Special Assistant, Corporate and External Affairs Group

Position Description
 

Clark Construction Group, LLC is seeking an experienced Special Assistant in its Corporate and External Affairs Group. The Special Assistant will serve as a key operational and administrative partner, helping to ensure the effectiveness and responsiveness. The ideal candidate will have at least five to seven years of demonstrated experience serving as an office manager, executive assistant, or chief of staff in a C-suite environment in a diplomatic or legislative office, as part of a trade association or think tank, or similar. The ideal candidate will be highly organized, professional, proactive, as well as have the ability to anticipate and adapt to changing priorities. He or she will bring a solutions-oriented, “can-do” attitude and thrive on variety in a fast-paced environment. Given the group’s engagement with a wide variety of external stakeholders, the ideal candidate will operate with a high degree of professionalism, diplomacy, cross-cultural competency, and responsiveness.  

Key Responsibilities

• Schedule and Work Flow Management: Understand and support the team’s goals, priorities, and responsibilities. Help ensure effective work flow and time allocation by managing daily, weekly, and monthly priorities and schedule. Understand, track, and help respond both to incoming requests from stakeholders as well as to the group’s proactive initiatives and outreach efforts.  

• Trusted Point of Contact: Serve as a highly reliable, trusted point of contact for internal and external stakeholders, including clients, professional advisors, trade association leaders, public officials, and community leaders.  

• Events, Meetings, and Travel Management: Support the planning, budgeting, scheduling, communication and coordination of various executive-level client and stakeholder meetings and events. 

• Financial Management:  Help support departmental budgeting and accounting by monitoring monthly spending.  

• Continuous Operational Improvement with AI: Support continuous improvement of departmental workflow and processes by utilizing the company’s AI tools. 

• Special Projects: Provide management and coordination for special projects that support department and company priorities. 

Qualifications

• Associates’ or Bachelor’s degree in a related field; 

• Minimum of five to seven years of relevant experience, including supporting senior executives;

• Demonstrated ability to think and act proactively to anticipate the needs of executives;

• Strong interpersonal skills and the demonstrated ability to manage multiple and changing priorities;

• Strong command of the English language, both written and verbal; native fluency or full professional proficiency in German desired but not required; 

• High degree of professionalism, client focus, and ease when interacting with various internal and external stakeholders, including company executives, clients, advisors, partners, business leaders, public officials, and community leaders; 

• High level of diplomacy and cross-cultural competency, including demonstrated ability to interact and build rapport with local, state, federal, and international stakeholders; 

• Strong planning and organizational skills, as evidenced by successful project and process management as well as the ability to track and manage various requests, action items, and other priorities;

• Attention to detail and the ability to develop documents, plans, or presentations that are complete, concise, and accurate;

• Flexibility and willingness to provide support to other projects and/or parts of the company;

• Ability to maintain discretion and confidentiality in all aspects of job responsibilities;

• Ability to work independently, problem solve, and use good judgment, with a high degree of self-motivation and initiative; 

• Ability to work overtime if/when needed to meet business requirements; 

• Proficiency with AI tools to streamline work processes highly preferred; and 

• Expert proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Google Suite (Mail, Docs, Sheets) required. 

This is a full-time, in-person position based in our Washington, DC and/or McLean, Virginia office. The office is Metro-accessible; however, access to a car for transportation is a plus.  

The Physical Side o