Braven, Inc

Job Title: Chief of Staff

Location: Chicago (IL) highly preferred, Atlanta (GA), Newark (NJ), or New York City (NY) 

Employment Type: Full-time

Start Date: March 2023 or sooner

About Braven

We believe that the next generation of leaders will emerge from everywhere. We empower promising college students with the skills, confidence, experiences, and networks necessary to transition from college to strong first jobs, which lead to meaningful careers and lives of impact.

Learn more about Braven’s impact: 

https://impactreport.bebraven.org/

https://jobsreport.bebraven.org/

Braven was named one of America’s Best Startup Employers 2022 by Forbes! We’re proud to be a nonprofit organization that values its employees and has always been committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace that mirrors our country.

About the Role

Braven is entering into a new phase of exponential growth and an exciting opportunity to concretely advance the economic mobility of 80,000-100,000 Fellows in the near future. Braven is hiring a Chief of Staff who significantly expands the capacity of the CEO by helping to maximize her time internally and externally, including helping to manage and lead the Alignment Team (AT), Braven’s Executive Team, set strategy and oversee CEO goals and the operations that support her office, and serve as a surrogate for the CEO internally and externally. This enormously important role requires someone who has the management, judgment and relationship building skills as well as the motivation and stamina to manage the office of the CEO of a growing, dynamic organization and support a leader who has enormous internal and external demands on her time, including an intense travel schedule. In sum, the Chief of Staff is the right hand to the CEO and therefore her shadow and surrogate as well as an extension of her internal and external brand. 

Braven is on the precipice of a new era: evolving from a scrappy start up into a stable, yet expanding organization. If you are the match for this role, like the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, you will be an essential member of the team that leads Braven into this new era. You will be a trusted confidant and adviser to the CEO and to the Alignment Team. Your responsibilities will center around the areas outlined below:

LEAD, MANAGE, SET STRATEGY & ENSURE EXTRAORDINARY EXECUTION FOR THE OFFICE OF THE CEO

• Set strategy alongside the CEO for her priorities and ensure extraordinary execution
• Ensure the CEO’s time is maximized internally and externally, including but not limited to:
  • Creating and tightly managing the necessary infrastructure around the CEO to facilitate her ability to lead and collaborate effectively, e.g. protocols for how the Alignment Team and certain external people prepare for meetings with her and her with them.
  • Scrutinizing her travel schedule to ensure maximum use of time in regions. 
  • Traveling with her on high stakes meetings and co-owning certain relationships. 
  • Ensuring timely follow up from her on internal and external requests.
  • Identifying an approach to resource daily activities, including when and how to delegate responsibilities, when you will serve in her stead, appropriate media for communication, eg. video, Slack, written review or live meeting, etc.
• Be comfortable and yet remain well respected and amicable when having to hold a hard line regarding time and/or when a priority has to shift, etc.
• Manage Director of CEO Operations:
  • Help her prioritize the right engagements and meetings for the CEO. 
  • Ensure tight structures for all follow up coming from the Office of the CEO. 
  • Support the Director of CEO Operations as she scales up and manages her team of Executive Assistants.

EMPOWER A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP TEAM

• Set vision, goals and engagement strategy for Alignment Team. 
• Join Alignment Team check-ins with the CEO and ensure follow up from both ends.
• Coach and manage the AT toward vision through lateral management, relationship building and engagement.
• Facilitate Alignment Team meetings and stepbacks to maximize and scrutinize the use of time of the group and ensure the group weighs in on issues of enterprise-level importance.
• Determine when to pull together smaller groups of the AT for decisions that they are uniquely positioned to make.

EXTENSION OF AND SURROGATE FOR CEO

• Develop and maintain a deep and abiding understanding of the CEO’s goals, context, priorities, factors for consideration, key partners and work style.
• Create and evolve a CEO action plan rooted in her priorities to guide each moment of her daily activities.
• Offer observations and weigh in on strategic issues on an ad hoc and proactive basis; anticipate opportunities and obstacles and highlight areas that the CEO might be inclined to miss.
• Attend a portfolio of external meetings with CEO and engage as necessary.
• Own and execute a small set of special projects, as needed.
• Model the core values and manage relationships in ways that reflect the ethos of the CEO.

