The Chief of Staff (COS) to the Chief People Officer (CPO) is the right-hand person to our CPO Laura Saldivar Luna, enabling her to advance her commitments and priorities in service of the mission and vision of Teach For America. In this role, you will act as a trusted thought partner and advisor to the CPO. You will ensure Laura’s time is allocated strategically, in places where she is uniquely positioned to contribute, and that she is prepared with the high-quality, well-structured information necessary for her to make decisions, form opinions, and provide feedback. You will partner with Laura to ensure the Human Assets Management Team (made up of Laura’s direct reports) has a thriving culture rooted in our core values and is positioned to efficiently and effectively make consequential decisions to advance organizational progress and impact. You will collaborate with Laura and other senior staff to manage the engagement of 3,000+ staff members around the country, and you will own and/or help drive the progress of critical strategic projects.
The ideal candidate for this role will be motivated by the opportunity to influence Teach For America’s culture and operations at the highest level. You will be comfortable working through large volumes of tasks that span proactive opportunities and reactive needs. You will use mental agility to switch topics and altitude frequently any given day given the dynamic nature of an organization where the opportunity and work often needs further definition. You will successfully build collaborative relationships with colleagues at all levels of the organization, and manage through influence to get work done. Using these orientations and skills, you will deliver solutions for complex problems. This role requires maturity, flexibility, humility, resourcefulness, optimism, and a willingness to embrace the unknown.
As the Chief of Staff to the Chief People Officer (Laura Saldivar Luna), you are responsible for ensuring that Laura delivers on her two CPO commitments, which are as follows:
- Teach For America is the highest-impact nonprofit in the world.
- Teach For America is the greatest place to work in our country.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of responsibilities aligned to advancing the two commitments above, though it is Laura’s expectation that as part of your role, you will partner with her to identify, co-create, and lead on needs that are not yet defined on this list.
In this role, you will:
Act as a trusted partner to the CPO, helping Laura define her priorities and ensuring she is set up to achieve them by:
- Driving the effectiveness and efficiency of Laura’s time and ensuring it aligns with the most critical organizational priorities, where Laura’s voice is specifically necessary
- Gathering necessary information, inputs, and analyses to ensure Laura is well-positioned to make decisions on a range of issues, and setting a high bar for the quality of deliverables for Laura’s review
- Building an understanding of the critical work that is happening across the organization and surfacing issues, bright spots, and challenges to Laura
- Acting as a liaison/advisor to senior organizational leaders and external stakeholders, as appropriate, to help advance both Laura’s priorities and our organizational priorities
- Acting as a proxy for Laura, when appropriate, and drafting communications on behalf of Laura, as needed
Oversee critical strategic projects operated from within Human Assets or in collaboration with other teams, including:
- Facilitating the annual strategic planning process for Teach For America’s Human Assets Team
- Overseeing financial management of the $12M Human Assets Team budget, designing and implementing systems for evaluating return on personnel and non-personnel investments
- Evaluating, creating, and implementing key strategies related to cultural and people-related efforts across all of Teach For America
- Effectively managing the partnership between Laura’s office with other teams across the organization to ensure the creation and effective execution of a strong communications and engagement strategy for Laura
- Leading the execution of initiatives/special projects that Laura has identified as priorities
Ensure that Laura’s direct reports operate effectively as a group, including:
- Partnering with Laura and others to build a strong culture and sense of team among the Human Assets Management Team
- Helping the Human Assets Management Team outline priorities and step back on progress during the course of the year to ensure they are achieved
- Helping to ensure clarity on decision-making processes among the Human Assets Management Team, and that they have the necessary information to facilitate effective decision-making
- Managing the regular engagements of the Human Assets Management Team to ensure they spend their time most effectively and in the most strategic ways, including owning the scope and sequence of topics, setting clear objectives, and ensuring strong facilitation and materials for each engagement
- Implementing and managing any team-wide systems, protocols, and processes necessary for optimizing HA team performance
- Hire, manage, and support Laura’s executive assistant
Ensure that Laura delivers on her commitment to put Teach For America on the forefront of external people practices by:
- Serving as point person for the Human Assets partnership with Teach For All, the global organization for educational equity of which Teach For America is an affiliate
- Identifying and connecting with external organizations and companies that are on the cutting edge of people work to establish, cultivate, and sustain strong partnerships
- Creating in-house and offsite learning opportunities with national and global external experts to disrupt, inspire, and advance learning on the Human Assets Team and at Teach For America more broadly
- Managing the Human Assets fund for team-wide learning and development
- 8+ years of professional experience and a track record of success in roles requiring strong lateral management, relationship building, project management, and cross-functional leadership
- Previous strategy/management consulting experience a plus
- Previous experience working with mission-driven non-profits and mission-driven for-profits
- Poise, confidence, and maturity interacting with key stakeholders, with the ability to build strong relationships and work with people at all levels within and external to the organization
- Demonstrated ability to manage multiple responsibilities and to consistently meet ambitious deadlines and goals
- Exceptional strategic and critical thinking skills
- Good judgment and decision making, strong initiative, and a quick learner
- Exceptional written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills
- Superb planning and project management skills
- Operates with a high level of personal responsibility, and can lead through ambiguity and complexity
- Ability to thrive in a goal-oriented, fast-paced, and entrepreneurial environment, including the ability to be flexible in project execution
- Deep commitment to TFA’s mission, core values, and our commitment to diversity and inclusiveness
Work Demands
- Travel for this role will be 1-2 trips per month based on project need. Travel can be flexible with the exception of several key meetings/conferences during the course of the year.