First 5 LA is looking for an Executive Assistant to the
Executive Director who will also serve as the Administrative
Coordinator to the Chief of Staff. Priorities for this role include
heavy scheduling, convening and coordinating other administrative
coordinators across the organization, and developing/improving
administrative processes to help the Executive Director’s Office
(EDO) function effectively. The Executive Assistant to the
Executive Director/Administrative Coordinator represents the
Executive Director and the EDO. Therefore, to be considered for the
role, candidates should have a variety of characteristics and
experience to fulfill the duties and responsibilities outlined in
the job description. In particular, we are looking to hire someone
who:
Has experience working for senior leaders
Has great attention to detail and accuracy
Is an excellent team player with strong interpersonal and
collaboration skills, treats people respectfully and fairly,
maintains confidentiality
Maintains a high degree of professionalism and diplomacy in
dealing with diverse groups of people including Board members,
senior leaders, staff, external partners, and community
members
Can manage complex responsibilities, respond rapidly to
changes, and be proactive in meeting the needs of the Executive
Director and Chief of Staff
Has strong organizational skills and the ability to
multi-task, prioritize and complete tasks efficiently and
effectively
Is self-aware, humble, empathetic, accepts accountability for
mistakes, and committed to learning and continuous improvement
JOB SUMMARY
The Executive Assistant (EA) and Administrative Coordinator
facilitates the efficient operations of the Executive Director’s
Office by performing a variety of day-to-day administrative
functions in a highly organized manner and with great attention to
detail. This individual serves two related but distinct roles
within the Executive Director’s Office.
As the EA to the Executive Director, this individual is
responsible for providing high-level administrative support that
facilitates the Executive Director’s ability to effectively lead
the organization. The EA also works in collaboration with the
Executive Assistant to the Executive Vice President to convene
administrative support staff across the organization to coordinate
workflows, improve cross-functional communication, and share best
practices that promote operational excellence within and across
teams.
As the Administrative Coordinator, this individual provides
administrative support to the Chief of Staff and coordinates
business process workflows for the Executive Director’s
Office.
The successful candidate will have extensive experience as an
Executive Assistant, providing high quality administrative support
and business process workflow coordination for one or more teams.
The individual in this position will be involved with a large range
of contacts ranging from entry level to extremely high level and
may be exposed to sensitive information requiring discretion, good
judgement, and confidentiality. The individual will possess high
level of emotional intelligence to cultivate and maintain trusting
relationships with both internal and external stakeholders and
partners.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
The Executive Assistant to the Executive Director
and Administrative Coordinator is expected to
exemplify the adopted organizational values of collaboration,
integrity, learning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in
the execution of their key areas of
responsibility:
Key Areas of Responsibility
- Executive Director's Office Scheduling and Meeting Support
- Commission/Committee Meeting Support
- Business Process Coordination
- Operations and Budget Management
Essential Duties:
Executive Director’s Scheduling and Meeting
Support
Manages the Executive Director (ED) and Chief of Staff (Chief)
calendars, limits distractions, and balances meeting requests with
desk time to ensure sufficient time for prioritized work and
breaks; keeps ED/Chief informed of upcoming commitments and
responsibilities, including scheduling changes; ensures ED/Chief is
running on time for scheduled commitments and responsibilities
Schedules, arranges, and confirms meetings and conference calls
with internal and external stakeholders, including Board
members, senior leaders, staff, community members, and First 5
California, and First 5 LA colleagues; shares required information
in a timely manner, shares agendas and supporting materials and
orders catering, as needed; ensure coordination with
organization-wide scheduling to reduce overlapping meetings
Assists the ED/Chief in developing a regular cadence of
meetings for the Executive Director’s Office (EDO), supports agenda
development, and material preparation; takes and distributes team
meeting notes; follows up on deadline-driven tasks, issues, and
action items
Supports ED/Chief with staff timecard exceptions by
establishing and calendaring internal deadlines and assists the
ED/Chief in capturing exceptions
Receives and screens incoming calls to ED/Chief, provides
information to callers, takes messages, or transfers calls to other
staff as appropriate; understands the work of the EDO and responds,
at a high level, to internal and external inquiries about the
work
Reviews, proofreads, and edits a variety of documents and
corrects for spelling and grammar; ensures that the organization’s
