President

President

Location Short Hills, NJ Date Posted September 24, 2026 Job ID 15481 Employment Type Retained

Scion Executive Search has been engaged to conduct the search for President of Summit Prep, a premier private tutoring and education services company serving students through in-person centers in Short Hills and Bernardsville, New Jersey, as well as online. This is a distinctive opportunity for an accomplished operator and growth leader to guide a healthy, founder-built company into its next stage while protecting the educational quality, integrity, and personalized experience at the heart of its reputation.

ABOUT SUMMIT PREP

Summit Prep empowers students to succeed in life through highly personalized tutoring, test preparation, and academic support. The company is best known for its private SAT and ACT preparation and for a student experience that combines rigorous instruction, customized curriculum, and unusually deep tutor development. Its full-time career tutors complete more than 160 hours of SAT and ACT training, and students achieve average gains of 210 points on the SAT and six points on the ACT.

Families experience Summit Prep through two Northern New Jersey centers and a growing online platform. The company has earned hundreds of five-star Google reviews and is New Jersey's highest-rated tutoring company. Its standing has been built deliberately, through strong student outcomes, trusted relationships, responsive service, and an unwavering commitment to placing people and quality ahead of short-term profit.

Summit Prep enters this leadership transition from a position of strength. Revenue has grown every year for more than a decade with no debt since inception. The business has also broadened its sources of demand and built meaningful visibility in AI-driven search, strengthening its foundation for continued organic growth.

The next chapter is about converting that momentum into a more durable enterprise. Summit Prep now seeks a President who can assume full responsibility for day-to-day performance, strengthen the team and operating infrastructure, and build the growth capabilities needed to expand the company's reach without compromising what makes it exceptional.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Reporting to co-founder and Chief Executive Officer David Blobaum, the President will serve as Summit Prep's senior operating leader and own the daily management, performance, and continued development of the business. The President will lead the administrative team and broader organization, translate priorities into clear plans and accountability, strengthen the customer and employee experience, and create the systems and leadership capacity required for Summit Prep to operate beyond its founder.

This role brings together operational leadership and disciplined growth. The President will improve workflows, decision-making, talent practices, and performance visibility while building business development capabilities and deepening relationships with families, schools, counselors, and other referral partners. Geographic or digital expansion is not prescribed. The successful leader will evaluate opportunities thoughtfully and pursue those that fit Summit Prep's quality standards, economics, and prudent approach to growth.

The President will join with broad authority and a genuine opportunity to progress into the Chief Executive Officer role as performance, trust, and organizational readiness are established. Candidates should therefore bring the judgment, presence, and enterprise perspective to lead at the CEO level, together with the humility to learn a specialized business, respect the strengths of the existing team, and manage a thoughtful founder transition.

The position is based at Summit Prep's headquarters in Short Hills, New Jersey, and requires an on-site presence and occasional travel.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Enterprise Leadership and Operations

• Assume full ownership of Summit Prep's day-to-day performance, ensuring that priorities, decisions, and accountability are clear across the organization.
• Strengthen operating systems, workflows, communications, and technology so the company can grow without relying on informal knowledge or constant founder involvement.
• Build a practical management rhythm using relevant operating, financial, sales, service, and staffing metrics to identify issues early and improve decision-making.
• Lead the coordination of in-person and online operations across Summit Prep's Short Hills and Bernardsville centers, maintaining consistent service and educational standards.
• Evaluate and implement technology and responsible AI applications that improve client intake, communication, scheduling, follow-up, knowledge capture, and administrative efficiency.

People Leadership and Organizational Capacity

• Lead, support, and develop the core administrative team while establishing clear expectations, decision rights, accountability, and opportunities for growth.
• Strengthen recruiting, onboarding, coaching, and retention for client service and administrative roles, reducing preventable turnover and workload pressure.
• Ensure the organization has appropriate staffing capacity and management support to respond, innovate, and grow without overextending the team.
• Set a high standard for communication, responsiveness, collaboration, integrity, and service while remaining accessible and willing to contribute where needed.
• Listen closely to the people who understand the business best, earning trust before making changes and pairing decisiveness with low ego and sound judgment.

