Chief Academic Officer

WittKieffer has partnered with The Family Institute (TFI) at Northwestern University to recruit its next Chief Academic Officer (CAO). This is a unique opportunity to join a nationally recognized academic behavioral health organization at a pivotal moment in its evolution. This position offers the opportunity to join a visionary, forward-thinking organization and contribute to its continued success. The next CAO will be an academic behavioral health leader with an interest in research, education, and evidence-based clinical service. Leading world-class mental health graduate programs in both Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, the CAO will bring a focus on enhancing the faculty and student experience while continually striving to advance care delivery through research. The Family Institute at Northwestern is one of the nation’s leading relationship-based behavioral health organizations committed to strengthening and healing individuals, couples, families, children, and adolescents. Through the Center for Applied Psychological & Family Studies, TFI partners with Northwestern University to provide the highest level of education to future leaders in behavioral health therapy. With a focus on research and education, the center provides powerful insights into providing customized therapy plans to treat the family system. TFI is a leader in providing the highest standards of behavioral health education and experience in both theoretical knowledge and applied clinical practice. TFI's renowned faculty are actively engaged in teaching students across in-person and online programs, with a steadfast commitment to delivering high-quality experiential learning opportunities that develop clinical competence, professional confidence, and readiness for practice. Reporting to the President and Chief Executive Officer, the CAO serves as a key member of the executive leadership team, providing vision, strategic direction, and oversight for the organization's academic, training, and research enterprises. This leader is responsible for directing the nationally distinguished Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies at Northwestern University, advancing excellence across all academic programs, fellowship and training initiatives, curriculum development, and research functions, while ensuring alignment with the organization's mission, strategic priorities, and academic partnerships. Functioning as both an enterprise and academic leader, the CAO provides executive leadership for TFI's academic enterprise, ensuring that education, research, faculty development, and innovation advance the strategic mission. The role exists to build and lead a high-performing academic organization within TFI that is nimble in delivering high-quality, top-tier graduate education while also meeting the emerging needs of current and prospective students. The role also leads TFI’s Research function and develops its strategic plan to align with the organization’s strategy for leveraging measurement-informed care collected through clinical practice. The successful candidate will provide strategic leadership for the academic enterprise and align priorities with organizational strategy. The CAO will develop and lead a high-performing team of academic leaders, including the academic directors responsible for the master's program, while building organizational academic capacity with a focus on quality of academic experience and commitment to the organization’s strategic plan. The expected salary range is: $300,000- $330,000. The salary range for this role may vary above or below the posted range. Compensation takes into account several factors, including but not limited to a candidate's experience, education, skills, licensure and certifications, department equity, training, and organizational needs.