Chief of Staff to the CEO

Position Summary

Common Impact has built the leading model for skills-based volunteering, connecting talented professionals from global companies to high-potential nonprofits. As corporate engagement and investment in social challenges deepens, Common Impact is expanding and evolving to meet the new demands of this exciting field.

The Chief of Staff will be both an internal and external facing role, serving as a problem solver, mediator, sounding board and, in some cases, a proxy for the CEO. Internally, the CoS will work primarily with the senior leadership of the organization to ensure effective functioning, communication and to equip the CEO with the tools, resources and information needed to lead the organization through its current growth phase.

This is a mid-career position, reporting directly to the CEO, and perfect for a rising star who is interested in getting first-hand exposure to and building a career in social sector executive leadership. The successful candidate will have demonstrated experience in an external role (ideally client and media-facing), as well as with executive assistance and project management. The CoS will possess excellent verbal and written communication skills, and an excitement and willingness to work outside of and in between departments and functions to solve problems and attain strategic goals.

Key Responsibilities

Governing CEO Priorities:

The Chief of Staff will manage the CEO’s priorities, providing “gatekeeper” and “gateway” role, creating win-win situations for direct access to the CEO’s time and office. This includes ensuring requests for CEO time are handled within established priorities, and are prepared for effective CEO engagement. This includes ensuring that materials are provided in an executive summary format, and that any leadership team-level decisions or impasses have been resolved or identified for CEO engagement. The CoS will manage the CEO’s virtual assistant and her interactions with other technology and support staff and vendors. In addition, the CoS will manage the agendas and lead meetings managed by the Office of the CEO, including staff meetings, team and board retreats, and manager meetings.

CEO Sounding Board and Confidant:

The CoS will be exposed to all facets of the organization, and be well positioned to serve as a confidential agent and trusted sounding board to the CEO on all matters related to governing the organization. The CoS will be trusted to act with discretion and thoughtfulness in executing against organizational priorities and will develop and own instincts around how to manage objective and sensitive information within the organization and amongst various audiences.

External and Media Relations:

The CoS will support the CEO’s engagement with Common Impact’s Board of Directors, clients, partners and media. While the CoS won’t be a full proxy in these external conversations or be featured in media initially, she/he/they will be fully immersed and conversant in Common Impact’s strategy and thought leadership, have a comfort with managing and curating external partnerships with exceptional professionalism, and act on behalf of the CEO when shaping initial meeting agendas, materials, run of shows and media opportunities. The CoS will work closely with the Program, Partnerships and Marketing teams at Common Impact to support the identification of opportunities for Common Impact, the need for CEO presence at external meetings, as well as drafting content and executive talking points.

Dashboard & Standardized Reporting:

As the organization grows, Common Impact is adopting more consistent, qualitative reporting on programmatic, business development, partnerships and internal staff related topics, and has recently finalized a set of dashboards for the full organization to use to understand progress. The CoS will help drive adoption of these dashboards and support the leadership team in curating and rolling out the weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports as appropriate. The CoS will assess the results to highlight areas of attention for the CEO, as well as gather additional quantitative and qualitative information to support decision making.

Special Initiatives:

The Chief of Staff will be tasked with leading priority initiatives projects for the organization, including but not limited to (1) building the organization’s anti-racist culture and DEI practices by ensuring accountability to goals, (2) ensuring that functions that don’t have a historical “home” within the organization are identified and delegated appropriately, and (3) curating and coordinating staff retreats, and (4) supporting the assessment and measurement of organizational effectiveness, including annual strategic plans and goals. While other staff members will be responsible for defining and executing many of these annual goals related to the organization’s effectiveness, the Chief of Staff will be asked to take an institutional lens, connect the dots between roles and departments and advise the CEO on potential areas of organizational priority and need.

Required Skills

Experience: 10-15 years of professional experience, ideally in an entrepreneurial environment; executive assistant and nonprofit experience preferred

Location: Brooklyn, NY (Remote through mid-2021)

Salary Range: $75,000 -$90,000

Travel: Travel expectations are minimal and will not exceed 10% time, focused on travel to support specific CEO initiatives or special projects. However, responsiveness outside of business hours is expected for emergency or particularly timely matters.

The Chief of Staff position will allow you to use and develop a number of different skillsets and our ideal candidate will be:

• An exceptional verbal and written communicator, with a strong executive presence. The Chief of Staff will be representing the CEO and the professional standards of the organization. We are seeking an individual who has exceptional presence and communication and can be an exemplar of the professional standards of excellence that Common Impact holds.
• A systems mindset. While we don’t require training in formal certification, we are seeking a professional who has experience in managing and streamlining processes for an organization on a fast growth trajectory . Our operations work includes a healthy mix of know n and unknown variables. This candidate must have comfort navigating ambiguous information, be a strong project manager, and be able to craft strong frameworks to make business decisions based on those variables.
• A self-starting, energetic leader who elicits the respect and trust of staff and external partners. In this position, you’ll be connecting with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders, and will need to project a strong organizational voice and be able to build trusted one on one relationships across members of the staff and board, while acting on behalf of the CEO. We are looking for a rising star with an innate sense of how to form strong relationships and drive outcomes across overlapping and competing mandates.
• An independent worker who can be proactive and prioritize a wide range of simultaneous projects. The Chief of Staff will be managing a significant number of complex projects for the CEO and thus touch all parts of the organization. We are seeking a professional that knows how to maintain a proactive approach to completing projects, meets articulated deadlines amidst competing priorities and has an active communication style to ensure all direct and indirect stakeholders are properly informed and involved.
• A thriving generalist, that can quickly learn new subjects and content in order to understand their connection to the “bigger picture” and drive organizational outcomes. We don’t expect you to be an expert in all of the areas you will help manage, you should be interested, informed and able to identify challenges, notable topics and resources needed to effectively engage the CEO.
• A professional with a “sixth sense” that can apply strong instincts to objective information and see opportunities and challenges that aren’t explicit, ensuring the important rises up over the urgent. You won’t always be told what problem to solve or what the issue at hand is – you will be expected to identify and respond proactively to situations and opportunities as they arise.
• An excellent problem solver and critical thinker who can synthesize information, ask insightful questions, and spot trends quickly.
• A deep, personal commitment to anti-racism and driving Common Impact’s equity goals forward.
• Enthusiastic for the mission of Common Impact, and an interest in advancing your social sector career.