Executive Operations Lead

Looking for a high-trust executive operations role for someone who is discreet, highly organized, and can bring structure, follow-through, and calm coordination to a growing national nonprofit.

About PLEJ

The Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ) is a national, nonpartisan community of support, best practices, and peer engagement among election offices serving the largest and most diverse populations in the U.S. PLEJ empowers election leaders to address operational challenges, communicate with clarity and transparency, and drive innovation.

Through collaborative problem-solving and practical innovation, PLEJ helps build more resilient, efficient, and voter-focused election systems that improve the experience and confidence of millions of Americans. PLEJ is entering a critical phase of growth and impact—expanding its capacity, strengthening its institutional role, and positioning large jurisdictions as national leaders in election administration.

Position Summary

The Executive Operations Lead (EOL) serves as the operational engine of the Executive Office. This is a high-trust, highly organized, senior individual contributor role responsible for ensuring executive priorities move from conversation to completion through disciplined task tracking, proactive preparation, clear follow-up, and strong coordination across internal and external stakeholders.

Reporting to the Executive Director (ED), the EOL helps keep high-priority work organized, visible, and moving forward. This role manages executive workflows; coordinates internal meeting rhythms; tracks commitments, decisions, next steps, and deadlines; coordinates follow-up across staff, consultants, partners, funders, board members, and other stakeholders; prepares materials for presentations, briefings, board meetings, and other high-stakes engagements; and helps ensure the Executive Office is well-prepared, well-briefed, and

focused on the highest-value work.

This is not a traditional administrative support role. While the EOL may provide selective scheduling, logistics, and administrative support where needed, the primary focus of the role is executive preparation, action tracking, project coordination, follow-through, and completion.

The ideal candidate is a relentless organizer, strong writer, proactive problem-solver, and trusted operational partner who helps senior leaders stay prepared, focused, and accountable to PLEJ’s most important commitments.

The EOL plays a central role in helping executive priorities move forward with clarity, consistency, and follow-through.

Requirements

• Core Responsibilities
• The EOL ensures the Executive Office is prepared, organized, and keenly focused on moving priorities from conversation to completion across executive, board, funder, partner, member, and internal work streams:
• Executive Office Action Tracking & Follow-Through
• Maintain Executive Office master action tracker to ensure all important commitments are completed timely.
• Capture commitments, key decisions, next steps, owners, deadlines, and open questions from executive mtgs.
• Monitor progress on priority follow-ups,identifying stalled, overdue, unclear, unowned, and/or at-risk items.
• Draft follow-up emails, recap notes, internal task assignments, reminders, and next-step communications.
• Coordinate with staff, contractors, partners, and other contributors to move deliverables through completion.
• Help translate conversations quickly into clear next steps, timelines, owners, deliverables, and decision points.
• Maintain weekly view of Executive Office priorities, upcoming deadlines, pending decisions, and open loops.
• Regularly review open items with ED, flagging items requiring decisions, escalation, reassignment, or closure.
• Close loops after meetings, ensuring decisions are documented, next steps assigned, and follow-up completed.
• Ensure follow-up materials reflect PLEJ’s standards of professionalism, clarity, accuracy, and nonpartisanship.
• Executive Preparation & Stakeholder Follow-Through
• Ensure Executive Office is prepared for upcoming virtual/in-person meetings, presentations, and briefings.
• For each meeting: identify purpose, outcomes, key messages, asks, risks, questions, decisions, and follow-ups.
• Anticipate questions, missing information, needed materials, and decision points ahead of key meetings.
• Prepare briefing materials, agendas, background notes, talking points, timelines, etc for priority meetings.
• Prep presentations: tracking content/input needs, coordinating input, ensuring readiness before deadlines).
• Maintain organized notes/background info for key funders, partners, board, members, and key stakeholders.
• Track follow-ups, deadlines, open asks, pending items, commitments, and next steps from external meetings.
• Draft polished follow-up correspondence, meeting summaries, internal updates, and concrete next-steps.
• Coordinate scheduling, preparation, follow-ups, and next steps for all priority external meetings.
• Support the Executive Office in keeping external commitments visible, organized, and moving forward.
• Ensure relationships are managed proactively, timely, documented, and aligned with PLEJ’s mission/values.
• Executive Office Operating Rhythm
• Compile agendas, open items, and materials for Executive check-ins and other recurring leadership meetings.

Qualifications

• Candidate should demonstrate the following experience, skills, and leadership qualities:
• Required
• At least 5 years of experience in executive operations/support, project coordination, or similar role.
• Demonstrated experience supporting a senior executive, leadership team, or high-visibility function.
• Exceptional project management (ability to track action items, deadlines, owners, decisions, and follow-up).
• Ability to follow up persistently and professionally with senior leaders, staff, and external stakeholders.
• Strong written communication (clear emails, agendas, summaries, briefing notes, and executive updates).
• Experience preparing leadership for meetings, presentations, briefings, or priority external engagements.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving, mission-driven org with high attention to detail through completion.
• Proficiency with Google Workspace, Zoom, project management systems, CRMs, and similar products.
• Ability to work professionally with sound judgment, discretion, emotional intelligence, and nonpartisanship.
• Preferred
• Experience in an election, public administration, philanthropy, association, or public-service environment.
• Experience preparing materials and supporting priority briefings, meetings, presentations, or engagements.
• Experience building internal operating systems (project trackers, dashboards, templates, or workflows).
• Key Competencies
• Relentless follow-through: Tracks commitments until they are completed, closed, reassigned, or escalated.
• Operational discipline: Creates order, clarity, and momentum across competing priorities.
• Executive preparation: Ensures senior leaders have the context, materials, and messaging they need.
• Executive presence: Communicates professionally with senior leaders, board, funders, and partners.
• Clarity: Writes clearly, summarizes effectively, and helps others understand what needs to happen.
• Anticipatory judgment: Notices what is missing, unclear, late, or likely to become a problem.
• Professional persistence: Follows up in a professional manner
• Discretion: Handles confidential, sensitive, and complex information appropriately.
• Calm under pressure: Brings steadiness and structure to a high-visibility environment.
• Systems orientation: Builds practical tools that make work easier, clearer, and more reliable.
• Service mindset: Takes pride in making leaders, teams, and relationships more effective.
• Key Outcomes (First 1–2 Years)
• Stronger Executive Office Operating Rhythm: The Executive Office has a consistent cadence for priorities, preparation, decision-making, follow-up, and escalation, helping ED stay focused on highest-value work.
• More Reliable Follow-Through: Executive Office commitments across board, funder, partner, member, staff, and internal work streams are consistently captured, assigned, tracked, and moved to completion.