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About the Role

The Director of Presidential Operations maximizes the effectiveness of the President and the Office of the President through exceptional executive operations, sound judgment, proactive coordination, and flawless execution. This role manages the operating infrastructure of the Office of the President and owns the operational integration between the President and the Vice President for Strategy, ensuring synchronized priorities, decision-making, and execution.

Responsibilities

Own and strategically manage the President's complex calendar, prioritizing meetings, relationships, commitments, preparation time, travel, and institutional priorities.
Serve as a strategic gatekeeper for presidential time, accepting, declining, redirecting, sequencing, and negotiating routine requests.
Anticipate calendar conflicts, preparation needs, travel considerations, stakeholder sensitivities, and downstream consequences.
Coordinate domestic and international travel, including transportation, accommodations, ground logistics, itineraries, meeting materials, contingency planning, and post-travel follow-through.
Maintain an integrated rolling view of the President's commitments, travel, major institutional events, Board activities, external engagements, and strategic priorities.
Strategically coordinate scheduling, meetings, travel, and executive logistics for the Vice President for Strategy to protect time for strategic planning and presidential priorities.
Coordinate presidential meetings, events, visitors, and engagements, including room arrangements, catering, technology, materials, protocol, and logistics.
Manage routine administrative functions of the Office of the President, including budget tracking, purchasing, expense processes, records, supplies, and technology needs.
Maintain a professional, welcoming, discreet, and highly responsive environment for all visitors to the Office of the President.
Own the operational integration between the President and Vice President for Strategy, ensuring synchronized priorities, decision-making, and execution.
Maintain an integrated operating view of selected strategic initiatives jointly sponsored by the President and Vice President for Strategy.
Translate presidential direction into clear next steps, identifying decisions, actions, owners, and required information.
Maintain visibility into presidential priorities, decisions, commitments, and open matters to ensure work is followed through.
Monitor action items and commitments from meetings and ensure appropriate owners and deadlines are clear.
Identify stalled work, missing information, conflicting priorities, and unresolved dependencies and elevate them.
Exercise independent judgment about what can be resolved without presidential involvement and what requires escalation.
Communicate difficult information, emerging risk, missed commitments, or potential problems promptly and candidly.
Help distinguish genuinely urgent matters from activity that merely feels urgent.
Design, maintain, and regularly test documented operating procedures, workflows, checklists, templates, continuity plans, and backup protocols for essential Office of the President processes.
Coordinate the operational work associated with the University's Board of Trustees.
Maintain the Board calendar and coordinate meeting schedules, materials, communications, technology, hospitality, attendance, and related logistics.
Establish and monitor timelines for Board and committee materials and proactively follow up with contributors.
Prepare the President for Board and committee meetings through briefing materials, trustee context, anticipated questions, and logistical preparation.
Maintain accurate and confidential trustee records, directories, committee information, meeting records, and related governance materials.
Coordinate secure distribution of Board materials and ensure appropriate confidentiality and records practices.
Track Board decisions, requests, and commitments and coordinate timely institutional follow-through.
Exercise exceptional discretion when managing governance matters, executive-session materials, trustee concerns, and other sensitive information.
Prepare concise, decision-ready briefing materials for presidential meetings, Board engagements, donor conversations, and other consequential activities.
Draft, edit, and prepare executive correspondence, including emails, letters, memoranda, reports, and talking points.
Reflect the President's communication style and voice while maintaining accuracy, clarity, professionalism, and appropriate institutional context.
Gather information from across the University and external sources, synthesize complex material, verify key facts, and determine essential information for the President.
Ensure that significant meetings and engagements have a defined purpose, desired outcome, appropriate preparation, and clear follow-up.
Coordinate executive communications workflows with relevant University offices.
Maintain appropriate standards and approval protocols for correspondence sent on behalf of the President.
Support the President's relationships with trustees, Sisters, donors, alumni, government and civic leaders, strategic partners, and other important stakeholders.
Maintain appropriate information regarding priority relationships, previous engagements, open commitments, sensitivities, and next steps.
Prepare the President for consequential interactions by providing relevant history, context, interests, and desired outcomes.
Track presidential promises and commitments and ensure every significant commitment has an owner, deadline, and documented follow-through.
Anticipate opportunities for presidential outreach, acknowledgement, recognition, stewardship, or relationship repair.
Use technology and approved AI tools thoughtfully to increase the efficiency, quality, and responsiveness of the Office of the President.
Develop and improve AI-assisted workflows for activities such as executive briefing preparation, research, meeting summaries, and workflow management.
Apply rigorous human judgment to all technology-assisted work, including verification of facts, confidentiality, tone, and appropriateness.
Maintain strong awareness of emerging technology and productivity tools that may improve executive operations.
Curate relevant information and emerging developments for the President and Vice President for Strategy.
Identify recurring manual processes that can be simplified, standardized, automated, or eliminated.

