Senior Director, Chief of Staff, Office of the COO (M2)

Summary

The Chief of Staff will report to the COO and provide direct support and partnership to the COO and other senior leaders. The Chief of Staff for the Office of COO will manage or support key strategic initiatives, objectives, and activities.  You will impact program effectiveness by streamlining strategic initiatives and communicating objectives between divisions. The Chief of Staff will provide Executive level advising, consulting, and cross departmental collaboration in support of the COO. 

What You’ll Be Doing (Essential Duties)

Advises, supports, and enables the COO

• Organize and prioritize critical issues and required information for the COO to facilitate efficient & timely decision making.
• Drive prioritization and delegation tasks to enable the COO to control time spent on detailed, day-to-day operational decisions and increase time spent on strategic decisions and planning.
• Represent the COO to facilitate agency-wide project leadership and decision making where appropriate (in partnership with the Executive Leadership team).
• Act as a point of contact for COO and other stakeholders.
• Draft and/or edit key COO communications.
• Monitor the status of key priorities and initiatives including through regular check-ins with senior leaders.
• Provide timely and proactive status briefings, elevating issues when required and providing effective solutions to remove barriers and roadblocks. Support, represent and follow through on delegated issue resolution.
• Partner with the Senior Advisor for Strategy to support strategy and annual planning through research and preparation, data collection and presentation, articulating clear processes and timelines, budget analysis, engagement of key stakeholders, socializing processes, and follow-up.
• Develop systems and tools for collecting and using metrics that enable the COO to monitor the COO agenda and report to the CEO and the Board of Trustees. Support in the drafting of COO materials/presentations for the Board.
• Oversee administrative and organizational support for senior management meetings, working with the COO and colleagues to prepare materials for meetings.

Management of Special Initiatives and Projects

• Partner closely with the COO to design, put together, support, or supervise special projects in step with the COO agenda and priorities.
• Conduct analyses of systems, processes, structures to assess effectiveness, agility, and efficiency and alignment with strategy.
• Help to define and develop new operational tools and/or strategies, working with COO.

External Relationships, Profile and Partnerships

• Assist with planning and prioritizing external engagements, priorities, and commitments.
• Review and prioritize COO’s external engagement opportunities, manage internal coordination of support, including briefings and talking points, and draft correspondence and speeches as needed. 
• Serve as point person for all international travel; planning, content, engagement with country teams, external engagement during and after trip.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of a Bachelor Degree or equivalent experience, plus at least 7 years of relevant experience
• Experience in global humanitarian relief, development, and/or social justice and how to effectively position organizations and their leaders in those spaces
• Demonstrated ability to work with senior level executives to move complex issues forward
• Political acumen and diplomacy with demonstrated interpersonal skills
• Ability to make decisions and demonstrate sound judgement in a fast moving environment
• Demonstrated ability to manage confidential information and communicate effectively to diverse audiences in appropriate fashion
• Ability to interact strategically with a wide variety of sophisticated external actors
• Ability to take initiative, generate innovative ideas, and engage distinct constituencies
• Ability to move seamlessly across multiple content areas
• Organizational skills with the ability to handle fluctuating priorities
• Demonstrated ability to create, convey and execute strategic priorities
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively in support of building a team-based culture of work
• Ability to develop relationships with all employees for increased efficiency and effective responsiveness
• Some travel required, in US and potential for occasional international travel
• Professional proficiency in MS Office suite
• Professional proficiency in spoken and written English
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and col