Senior Executive Assistant

The Purpose of Zearn

Zearn is the nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to inspire all kids to love learning math. Everything we do is driven by our belief that every kid is a math kid.

Our top-rated learning platform is designed to catch kids up and move them forward in grade-level math. And it works. Large-scale efficacy research shows students who use Zearn make significant gains in math proficiency, including the students who start multiple grade levels behind.

The vital importance of learning math today is hard to understate, and yet today, it is common to think that only some are born to achieve in math. Math learning is often disparaged and feared (e.g. I'd rather go to the dentist than do algebra) or viewed as a special interest or luxury (e.g. if kids don't have a passion for math that is okay, maybe they have a passion for pottery). We don't look at learning to read the same way. Zearn exists to help create a world where all children love learning math. 

As a nonprofit, all of our work is driven by what is best for kids. At the same time, we operate as an intense and fast-moving technology company, inclusively solving hard problems that will impact current and future generations. The problems we solve require expertise in pedagogy, software development, persuasion, psychology, design, writing, video production, problem solving, and countless other disciplines. As an organization that is always stretching to get to the next level of impact, every single person owns mission critical work. If you’re ready to join our Team of problem solvers, and own work that will drive us to achieve impact at scale, we are looking for you.

Learn more about us at https://about.zearn.org/.

The purpose of the Senior Executive Assistant role at Zearn is to ensure our Executive team is able to knock down the dominoes needed to create the numeracy movement. The Executive Assistant team plays a crucial part in ensuring our Executive Leadership Team is successful.  This is achieved by:

Acting as a central hub for scheduling and calendaring, safeguarding executive time through complex scheduling, efficiency and frequent prioritization. Senior Executive Assistants ensure Zearn’s ELT is where they need to be, when they need to be.

• Expertly managing an executive’s calendar to ensure their maximum productivity
• Scheduling team-wide meetings to be led by ELT member
• Scheduling external meetings (customer-facing or training meetings)

Empowering executives through expert level support and information management, ensuring seamless operations and enabling executives to focus on driving organizational success.

• Attending meetings and taking notes of discussions; preparing the initial draft of minutes and communicating summaries/action items
• Managing tasks including: contact management, expenses, notarizations, travel management, event support, filing and shipping. 
• Discreetly handling confidential information.  
• Maintaining a strong organizational system to ensure the ability to quickly access requested information
• Distributing internal/external communications and updating internal databases

Facilitating high-quality relationship management with various stakeholders, both internal and external.

• Creating database that contains knowledge on all critical stakeholders, internal and external
• Timely response to stakeholders
• Triage response times based on stakeholder
• Supporting the maintenance of strong relationships with critical stakeholders

Creating structure and process for executive workflows with the goal of both maximizing their efficiency, and being best prepared to create informed solutions to in the moment problems.

• Proactively identifying solutions to problems, anticipating needs, and responding with urgency
• Identifying opportunities to streamline to increase executive productivity

Managing and coaching other Executive Assistants, elevating their level of support to ensure it is world class and in alignment with the team’s standard operating procedures

• Building EA SOP’s and craft standard operating principles for EA’s.
• Ensuring all members of the EA team are following the standard operating procedures
• Identifying potential improvements within EA SOP’s
• Providing ongoing coaching and apprenticeship to EA’s

Examples of problems someone in this role can be expected to solve:

• How do we share EA calendaring norms and best practices across the Team? 
• How can we gain context and knowledge to learn to identify the right shifts without needing to burden the Executive with questions?
• How do we develop best in class EA standard operating procedures? 
• How do we  build strong systems to support executives and accelerate their work?
• What systems can be built and rolled out to manage stakeholder relationships?
• What tasks that are currently done manually, can be automated in any way?
• What templates can be built that allow future tasks to be less of a lift?
• How do I build a playbook that tracks common problems and solutions for current and future EA’s to use?

SKILLS: Below are the skills we believe would be impactful for this role. A strong candidate will demonstrate strengths in leading people, communication, collaborative problem solving, strategic thinking, and project management. But more importantly, we are looking for candidates who are excited to develop and improve these skills through continuous coaching and on-the-job apprenticeship.

Organizing People & Teams

• Managing time and commitments
• Deadline-oriented execution
• Organizing your team’s knowledge and ideas
• Continuously improving your team’s workflow and processes
• Proactively learning and using team processes

Communication

• Critical reading
• Active and attentive listening
• Sharing your perspective productively
• De-escalating emotional situations

Problem Solving & Strategy

• Troubleshooting and solving everyday work problems
• Building internal networks to solve problems
• Participating in team problem solving

Quality & Risk

• Pressure testing written work

Leadership

• Keeping a team well organized
• Leading fast and inclusive problem solving interactions
• Leading productive team routines
• Coaching and apprenticing individual contributors

POTENTIAL MARKERS OF THESE SKILLS

• 7+ years supporting and/or serving as an Executive Assistant to C-Suite team member(s)

THIS IS A MANAGEMENT POSITION

• Title: Senior Executive Assistant
• Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer
• Direct Report(s): Executive Assistant
• Supports: Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Partnerships Officer

How We Work

• We aim to create a numeracy movement. This is no easy feat, and no one of us can solve this on our own.  Given that, Zearn is a transparent, collaborative, and open-to-feedback culture. 
• The Executive Administrative team has to work in close collaboration and partnership with teams across Zearn.  We do this not only to drive productivity for our executives, but to support them in brainstorming ways to improve structure and processes that impact all teams across the organization.
• As a result, our work is often collaborative in nature:
• We support each other by creating a sense of community among the administrative team who meet monthly to share context and collectively solve problems to drive Zearn’s velocity.
• We seek ways to improve broken systems and work with ELT to contribute thinking in both asynchronous and synchronous discussions.
• We maintain a scheduling board in Factor where cross functional meeting requests are shared often.
• We have shared guidelines in place to help support you when needed. 

Location

This role is remote and can be performed in any of the following states/locations:  

CA, CT, FL, IL, LA, MA, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI and Washington D.C.  

Compensation and Benefits

The compensation range for this role is $85,000 - $95,000 per year.

We offer a competitive benefits package, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, short- and long-term disability, life insurance, 401K matching, parental leave, a generous Holiday policy, and a flexible PTO policy. We also offer a collegial and passionate culture and the potential to positively impact the lives of millions of children.

TO APPLY: https://apply.workable.com/j/64BC3668C7

Zearn is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.