The Assistant to the Executive Director (AED) plays an integral role in Teach For America New York’s overall operation and success, ensuring that the Executive Director is able to work purposefully and efficiently by providing critical and strategic administrative support. The Executive Director depends on you to maximize her efforts in pursuing Teach For America New York’s region-wide priorities and that those priorities are appropriately reflected in her use of time each day, week, and month. You represent her, the region, and the organization with thoughtfulness, integrity, and professionalism to all constituents, both internal and external. You possess outstanding poise and the ability to communicate on behalf of the team and Executive Director verbally and in writing to a variety of audiences, including Teach For America staff, teachers, and alumni, district personnel, civic leaders and funders. You demonstrate unusual attention to detail, a highly-developed ability to anticipate and solve problems, strong organizational systems, a strong collaborative work ethic, and a customer service mindset. You’re motivated at the prospect of supporting someone in a high-level position and learning about the inner workings of a major non-profit organization from behind the scenes. As a result of your impeccable attention to detail, love for behind-the-scenes work, organizational prowess and ability to get things done, you will have a significant impact on the degree to which members of our team work efficiently and love coming to work in our office.
- You love details. You notice things that other people don’t. You approach each task you lead with an eagle-eye towards details and anticipate every step and possible misstep in the process. It makes you incredibly (maybe unreasonably) happy when things fit together just right and projects and plans have been laid out down to the last detail. Secretly, there’s something you love about vetting a dataset or proofreading a final document – you love catching and righting those small, but in your mind, critical points.
- You make things happen. You don't get overwhelmed easily and take personal responsibility for the success of your work whether it requires managing back-end processes, engaging with a team, or setting up others to execute effectively. You take pride in your integrity and follow-through on tasks. People would describe you as dependable and driven – they know when they ask you to do something, it’s as good as done. You consistently seek out feedback from diverse sources to learn and improve, you drive your professional development with purpose and focus on outcomes, and you have a knack for devising, implementing, and investing others in systems that improve individual and team performance.
- You’re a jack of all trades. You’re flexible. You know a little bit about a lot of things and if you don’t know, you’re quick to learn. You're willing to help out wherever needed and thrive in a face-paced, entrepreneurial environment. You are a resourceful, results oriented team-player with a positive “can do” attitude and a sense of humor. You are skilled at managing complexity and adjust course easily and quickly when things fall off track. You’re not thrown off by feedback (in fact, you thrive on it) and are able to incorporate and turn it around quickly.
- You’re a people person. You forge strong, trusting relationships with diverse groups of people. You’re empathetic and intuitive; you often know what people need or want before they do. You’re socially flexible and know how to attune and calibrate your interactional style depending on the environment, audience, or context. You are fueled by collaborating and working to make others efficient and effective. You know when a healthy dose of humor is called for.
You will provide support to the Executive Director (60%)
- Provide administrative support to the Executive Director, including maintaining an efficient and complicated calendar, coordinating senior-level meetings and conference calls, arranging travel, managing correspondence, and processing expenses and reimbursements
- Utilize a proactive, thoughtful, and strategic approach to accomplish the above
- Oversee all logistics and communications related to regional advisory Board management, including but not limited to: organizing logistics for all Board meetings; maintaining Board meeting schedules, agendas, minutes and attendance records; developing strong external relationships with Board member assistants; managing up to Leadership Team members to ensure timely completion of Board reports; drafting Board updates on behalf of the Executive Director
- Provide administrative support for the New York leadership team, including meeting logistics
- Ensure compliance with organizational policies and be fiscally responsible with team resources
- Engage occasional special projects to support the Executive Director or team, such as performing analysis on the ED’s time allocation towards various key priorities, preparing one-off external presentations for the ED, etc.
You will support regional team culture and office operations (30%)
- Manage logistics for all-staff meetings and retreats
- Facilitate a strong team culture through the design and execution of staff and office-wide initiatives and communications, including a Weekly Digest and bi-weekly “Stall Stories” newsletter to build knowledge and community across functional teams
- Liaise with the national administration team to ensure the office environment supports productivity and effective collaboration (including stocking supplies, general office cleanliness, office displays to support culture, etc)
- Welcome & support onboarding logistics for new team members
- Provide exceptional customer service and leadership on-site to callers and visitors, external partners, local vendors, and staff
You will contribute to broader organizational vision, mission, and culture (10%)
- Interview, select, and matriculate incoming corps members
- Engage in regional learning through attending meetings and professional development opportunities
- Staff Teach For America New York events
- 2-3 years of relevant work experience
- Teach For America generally assumes a 45 hour workweek for its non-exempt staff members. Work hours are flexible based on the needs of the team and the position.
- Occasional weekend or evening work hours required
- Impeccable judgment and ability to manage confidential information with the utmost integrity
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
- Ability to make timely decisions and demonstrate good judgment
- Exceptional customer service orientation
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to tailor approach toward the perspective of others
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office and Google Suite