Experiences, Qualifications & Skills: Braven is looking for an exceptional leader, operator, strategic thought partner and team builder who thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic senior leadership role that requires impeccable judgment and gravitas. You are bringing experiences and strengths like these:

• Deep alignment with Braven’s mission and core values, including strong cultural competence and a demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

• A self-driven, self-aware proactive leadership style with 7+ years of experience working in complex organizational environments, ideally in a face-paced, results-driven organization(s)
• Desire to support our CEO’s role demands, which require her to work 60+ hours a week, inside and outside of standard work hours as well as travel intensely, often multiple times a week;
• Exceptional organizational skills:  
  • Leveraging systems that support self-management as well as facilitates the ability of others to understand relevant information and take action accordingly;
  • Easily able to identify and propose solutions to gaps in systems to increase efficiency and maximize organization

• Extensive experience managing projects with complex workstreams, managing complex decision making processes, including stakeholders with diverse needs and interests, and laterally managing team leads

• Experiencing executive level leaders successfully and forging relationships with stakeholders across lines of difference
• Highly regarded people management skills
• Exemplary (and fast-paced) written and verbal communication skills, delivering sensitive messages appropriately and unpopular decisions with firmness and care in a timely manner
• Gravitas to travel with the CEO to high stakes meetings and engage with VIP level people appropriately, with confidence and competence to handle follow-up as well as feedback about how the meeting went, etc. 
• Gravitas to be the surrogate for the CEO, when she is unable to be in a meeting and/or needs to leave early to conquer other demands on her time

Please know that no one ever meets 100% of the qualifications. If much of this describes you, we encourage you to apply.

Additional Requirements

• Ability to work in-person two-three days per week in Chicago (IL) highly preferred, Atlanta (GA), Newark (NJ), or New York City (NYC).
• Ability to travel at least 25% - 40% of the time to support the CEO on high-stakes external meetings, team stepbacks, board meetings, etc.
• Authorized to work in the U.S.
• Must be fully vaccinated and have received the Booster vaccination against COVID-19 and provide proof of such by the date of hire. Individuals may claim exemption from the vaccine requirement for medical or religious reasons. Exempted individuals will be subject to weekly testing if they engage in any in-person work activities.   

Compensation and Benefits

The salary for this position, which depends on prior work experience and our assessment of your demonstrated fit for the role, will likely be between $127,100 - $158,800 for Atlanta, $133,700 - $167,100 for Chicago, and $144,400 - $180,500 for New York or Newark. Braven offers competitive base salaries based on the midpoint of the market among not-for-profit organizations of similar size, with opportunities for salary growth over time. We believe in compensating staff members fairly in relation to each other, their qualifications, and their impact on behalf of the organization, and take internal and external equity seriously. Given our commitment to equity, Braven does not negotiate salary offers; instead each salary offer is determined carefully using external and internal benchmarking. You will have an opportunity to discuss salary in more detail after you begin the application process.

Braven also provides competitive, comprehensive benefits, recognition, and career development. While Braven reserves the right to change benefits at any time, current benefits include: 

• Unlimited vacation time in addition to org-wide, week-long shutdowns in July and the end of the calendar year 
• Match of your 401K contribution up to 5% of your base annual salary, starting your first full month
• Coverage of 85% of health insurance premium 
• A one month paid sabbatical after 4 years on staff

Location

When social distancing is not in place, we gather in the office two to three days a week. Therefore, we require teammates to live within commuting distance of one of our hubs: Chicago, New York City, Newark, and Atlanta. Each teammate can use two flex days per week of their choosing to work remotely. We believe in the magic, connection, and collaboration that happens when people work together face-to-face and we believe in giving people flexibility to focus, balance personal priorities, and save themselves two commutes per week. 

Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 

At Braven, we are committed to attracting, engaging, developing, and retaining a diverse team. Braven operates in the context of our American culture, against the backdrop of systemic racism and oppression of marginalized people since our country’s founding. We are committed to assembling leaders at our organization who have emerged from everywhere, with a particular emphasis on those who share the racial and income backgrounds of our Fellows, and creating an inclusive culture that allows all teammates, of all experiences and identities, to thrive.  

Braven is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected factor.  We encourage talented individuals of all backgrounds to apply.