Executive Assistant to the President & CEO

The Public Health Institute (PHI) is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting health, well-being, and quality of life for people throughout California, across the nation and around the world. As one of the largest and most comprehensive public health organizations in the nation, we are at the forefront of research and innovations to improve the efficacy of public health statewide, nationally, and internationally.

PHI was distinguished as one of the top 50 “Best Non-Profit Organizations to Work For” by the Non-Profit Times in a national search.

Position Summary

The Executive Assistant II (EA II) serves as the primary point of contact for internal and external matters pertaining to the office of the President & CEO (the “CEO”) of the Public Health Institute (PHI) and serves as a liaison to the board of directors and senior management. The EA II provides a full range of executive and administrative support to the CEO and provides limited scheduling support to the CFO. The position performs highly confidential and sensitive tasks; and interacts with executives, the Board of Directors, staff, partner organizations, and the general public. Considerable independent judgment is required for this position. The Executive Assistant reports to the CEO directly.

This is a dynamic role where the incumbent must be highly professional with strong executive support skills, possess the ability to handle a range of issues and situations with a deft touch, and be able to provide exceptional service that mirrors the standards expected of the executives.

This is the role for you if you thrive in a high-impact, mission-driven environment that requires balancing competing needs and priorities of many stakeholders while also moving small tasks and large special projects forward with an inordinate attention to detail; you love staffing an active CEO and making sure everything is on track and taken care of to support the CEO’s daily schedule and major projects in the office of the CEO, and recognize that excellence in your work is critical to the organization’s mission.

This is a regular full-time hybrid (remote and in-person) position that is required to work in the office located in downtown Oakland, CA up to 3 days per week and whenever the CEO is onsite. The incumbent is also required to work in person when there are meetings and events, and travel in or outside California a few times a year for Board meetings.

Full salary range for this position: $86,029 to $127,149 per year. The typical hiring range for this position is from $86,029 (minimum) to $106,589 (midpoint), based on 100% FTE. The starting salary is determined using a variety of factors, such as the candidate’s knowledge, skills, and experience, as well as internal equity consideration and budget availability.

Employment Type: Full Time

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Executive Support

• Serves as a point person for internal and external questions and requests of the CEO, demonstrating approachability and reliability.
• Supports the day-to-day activities of the CEO.
• Be resourceful, uses sound judgement and makes decisions to handle and resolve issues and conflicts proactively with minimum support and guidance, addresses follow up on a range of items, and brings issues to closure respectfully with tact and diplomacy.
• Tracks all commitments of the CEO and sees them through to completion, providing invaluable executive support.

Calendar Management

• Plans and coordinates high-volume, complex scheduling and calendar management for the CEO and CFO. Ensures calendar management reflects the priorities of the executives. Highly responsive and respectful in communications with Board members, external and internal stakeholders, with expeditious follow-up and great tact in scheduling meetings on a variety of timelines, while also exercising appropriate discretion about information shared in the scheduling process.
• Proactively manages calendar conflicts, independently resolves scheduling issues, and builds in appropriate calendar management needs such as travel time, exercising appropriate independent judgment.
• Utilizes an effective tracking system for meeting requests.
• Provides a weekly calendar of meetings to the CEO with links to relevant documents, agendas, background materials, and emails that relate to upcoming meetings.

Travel Arrangement

• Arranges complex and detailed travel plans, itineraries, and agendas, and problem solves as needed when issues arise. Ensures all travel information is in the executives’ calendars.
• Produces and monitors follow up on CEO meetings and logistics post travel.

Meeting Preparation and Follow-ups

• Proactively prepares and coordinates background documents, agendas, project status reports and other information the CEO needs for meetings.
• Tracks and monitors upcoming meetings to ensure that all background and preparation work and documents are completed timely and available to the CEO for their review in advance of meetings.
• Plans, coordinates, and tracks follow-ups after meetings, and reports progress and close out to the CEO.

Project Management

• Manages a variety of special projects for the CEO.
• Prioritizes conflicting needs; handles matters expeditiously, proactively, and follows through on projects to successful completion, often with deadline
• Leads, coordinates, and tracks moving contracts through approval, payment, monitoring of deliverables to ensure on time, and close out processes for contract work under the office of the CEO.

Effective Use of Tools and Technology

• Uses tools and technology for effective calendaring, scheduling, documents management, and project management.
• Provides basic IT support and troubleshooting for the executives’ office equipment and software. Requests support from the IT department when needed.