format policies and recommended revisions are followed
Maintains supplies inventory by checking stock to determine
inventory level, anticipates needed supplies, places orders for
supplies; collects supply orders from staff and obtains
ED/Chief approval to order and coordinate delivery
Makes copies of correspondence or other printed materials;
supports EDO with photocopying support
Coordinates travel for ED/Chief, including but not limited to
conference registration, travel authorization, per diem requests,
and lodging arrangements; provides technical assistance on
travel-related processes to other team members as needed
Manages vacation and holiday calendars for team(s) and helps
coordinates team celebrations
Commission/Committee Meeting Support
Provides support to Board Relations staff in the preparation of
Board materials for the Executive Director and Executive Vice
President that reflect final posting of Commission/Committee
meeting related documents; assists in maintaining appropriate
files, electronic and hard copy of all Board-related
documents
Provides support to ensure timely posting of hard copy agendas
in compliance with the Brown Act and agency bylaws; reposts agendas
to most up to date version as needed
Provides support to the Board Relations staff during Commission
meetings, including but not limited to, meeting set-up and clean
up, tracking and managing public comments
As needed, prepares hard copies of Commission/Committee agendas
for the Leadership Team’s weekly review
Business Process Coordination
Maintains up-to-date knowledge on organization-wide business
processes; orients new staff and provides technical assistance to
team members as needed; assists the Senior Strategist – Operational
Excellence in identifying ways to improve internal business
processes, policies, and tools in the normal course of doing
work
Works in collaboration with the Executive Assistant to the
Executive Vice President to convene administrative support staff
across the organization (i.e., Administrative Coordinators, Board
Relations Associate, Program Associates, Payroll and Accounts
Payable Specialist and Payroll and Accounts Payable Coordinator) to
coordinate workflows, improve cross-functional communication, and
share best practices that promote operational excellence within and
across teams
Creates, runs, formats, and provides reports from relevant
sources, e.g., GIFTS, FE NXT, Excel, and databases, as needed, to
support the ED/Chief and team(s) to track various operational
aspects of the work for ongoing planning
Organizes and maintains SharePoint, Teams, and other relevant
enterprise content management systems; assists with maintaining
up-to-date content on the team(s) SharePoint/Teams sites; sets up
and manages paper file systems as needed
Monitors credit card utilization and related inquiries from the
Finance Team; validates credit card expenditures and provides
supporting documentation; elevates expenditures that cannot be
verified to the ED/Chief and Finance for immediate resolution
Completes and ensures timely processing of purchase
requisitions, expenses, reimbursements, and stipends for ED/Chief;
ensures that documents presented to ED/Chief are accurate,
complete, and ready for signature; follows-up with appropriate
staff for any outstanding document requirement
Works with the Board Chair’s Office to obtain appropriate
approval of all Executive Director reimbursements and expenses
Organizes list of topics for Commission agendas and ED reports
from team(s); ensures timely submissions and edits of agenda and ED
reports; supports and coordinates with Executive Assistants, other
Administrative Coordinators, and Board Relations Manager, as
needed
Supports Organization Engagement Manager with management of the
Organization-Wide Workflow Calendar, including but not limited to,
engaging with Administrative Coordinators and other staff to
collect relevant events/deadlines to be added to the calendar.
Operations and Budget Management
Serves as the EDO point person for administrative and business
processes
Tracks team(s) operating budget; validates expenditures to
ensure alignment with operating budget, and makes recommendations
for annual budget and mid-year adjustments based on historical
expenditures
Manages EDO contracts; validates expenditures to ensure
alignment with operating budget, completes and ensures timely
processing of purchase requisitions for payment to external
vendors
Contributes to the preparation of the budget and long-term
financial plan for the team and assists the director or chief in
the management of resources in accordance with First 5 LA policies
and procedures
Represents First 5 LA on relevant external committees, work
groups, and at conferences/meetings
Actively seeks to build own professional skills and
competencies to fulfill essential duties and responsibilities and
improve performance
Adheres to all First 5 LA policies and procedures, ensures
behaviors align accordingly, and contributes to learning that
supports improvements
Keeps apprised of all laws, regulations, statutes, rules, and
policies affecting First 5 LA and ensures compliance
Other duties and responsibilities may be assigned. The duties
and responsibilities listed are designed to provide typical
examples of the work performed; not all duties and responsibilities
assigned are included here, nor is it expected that all similar
positions will be assigned every duty and responsibility.
