Executive Assistant and Operations Lead (Democracy Leagues)

Location: Remote, Ohio preferred | Type: Full-time

We are seeking a highly organized and proactive Executive Assistant and Operations Lead to support our Chief of Democracy Leagues, Morgan Lasher, and the entire Democracy League program. This is a critical role for a professional who will thrive in a fun, busy, mission-driven environment by taking care of the details, taking admin tasks off Morgan’s plate, and making sure that the day-to-day operations of a growing number of Democracy Leagues run smoothly.

About Unify America

We’re on a mission to replace political fighting with collaborative problem-solving. Yeah, we know it sounds audacious. It is. But we’re doing it—by creating civic experiences that reduce polarization, teaching essential civic skills, and inviting Americans to use their differences to better solve common problems together.

Where we work:

• Higher Education (Civic Gym): Over 30,000 college students have engaged in meaningful cross-partisan conversations. Think of it as training for democracy—reps, sweat, and all.
• Cities (Democracy Leagues): We partner with communities to run Civic Assemblies, where residents—across the ideological spectrum—solve shared problems together. Our first pilot is thriving in Akron, OH. We’re consulting with the City of Dayton, and we’ll likely will add another Ohio location by the end of the year.

About the Role

You will be the organizational backbone for the logistics of our Democracy Leagues, and will support Morgan by managing her calendar and administrative work. The ideal candidate will have worked as an EA or Office/Ops/Admin Manager before, preferably in a start-up environment, and also have broad experience with process implementation, event planning, vendor negotiations and staff management. If you love being the person in the background, proactively spotting problems and resolving them before others are even aware, this role could be a great fit for you!

Key Responsibilities

EA - Calendar, Travel, and Admin:

• Scheduling: Expertly manage a complex and shifting calendar, prioritizing meetings, resolving conflicts, and sending detailed calendar invites.
• Correspondence: Monitor Morgan’s inbox and social media profiles, flagging items in priority order for her and coordinating responses. Act as a reliable daily reminder for pending items.
• Meeting Preparation & Follow-up: Ensure all meeting logistics are confirmed the day prior (location, time, address, etc.), all meeting agendas and prereads have been received by participants, all required tech/equipment is in place, and all presentation decks are in the right hands with the right instructions. You may attend meetings simply to capture all the action items coming out of the meeting, and add them to Morgan’s to-do list, or pass them off to other team members as appropriate.
• Logistics & Travel Planning: Coordinate all aspects of travel, tracking flight details, confirmation codes, and travel time buffers in the calendar.
• Purchasing and expenses: Act as the main touchpoint for Dem Leagues purchasing, track down receipts for all charges to the Democracy Leagues credit card that weren’t made by you, and manage Morgan’s expense reports.

Ops Lead - People, Pre-Event & Process:

• People: Each Democracy League will have a number of Volunteer, PT and Temporary roles needing to be filled at various stages of Dem League development. You will need to coordinate the team and liaise with HR to get the right people identified, hired, and informed of their duties. You will also be a hub for questions for all of the folks we work with in all of these roles. You won’t always have to be the one with the answer, but you will have to know who to send people to if it’s not you.
• Pre-Event Planning: We meet with communities in lots of different venues, for lots of different reasons, with lots of different levels of preparation needed. We have local event planners, but we need you to ask questions, review contracts and insurance requirements, and make sure everyone who needs to be involved with addressing those details knows about them well in advance with time to address them in the most cost-effective way. There will be someone else on the ground the day of the event to make sure it runs smoothly, but we’ll rely on you to help flag and deal with all of the potential issues in advance.
• Process: We use ToDoist as a simple, reliable, open project management system to manage tasks and deadlines, create templates or repeatable workflows for recurring events (launch events, assembly lotteries, assembly kickoffs, etc.) and coordinate dependencies between teams. You’ll help Morgan and the team manage ToDoist tasks and flag risks early and make sure owners know when something is blocking progress. And finally, you’ll want to document lessons learned after each event to improve the next one.
• Other Stuff: So many and varied tasks that we can’t begin to list them all, but if you’ve been in this type of a role before, you know you’ll also handle lots of random additional tasks as they arise - fielding requests from different sources seeking different things where you’ll have to quickly sort into things you can handle yourself, things you need Morgan’s input on, and things you need to direct to someone else on the team - and then follow up on to make sure they got addressed whether they landed on your plate or someone else's.

Cast of Characters

This role will directly support Morgan, but will also work closely with lots of other departments and people to keep all the plates spinning. Some of the characters you’ll be working with include (and yes we do intend that pun):

• Talitha Klehm, our Director of Finance
• Mary Beth Wynn, our Head of HR and Recruiting
• Carol Sahley, who is helping us create a “Playbook” of advice and resources for establishing new Democracy Leagues so that each new city benefits from all of the lessons learned by prior Democracy Leagues
• Our Deliberations Team, who work closely with the community to plan assemblies on topics selected by the community
• Local Community Members, who recruit, advocate, support and drive forward Democracy League creation and development for their community

Ideal Profile

We are looking for someone who loves meeting new people, thrives under pressure, enjoys squaring away details, and wants to be in a support role. You should also have:

• Significant work experience: 5+ year experience as an Executive Assistant to a C-level executive, or in a self-sufficient Operations or Administrative role, ideally in a high-intensity/start-up environment.
• Organizational Prowess: Exceptionally organized with strong attention to detail. You must love scheduling, process and logistics.
• A Pro-Active Mindset: When you hear about a cool new initiative or event, do you start making a mental checklist of issues you know might arise even when no one else is thinking of those things yet? If so, we want you. Anticipating issues, removing blockers and making back-up plans will be an important part of this role.
• Process Improvement Experience: Beyond basic administration, we’re looking for a process minded person who will make improvements, streamline operations, and take initiative to enhance overall efficiency.
• Tech Savvy: Proficient in Google Calendar, Jira and/or other Project Management software, Excel, HubSpot (or similar CRM), and comfortable learning and using new tools (like ChatGPT for drafting/editing communications). Bonus points if you bring amazing new tools we’re not familiar with that will help streamline things.
• Discretion & Professionalism: Capable of handling confidential information with discretion and maturity.
• Excellent Communication Skills: You must listen deeply and communicate clearly - with people from all walks of life, many different skill sets, and all kinds of crazy needs - with the ability to mirror Morgan’s friendly, professional tone.
• A Cool, Calm, and Collected Work Style: We’re looking for someone who earns trust by delivering what they say they will, every time; takes pride in clean handoffs; and is calm, methodical, and unflappable under pressure.

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401k match up to 5%.
• Internet and phone reimbursement.
• A healthy, appreciative, feedback-driven workplace.
• Flexible, self-managed PTO.*

Everyone at Unify America has flexible, self-managed PTO. What does that mean in the context of an EA/Ops Lead role where you will be a linchpin for many events and efforts? This role will require a lot of flexibility on your part, including some weekend and evening work as schedules may demand, as well as the ability to travel. However, we respect the need to schedule important things like vacations, doctor's appointments, family events, dates, kids’ concerts, as well as taking time off just because you need a break to recharge. The key is communication and planning. We work hard, but we’re running an ultramarathon here, so we all need life-balance and to stay healthy!