Director of Outsourced Managed Services

Director of Outsourced Managed Services

Financial Aid Services (FAS)

Location: Remote (Travel to Atlanta Headquarters as Needed)

Position Type: Full-Time

About Us

At Financial Aid Services (FAS), we’re more than a consulting firm — we’re the trusted partner for colleges and universities navigating the complexities of financial aid. Our expert consultants help institutions strengthen their operations, optimize technology, maintain compliance, and fill critical leadership roles.

Our work is dynamic, impactful, and fast-paced — no two days are the same. Projects range from short-term assignments to year-long engagements, requiring strategic resource planning to match the right expertise with each institution’s needs.

The Opportunity to Make an Impact Beyond a Single Institution

FAS is seeking an experienced financial aid and higher education business leader to oversee and grow our Outsourced Managed Services division. This opportunity is ideal for professionals who have served as Directors, Executive Directors, Associate Vice Presidents, Vice Presidents, or other senior leaders within financial aid and are interested in applying their expertise across multiple colleges and universities nationwide.

As Director of Outsourced Managed Services, you will lead a current team of 14 professionals supporting more than 20 active client engagements with the goal of expanding to 50+ clients in the next 24 months. You will work closely with FAS executive leadership to strengthen operational performance, ensure regulatory compliance, improve organizational effectiveness, and leverage technology, automation, and AI to modernize our processing operations.

This leader will play a critical role in transforming the financial aid operations of our clients into a strategic driver of enrollment growth and financial health. You will be responsible for re-engineering workflows, accelerating file turnaround times, standardizing service delivery, and driving innovation through AI-enabled solutions. The successful candidate brings deep financial aid expertise, strong operational leadership skills, a passion for client success, and the ability to build trusted partnerships with clients and internal teams.

What You'll Do

Operational Leadership

• Lead and develop a team of 14 staff currently, including four Project Leads, providing vision, coaching, mentorship, and a high performance culture of accountability.
• Manage processing operations across 20 active client engagements with the expectation of growing and scaling the operation to serve 50+ clients in the next 24 months.
• Monitor project timelines, deliverables, quality standards, and client satisfaction metrics.
• Identify and proactively address operational risks, resource constraints, and delivery challenges.
• Optimize consultant utilization and minimize bench time while maintaining exceptional service quality.
• Review and determine staffing allocations.
• Develop a flexible workforce strategy that balances full-time employees and independent contractors to optimize utilization, control costs, and support business growth.
• Monitor progress of all active processing engagements to ensure project milestones, deliverable deadlines, and quality standards are consistently achieved.
• Re-engineer processing operations for speed, scalability, and consistency while maintaining strong compliance controls.
• Establish performance targets and operational workflows designed to reduce file turnaround times and improve responsiveness to client needs.
• Own and continuously evolve the Analyst Training and Performance Enablement program, including onboarding, skills development, knowledge management, coaching, performance improvement plans, and career progression pathways to build a scalable, high-performing workforce.

Process Excellence & Standardization

• Document, maintain, and continuously improve standard operating procedures (SOPs) across all processing services.
• Standardize service delivery methodologies for key functional areas including to ensure consistency and quality across all client engagements:
  • Verification
  • Packaging and Awarding
  • Return of Title IV Funds (R2T4)
  • Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)
  • Reconciliation
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that increase productivity, throughput, and overall operational effectiveness.

Performance Management & Reporting

• Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) within the FASTrax 2.0 platform, including:
  • Utilization
  • Productivity
  • Cycle times
  • Turnaround times
  • Quality assurance
• Deliver data-driven operational insights and recommendations to executive leadership.
• Work with finance team to monitor engagement profitability, staffing efficiency, and resource utilization trends.
• Maintain operational dashboards to support performance management and decision-making in FASTrax 2.0.

Innovation & Technology

• Lead the transformation of the Processing Services division through technology, automation, and AI-enabled solutions.
• Identify workflow automation opportunities to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and increase operational capacity.
• Leverage AI to streamline processing activities, accelerate decision-making, and improve service delivery.
• Evaluate and standardize workflows to eliminate inefficiencies and create faster, more consistent outcomes for clients.
• Drive initiatives to accelerate file turnaround times while maintaining high levels of quality and compliance.
• Champion innovation and a culture of continuous improvement across the Processing Services division.

Client Partnership & Service Delivery

• Serve as a senior escalation point for client concerns and operational issues.
• Partner with institutions to ensure successful delivery of contracted services.
• Collaborate with project teams to meet client expectations and ensure high-quality outcomes.
• Understand long-term client goals and how our services need to adapt to meet those future client challenges and opportunities.
• Foster long-term client relationships built on trust, responsiveness, and measurable results.

Compliance & Quality Assurance

• Maintain deep knowledge of federal financial aid regulations and industry best practices.
• Support internal quality control reviews and annual audit initiative.
• Monitor compliance trends and recommend enhancements to mitigate institutional and operational risk.
• Promote a culture of accountability, accuracy, and regulatory excellence.

What We're Looking For

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive financial aid leadership experience.
• Experience leading financial aid operations at a college, university, system office, or higher education organization.
• Demonstrated success managing teams, workflows, complex operational initiatives that include change management.
• Deep understanding of Title IV regulations and financial aid administration.
• Strong project management, organizational, and change management skills.
• Demonstrated success leveraging technology to drive efficiency gains and operational excellence.
• Proven ability to lead high-performing teams in a remote environment.
• Excellent communication, relationship-building, and client management skills.
• Experience using operational data and metrics to drive performance improvement.

Preferred Qualifications

• Multi-campus, multi-system, or consulting experience.
• Experience leading process improvement initiatives.
• Experience implementing automation or workflow redesign solutions.
• Familiarity with Ellucian Banner, Colleague, PeopleSoft, Jenzabar, CampusNexus, or other SIS platforms.
• Experience developing KPIs, operational dashboards, and performance management frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to scale operations while maintaining quality and compliance standards.

Why Join FAS?

At FAS, you'll have the opportunity to influence financial aid operations nationwide while working alongside a team of dedicated higher education professionals. You'll help shape the future of our Processing Services organization, drive operational excellence, and build innovative solutions that improve outcomes for institutions and students alike.

We offer:

• Competitive compensation
• Remote work flexibility
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Professional development opportunities
• Collaborative and entrepreneurial culture
• Opportunity to lead organizational transformation through technology and AI
• Ability to make a national impact across higher education

Financial Aid Services is an Equal Opportunity Employer and values diversity in the workplace.

Originally posted on Himalayas