QUALIFICATIONS
Job Specific Competencies
Administrative Coordinator: Excellent
attention to detail, accuracy, and completeness; ability to
maintain complete confidentiality; ability to be self-directed,
handle multiple tasks and priorities, and solve problems
creatively; strong interpersonal, written, and verbal communication
skills; ability to create, compose, and edit written materials;
proficiency with office technology and equipment including
printers, scanners, copiers, and computers; strong task and time
management skills; basic math abilities and understanding of basic
financial concepts; records maintenance skills; database management
skills; data entry skills; high degree of professionalism and
diplomacy in dealing with diverse groups of people including Board
members, senior leaders, staff, community members, and First 5
California, and First 5 LA colleagues
Adaptive Leadership: Is
flexible and accepts change as part of the
organization’s evolution; embraces complexity and uncertainty and
is nimble enough to shift direction as needed; open to feedback and
welcomes a variety of viewpoints; encourages creativity and
innovation aligned with the organization’s strategic priorities;
able to communicate persuasively, both orally and in writing, in
varied settings and different audiences
Strategic Management: Able to manage
projects of various sizes, complexity, resources, levels of risk,
and timelines in a highly organized manner and with attention to
detail; able to navigate internal and external constraints and
address workload issues within and across teams; demonstrates
effective administrative planning and prudent management of
resources
Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrates
self-awareness, humility, empathy, and personal accountability; has
a temperament that inspires trust, collaboration, and partnership
between individuals, teams, and levels of leadership; ability to
navigate divergence, find common ground among team members, and
resolve conflict diplomatically
Organization-wide Competencies
Commitment to organizational mission and
values: Mission-driven and self-directed, with a
demonstrated passion for First 5 LA’s work to strengthen families
and improve child outcomes; strives to model organizational values
through daily actions and behaviors
Possesses Customer-Focused
Mindset: Ability to identify appropriate and relevant
stakeholders; identifies internal and external stakeholders needs
(customers); is responsive to stakeholder needs, considers impact
when making recommendations
Collaborative: Collaborates with peers to
drive results in alignment with organizational and operational
goals in support of the organization’s mission; is able to work in
cross-functional teams; ability to establish and maintain effective
working relationships with co-workers, public officials and the
general public
Communicates Effectively: Communicates
effectively both written and oral; strong presentation skills;
demonstrates ability to develop and deliver relevant and
appropriate communications; delivers messages in a direct manner;
able to tailor messages appropriately to various audiences
Demonstrates Integrity and
Judgment: Follows through on commitments letting
others know of his/her true intentions; ensures decision-making or
recommendations are fact-based, and others understand the
decision/recommendation before moving forward; considers the
relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most
appropriate one
Demonstrates Critical Thinking: Applies
critical thinking, logic and reasoning to analyze complex problems
and information; identifies relative strengths and weaknesses of
options, solutions or approaches
Demonstrates Strategic
Thinking: Identifies key issues and relationships
relevant to achieving long range goals or vision; develops
alternatives based on logical assumptions, facts, available
resources, constraints, and organizational values to develop a
point of view on a course of action to accomplish goals; develops
priorities with the right balance of short and long-term wins
Demonstrates Contribution to Diversity, Equity and
Inclusion: Supports equal and active participation
and mutual respect; supports participation of people and groups
with diverse identities, races, ethnicities, abilities,
characteristics, cultures, socio-economic statuses, opinions, and
beliefs; continuously challenges assumptions, and is mindful of
unconscious bias, and leverages differences; understands historical
and current context and root causes of inequities within society,
systems and institutions; actively involves and reflects with the
community First 5 LA serves.
Experience:
5+ years of experience in executive-level administrative
support
Significant experience working in collaboration with colleagues
and external partners with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds,
political and religious views, cultural backgrounds, lifestyles,
and sexual orientation with demonstrated experience of treating
everyone with respect and dignity
Education:
Associate degree or equivalent from an accredited two-year
college or technical school in the field of business administration
or a related academic field preferred
Computer Skills:
Advanced proficiency in Adobe Acrobat Pro and MS Office Suite
(Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher)
Advanced ability to use virtual engagement formats (e.g.,
Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Sli-do, etc.)
Ability to use widely supported internet browsers
Proficiency in MS SharePoint is a plus
Certificates, Licenses and Registrations:
Valid California Class C Driver License or the ability to
utilize an alternative method of transportation when needed to
carry out job-related essential functions
Valid automobile liability insurance
Travel Requirements:
This position requires travel locally, statewide and
nationally as needed
Vaccination Requirements:
First 5 LA requires that all covered employees provide proof
that they have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS / WORK ENVIRONMENT
Physical Demands:
The physical demands described here are representative of those
that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the
essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be
made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the
essential functions.
The employee will sit, talk, hear and use hands up to 2/3 of the
time. The employee will stand and walk up to 1/3 of the time. The
employee is routinely required to carry and/or lift up to 10
pounds
Work Environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are
representative of those an employee encounters while performing the
essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be
made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the
essential functions.