Requirements

Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience supporting a president, CEO, chancellor, provost, foundation executive, senior government official, or comparable senior leader in a complex organization.
Demonstrated success simultaneously managing sophisticated executive logistics and exercising significant independent judgment.
Experience working in higher education, nonprofit leadership, healthcare, philanthropy, government, or another complex mission-driven environment strongly preferred.
Experience working with a governing board and managing sensitive governance materials, senior-level communications, and confidential information.
Exceptional organizational skills and demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, stakeholders, and rapidly changing circumstances simultaneously.
Outstanding judgment, discretion, maturity, and political and institutional awareness.
Demonstrated ability to anticipate executive needs and act proactively rather than waiting for direction.
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision while knowing when consultation or escalation is required.
Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to accuracy, quality, and sustained follow-through.
Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information and draft executive-level correspondence and briefing materials.
Strong interpersonal skills and ability to develop trusted relationships with trustees, senior executives, faculty, staff, students, donors, Sisters, government officials, community leaders, and external partners.
Ability to communicate difficult information, push back appropriately, say no diplomatically, and respectfully challenge assumptions.
Ability to remain calm, organized, responsive, and effective in a high-energy environment characterized by substantial activity, shifting priorities, compressed timelines, and high expectations.
Strong project coordination and systems-thinking capabilities, with an instinct for improving processes.
Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite and contemporary executive productivity tools.
Demonstrated fluency with or strong capacity to learn and responsibly employ AI tools in executive-office workflows.
Significant experience supporting a university president, chancellor, provost, CEO, or similarly senior executive.
Demonstrated experience coordinating the operating interface between senior leaders while maintaining clear reporting, priority, decision, and accountability relationships.
Experience in higher education and familiarity with the rhythms, governance structures, stakeholder groups, and culture of a university environment.
Experience coordinating Board of Trustees or other governing-board operations.
Experience managing complex domestic and international executive travel.
Experience preparing executive briefing materials and senior-level correspondence.
Familiarity with advancement, government relations, strategic planning, external partnerships, or executive communications.
Demonstrated experience using technology and AI to improve executive-office efficiency and quality.
Commitment to and understanding of the mission, values, and strategic direction of the University of Mount Saint Vincent.

Skills

Executive Operations
Executive Judgment
Proactive Coordination
Flawless Execution
Calendar Management
Domestic and International Travel Coordination
Board of Trustees Operations
Executive Meeting Preparation
Correspondence and Briefing Workflows
Office Operations Management
Event Planning
Scheduling and Logistics Support
Problem Identification and Resolution
Prioritization
Process Improvement
Communication
Interpersonal Skills
Discretion
Maturity
Political and Institutional Awareness
Attention to Detail
Accuracy
Quality Assurance
Follow-Through
Written Communication
Verbal Communication
Information Synthesis
Drafting Executive Correspondence
Project Coordination
Systems Thinking
Microsoft Office Suite Proficiency
AI Tool Proficiency
Technology Adoption

Location

In-office

Work Type

Full-time
Exempt
Occasional evening and weekend availability

Experience Level

Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience

Education Level

Bachelor's degree required

Salary/Compensations

$110,000 to $120,000

Benefits

Paid time off, including vacation and sick leave
Medical, dental, and vision insurance
Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
Enhanced Short-Term Disability coverage
Employer-paid Long-Term Disability coverage
Voluntary Life Insurance
Commuter benefits
403(b) Retirement Plan
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
Professional development opportunities
Tuition benefits for employees and their dependents

About the Company

Founded by the Sisters of Charity of New York, the University of Mount Saint Vincent is an academically excellent, authentically inclusive, Catholic and ecumenical liberal arts university.
The University combines a strong core curriculum with a full array of majors in the liberal arts and, within the tradition of liberal education, selected professional fields of study.
At Mount Saint Vincent, a student’s education extends beyond knowledge, skills, and preparation for work. We seek the development of the whole person.
In the spirit of Vincent de Paul and Elizabeth Ann Seton, we foster an understanding of our common humanity, a commitment to human dignity, and a full appreciation of our obligations to each other.