary experienced. Minimum five years inside a private career college, polytechnic, public college, university, or licensed training institution, with at least three in a leadership or program-ownership role. You have managed ten or more people including at least one manager or lead. You have been through a full audit or program approval cycle and you can describe what the regulator found.
Direct experience with Alberta Advanced Education, the PVT Act, or Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training is the single strongest thing you can bring to this application.
WHAT THE ROLE ASKS OF YOU DAY TO DAY
- On site in downtown Calgary. This role is not remote or hybrid eligible.
- Regular presence on active clinic and salon training floors.
- Workload peaks around intake starts, cohort graduations, and regulatory audit cycles.
- Occasional evening or weekend attendance for graduations, open houses, and industry events.
OUR HIRING PROCESS
We are transparent about it because it is rigorous and we want you to opt in with clear eyes.
- Thirty minute screening call.
- Psychometric assessment battery: cognitive, personality, and culture fit. All three are required and there are no exceptions.
- Structured chronological interview, approximately three hours, covering every role in your career.
- Focused panel interviews on our top outcomes.
- Practical exercise: you review a real NIWE program outline and present what you would change and why.
- Three reference interviews, including at least one former direct report.
- A 90 day plan presented to our CEO and senior leadership.
We will share the full role scorecard with serious candidates before you commit to the process. You should know exactly what you are being measured against before you decide whether you want it.
HOW TO APPLY
Submit your resume to [email protected] along with a short cover note that answers one question directly. As well as a 60 second video on why you think you are fit for this position.
Name one process, system, or program you took from undocumented or nonexistent to fully built and in use. Tell us when it started, when it finished, and what changed as a result.
Applications without an answer to that question will not be reviewed. It is the fastest way for us to see whether you are the finisher this role requires.
Applications close September 30th.
NIWE Academy is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates and provide accommodation on request throughout the recruitment process.
Pay: $80,000.00-$90,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company events
- Dental care
- Paid time off
- Wellness program
Work Location: In person
