Executive Assistant & Operations Associate

Job Description

At TED, we seek to bridge, include, diversify because we truly believe ideas are for everyone. It is important to us to attract individuals from diverse backgrounds who are curious about the world and interested in helping us spread ideas far and wide.

About The Audacious Project

The Audacious Project is a collaborative funding initiative that is unlocking social impact on a grand scale.

TED is a nonprofit dedicated to “Ideas worth spreading,” and we’ve thought for a long time about how to turn big ideas into action. The Audacious Project — a collaborative funding platform — is a project of TED designed to do this at scale.

By inviting the world’s change-makers to dream bigger than ever before, the Audacious Project surfaces ideas with the potential to affect millions of lives and impact entire systems. Using curatorial expertise, and in partnership with the Bridgespan Group and several others, we support selected applicants to shape their ideas into actionable, multi-year proposals. We then convene a community of donors who collectively contribute large-scale funding directly to individual organizations.

Our collaborative funding model attempts to address a major frustration faced by the world’s change-makers: Without access to venture capital or stock markets, social entrepreneurs have to pitch donors one-by-one — often a deeply inefficient process for all involved. Now in its fifth year, the Audacious Project has catalyzed nearly $3 billion for 38 organizations engaged in a wide range of social impact efforts around the world.

Beyond mobilizing capital, our design is dynamic and responsive to the needs of projects once they receive transformative funding. To that end, we have set out to build our capacity to help projects achieve their goals for both impact and sustainability.

Position Overview:

The Audacious Project is a growing team at TED. The Audacious Executive Assistant / Operations Associate is responsible for supporting the administrative and operational needs of TED’s Audacious Project team, under the supervision of the Executive Director and Chief of Staff of Audacious. Tasks include providing executive administrative support for the Executive Director, and supporting the Chief of Staff with planning and executing team meetings and offsites; workflow and process optimization and special projects as needed.

The ideal candidate will be a self-starter who thrives in a dynamic and collaborative work environment; demonstrates a flexible and adaptable work style; and has exceptional communication, writing and organizational skills. Experience working with project management tools, databases and spreadsheets preferred, and prior executive assistant experience is a must.

The role is roughly 50% operational and 50% administrative.

Responsibilities:

• Provide the Executive Director with administrative support (35%)
  • Fully support the daily calendaring and administrative needs of the Executive Director of The Audacious Project, continuously looking for ways to create efficiency and ease
  • Manage the Executive Director’s internal and external schedule (heavy calendaring) and make domestic and international travel arrangements, including flight and hotel accommodations.
  • Provide correspondence and presentation development support (e.g. in Keynote, PPT)
• Work closely with the Chief of Staff to on team-wide operational and administrative tasks (40%)
  • Support COS and ED in planning and executing all-staff and senior team off-sites and retreats, including agenda-setting, finding a venue and planning activities
    • Coordinate event logistics and operations as needed including transportation, accommodation, meals, etc.
  • Oversee and plan weekly team meetings and key communications
  • Support Chief of Staff to maintain the team’s administrative and operational tools such as Slack, Google Drive, Nexonia, and internal TED Dashboard page
  • Process team expenses and invoice approvals
  • Liaise with TED-wide operations (accounting, legal, and HR) to ensure that all team members are informed and included in company-wide news and activities, and connected to resources, including participation in meetings with TED administrative leads and collaboration with them on org-wide initiatives
  • Facilitate on-boarding of new Audacious team members in coordination with HR/admin department
  • Assist with special projects including maintenance of Audacious CRM system, and support for cross-team data management processes
• Provide operational / administrative support for Audacious special events (e.g. Audacious Project Workshops or gatherings, Annual TED Conference (15%)
• Manage the “Audacious inbox” where a range of inquiries are received from the public (10%)
  • Screen daily emails and compose replies to standard Audacious-related queries
  • Triage and direct follow-up calls and emails to Audacious team members

The ideal candidate:

• 5-7 years of experience supporting an Executive Office or C-Suite Level Executives
• Loves supporting people (both individuals and the team as a whole), customer service oriented
• Anticipates needs and helps their manager and team members stay focused on their projects by resolving operational & administrative issues before they arise
• Passionate about The Audacious Project and TED’s mission and social impact
• Thrives in a dynamic and mission-driven work environment, managing a wide variety of responsibilities and tasks, and concurrently tracking details and moving pieces
• Comfortable with a startup-like environment and demonstrates a flexible and adaptable work style that responds quickly and efficiently to things as they happen,
• Finds joy in detail, administrative tasks, efficiency, logistics, quality, and streamlining processes.
• Exceptional interpersonal communication, writing and organizational skills
• Exercises confidentiality at the highest level
• Is conscientious and executes their job with a high sense of ownership and demonstrates a willingness to contribute and collaborate with others
• Exhibits strong critical thinking and analytical skills; identifies and proposes operational improvements
• Is tech savvy, strong online research skills, expertise in Keynote and Powerpoint

This is a full-time position based at the TED HQ in Lower Manhattan; our team currently works on a hybrid schedule and accommodations can be made for fully remote. Generous health/dental/vision benefits, PTO, and a company-matched 401K are part of the deal. Every employee also gets an annual continuing education stipend to use for professional development.

Salary Range: $70,000-$85,000

TED Conferences LLC is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We invite all qualified candidates to apply online with their resume.