Growth and Business Development

• Develop and execute a thoughtful growth strategy grounded in Summit Prep's reputation, referral relationships, differentiated educational model, and financial discipline.
• Build a more systematic business development capability, including the talent, processes, expectations, and metrics required to generate sustainable growth.
• Cultivate relationships with private schools, college counseling firms, families, professional networks, and other high-value referral partners across the region.
• Evaluate opportunities in new geographies, online services, partnerships, and adjacent offerings, advancing those with a clear strategic and economic rationale.
• Partner with the founder on the company's digital presence, thought leadership, and brand while ensuring marketing investments remain accountable to results.

Financial Stewardship and Performance

• Own the operating plan and business performance in partnership with the founder, connecting revenue, profitability, demand, staffing, and capacity decisions.
• Develop budgets, forecasts, dashboards, and performance indicators that create greater visibility and support timely, informed decisions.
• Preserve Summit Prep's strong balance sheet and prudent approach to investment while identifying opportunities to deploy resources for sustainable growth.
• Design scalable operating and incentive structures that align individual accountability with company performance, service quality, and long-term value creation.

Founder Partnership and External Leadership

• Build a candid, trusted partnership with the founder and progressively assume the relationships, decisions, and leadership responsibilities required to guide Summit Prep.
• Establish clear boundaries and communication practices that reinforce the President's authority while drawing appropriately on the founder's expertise, reputation, and institutional knowledge.
• Represent Summit Prep with credibility among families, schools, counseling partners, industry associations, and other external stakeholders.
• Participate in approximately four industry conferences annually and maintain an active local presence to strengthen partnerships, visibility, and market insight.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Significant leadership experience in a founder-led, growth-stage services business, ideally with responsibility for a comparable or larger P&L and a record of helping scale an organization from approximately $5 million toward $10 million or beyond.
• Demonstrated success strengthening operations, management systems, talent practices, and organizational accountability without diminishing entrepreneurial energy or customer intimacy.
• Direct experience leading revenue growth, business development, sales, or partnership functions, including the ability to hire and develop strong commercial talent.
• Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to translate data into operating priorities, resource decisions, and measurable results.
• Experience in a premium, relationship-driven service environment and the judgment to engage credibly with discerning families, clients, and referral partners.
• Meaningful knowledge of tutoring, test preparation, education services, or adjacent student- and family-facing sector strongly preferred.
• Evidence of leading geographically distributed or hybrid teams and creating consistent standards across in-person and virtual operations.
• Comfort applying technology and AI to improve operating efficiency, customer experience, workflow quality, and organizational learning.
• Exceptional communication, listening, problem-solving, and people leadership skills, paired with high integrity, intellectual curiosity, strong work ethic, and low ego.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Summit Prep will offer a competitive executive compensation package, including an anticipated base salary of $250,000 to $300,000, commensurate with experience and qualifications, plus a performance-based incentive. Relocation support may be considered for the selected candidate.

APPLICATIONS AND NOMINATIONS

Summit Prep has retained Scion Executive Search, a national executive search firm, to lead this search. Review of applications, nominations, and expressions of interest will begin immediately and continue on a confidential basis until an appointment is made. For immediate consideration, please apply with your resume and cover letter in Microsoft Word format via: https://scionexecutivesearch.com/job/15481/.

Please Address Applications to:

Sydney Burnham

Senior Executive Search Principal

Scion Executive Search

ABOUT OUR FIRM:

Scion Executive Search is an award-winning retained executive search firm. Our track record and recruitment process have made us one of the top recruitment firms in the United States. Through innovative team building and recruitment solutions, Scion Executive Search seamlessly bridges the gap in interim and executive searches.

We are proud to be part of the Forbes lists of the Best Recruitment Firms and the Best Executive Search Firms in America. Additionally, Scion has been recognized as a ClearlyRated Best of Staffing firm as well as a top recruitment firm by The Business Times. Additional information about our firm and our practices can be found online.

Scion Executive Search is an equal opportunity employer and service provider and does not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, citizenship status, sexual orientation, disability, political affiliation, or any other protected class. We are committed to the principles of Equal Opportunity Employment and are dedicated to making employment decisions based on merit and value for ourselves, our client companies, and the candidates we represent. ??

For opportunities located in a region that has enacted fair chance, arrest, or conviction-based employment ordinances, Scion Executive Search proactively follows the enacted guidance and considers for employment all qualified applications with arrest and conviction records. We engage in socially conscious business practices and believe that diverse, equitable, inclusive, and non-biased talent and recruitment processes are foundational to the success of Scion as well as every client organization with whom we partner.