Temporary Executive Assistant

Well known charter school looking for a long-term EA to the CEO!

THE OPPORTUNITY

As the Executive Assistant to the CEO, you will serve as a critical gatekeeper and trusted thought partner to the CEO. You will be the primary scheduler for the CEO and will ensure that her time is consistently optimized to work on the organization’s most pressing work. You will work closely with the Chief of Staff to ensure the CEO’s “front office” is managed effectively, efficiently, and proactively.

Basics

• Location: New York, NY (Willingness to be in-office 5 days a week initially, some remote days possible after onboarding)
• Start Date: ASAP- for at least 6 months

Responsibilities

• Maximize the CEO’s time. Understand and anticipate the needs and priorities of the CEO. Serve as the primary scheduler and manager of the CEO’s calendar: schedule meetings, review and respond to incoming requests, prioritize appointments, protect work blocks, coordinate travel and logistics, balance against personal obligations, audit for conflicts, and anticipate and resolve potential issues.
• Ensure the CEO is consistently well prepared and set up for success. Provide the CEO with a daily schedule and briefing of what she needs to know for the day along with a digest of the requests, actions, tasks and decisions that require her attention. Prepare proactive communications (follow-up emails, thank you notes, birthdays), agendas, memos, presentations, event briefs, itineraries, and other documents and spreadsheets as needed.
• Ensure smooth “front office” and executive operations. In partnership with the Chief of Staff, ensure front office and Cabinet documents, resources, assets and recurring systems (e.g., expense management, organizational culture rituals, weekly communications) are well maintained and operate with consistency. Own or oversee ad hoc projects and administrative tasks as needed and directed by the CEO or Chief of Staff.
• Be an extension of the CEO. Proactively engage with Cabinet members, organizational leaders, board chairs, and external partners on behalf of the CEO to advance work, navigate conflicts, resolve issues, and tee up actions and decisions for the CEO. Manage sensitive matters with unwavering maturity and discretion and imbue all interactions with respect and compassion.

About You

• You have a bachelor’s degree and 2-3 years of experience, possibly more; and may have prior experience in the education/nonprofit sector.
• You have prior administrative experience, ideally managing the time and efforts of a principal (e.g., CEO, COO, President or senior C-level executive). Your principal’s calendar is a puzzle that you love to solve, and you get joy out of beating her to the “I saw that around the corner” punch.
• You are highly organized and fluidly manage documents in MS Office and GSuite, and have been known to retitle documents to make them clearer to users.
• You are known for building systems that people love to use and have demonstrated experience managing data and building ad hoc reports; you genuinely get excited when you learn a new Google Sheets equation.
• You can balance multiple priorities — talking to a school leader, responding to the board chair, drafting talking points, entering data — gracefully and with practiced personal organization and time management.
• You are a natural problem solver, fixer, and finder of resources; in moments of tension, you defuse and resolve conflict.
• You have strong verbal and written communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to communicate strategically with senior executives.
• You are an organizer by nature and connect with others easily; you feel comfortable communicating in person, by phone, over email, text, Slack, Signal, and know how to leverage the newest digital and project management tools.
• You work quickly, but deliberately and with high quality; you find the rapidly changing context of a social mission environment motivating and adapt without skipping a beat.
• You seek to build context; like an ever-expanding Wikipedia page, you seek new knowledge to improve your understanding of the space that you work in and to stay one step ahead of your principal.
• You are humble, mature, situationally sensitive, and discreet; you take pride in supporting leaders worth supporting.