About the role
The Chief Academic Officer (CAO) serves as the senior academic leader of The Open Economics Project, responsible for safeguarding the intellectual integrity and educational quality of the organization's learning resources.
OEP develops economics education across multiple academic pathways, including AP, IB, and A-Level curricula. Maintaining consistency, rigor, and accuracy across these resources requires more than creating content. It requires academic judgment, structured review processes, clear editorial standards, and a long-term commitment to instructional quality.
The CAO will lead this work, helping establish an academic foundation that can support OEP as its publications, assessments, and educational programs expand.
This is a strategic and hands-on leadership position. The successful applicant will be expected to establish standards, coordinate contributors, and personally review important academic work.
The mandate
To develop and maintain an academically rigorous, consistent, and reliable ecosystem of economics learning materials that students and educators can confidently use.
Responsibilities
Academic Governance and Quality Assurance
- Develop academic review standards for original lessons, textbooks, question banks, and assessments.
- Establish procedures for identifying, reviewing, correcting, and documenting academic errors.
- Ensure instructional materials appropriately reflect accepted economic principles and distinguish between competing economic interpretations where relevant.
- Maintain consistency in terminology, explanations, diagrams, and academic expectations across resources.
Curriculum Development
- Coordinate the academic direction of AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, IB Economics, and A-Level Economics resources.
- Identify curriculum gaps and prioritize new academic content.
- Develop expectations for assessment difficulty, question construction, explanations, and model answers.
- Ensure curriculum-specific requirements are accurately represented without implying affiliation with examination boards.
Academic Team Leadership
- Coordinate academic contributors, writers, editors, and subject reviewers.
- Assign review responsibilities and maintain clear editorial workflows.
- Provide constructive feedback and support the development of contributor expertise.
- Collaborate with organizational leadership on academic recruitment and contributor standards.
Educational Evaluation
- Help design comparable assessment questions that can support evaluation of learner understanding.
- Review educational feedback and available performance information to recommend improvements.
- Support responsible reporting of educational outcomes without overstating the evidence.
Who we’re looking for
We are seeking someone who demonstrates strong economics knowledge, intellectual discipline, excellent written communication, and sound academic judgment.
Applicants should be capable of explaining complex economic concepts clearly and identifying inaccuracies or weaknesses in instructional materials.
Familiarity with at least one major secondary-level economics curriculum is important. Experience with multiple curricula, tutoring, teaching, educational publishing, or academic review is particularly valuable.
Prior executive experience is not required. Demonstrated competence, accountability, and initiative matter more than an existing leadership title.
First 90 Days
The CAO should aim to:
- Review OEP's current academic content structure and identify priority gaps.
- Establish a written academic quality-assurance and editorial review framework.
- Develop standardized expectations for reviewing lessons and assessments.
- Coordinate the academic review of one priority learning unit.
- Submit a concise academic development roadmap for the following quarter.
Working together
The CAO will work closely with OEP's executive leadership and relevant academic and technology contributors.
The position requires regular progress communication, timely responses to academic review requests, and an ability to make decisions transparently.
Academic leadership responsibilities do not automatically include unilateral authority to publish materials, enter agreements, or make financial commitments. Final authority will follow OEP's internal governance arrangements.
Why it matters
Educational reach means little without educational quality. The Chief Academic Officer will help ensure that as OEP reaches more learners, the rigor and reliability of its resources remain central to the organization.