Document Creation and Management

• Prepares presentations, documents, correspondence, memos, email, reports, and forms.
• Uses technology effectively such as ShareFile, SharePoint, and other tools for filing and easy access to documents for the executives.
• Manages shared folders and documents for various projects.
• Serves as a key source of information and data and organizes and accesses documents including shared documents and data needed by the CEO.
• Completes expense reports. Processes expenses and reimbursements for the CEO, ensuring finances are handled with precision and in alignment with the budget.
• Develops, collates, and prepares daily materials for the CEO, ensuring their preparedness and punctuality for all engagements.
• Provides required or requested information and/or data for internal or external reports and records.

Board Support and Liaison

• Serves as the CEO’s administrative liaison to PHI’s Board of Directors and Board Committees.
• Supports all Board and Board Committee meetings, including preparing meeting materials and logistics, taking accurate and comprehensive meeting minutes, and maintaining the board roster.
• Compiles board packages. Ensures meeting materials and background work are ready, accurate, compiled, and sent out to the Board in a timely manner before meetings. Plans out timeline and work plan for Board meeting preparation, coordinates with staff to ensure all final documents and background work are completed before deadlines. Monitors progress and keeps the CEO informed.
• Develops budgets for meetings, events, and other activities for CEO’s approval. Ensures expenses are within budgets and properly tracked and recorded.
• Provides administrative and logistics planning of board meetings, including hotel selection and group room reservation, meeting/conference room reservation, and food and beverage arrangement.
• Assists board members with travel arrangements, lodging, and meal planning as
• Maintains discretion and confidentiality in relationships with all board members and works closely with executive support staff to Board members.
• Adheres to compliance with applicable rules and regulations set in bylaws regarding board and board committee matters, including advance distribution of materials before meetings in electronic/paper

Executive Leadership Team (ELT) Liaison

• Assists in scheduling all ELT meetings, 1:1 meetings, and off-site meetings.
• Exchanges information on behalf of the CEO with ELT, and/or their administrative support staff by relaying information accurately and assuring information is communicated in a timely manner.

Communications, Partnerships, and Outreach

• Communicates directly, and on behalf of the CEO, with Board members, donors, external partners, ELT, management, and staff, under the direction of the CEO. Builds relationship with stakeholders.
• Uses diplomacy, tact, and good judgment with a highly professional manner in representing the office of the CEO and the organization.
• Ensures that the CEO’s bio and CV is kept updated and responds to requests for materials regarding the CEO and the organization in
• Initiates communications to get background for meetings with new partners.
• Works with the Development team in coordinating the CEO’s outreach
• Follows up on contacts made by the CEO and supports the cultivation of ongoing relationships.

Other Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Serves as the PHI secondary point of contact for the Central in-person office space with building management.
• Performs general office support functions as needed such as handling mail, purchasing office supply, and managing office inventory.
• Models a culture of service, ethics, professionalism, can-doism, and continuous improvement in the organization.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Seven years of progressively increasing administrative and/or project management experience, including experience supporting an elected official of an organization.
• Associate degree, or substitute with two additional years of related experience.

Other Qualifications

• Demonstrated ability to exercise independent judgment in managing a complex, fast-paced executive office, including making real-time decisions about scheduling, priorities, and tradeoffs with minimal direction.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills, including the ability to anticipate needs, assess urgency and strategic value, manage competing priorities, and protect the CEO’s time in a dynamic environment.
• High level of situational awareness and comfort operating with ambiguity, enabling effective prioritization, appropriate escalation, and sound judgment without reliance on detailed instructions.
• Exceptional administrative, organizational, tracking, and follow-up skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams seamlessly and with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to develop, refine, and maintain effective executive office systems, workflows, and tools that evolve with organizational and CEO priorities.
• Capacity to quickly learn and apply organizational context—including mission, strategy, leadership dynamics, governance, and external relationships—in daily decision-making.
• Clear, confident written and verbal communication skills, with professionalism and diplomacy to represent the CEO with internal and external stakeholders, including the ability to push back, clarify, and negotiate when needed.
• Strong discretion, professionalism, and emotional intelligence, including the ability to handle sensitive, confidential, and high-stake matters with care.
• Proven ability to build strong working relationships with staff, Board members, donors, and external partners; experience working with a Board of Directors preferred.
• Highly resourceful team player who is also effective working independently and taking ownership of outcomes.
• Ability to develop and analyze budgets.
• Proficiency with executive office and collaboration tools, including Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Planner, Forms; Google Docs; Zoom; and related document, scheduling, and project management systems (e.g., SharePoint, Smartsheet).
• Strong alignment with PHI’s mission, vision, and values.

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT (FLSA) STATUS

This position is classified as exempt based on the job duties. However, based on the FTE, salary level of the employee, or federal/state/local laws, the employee may be classified as nonexempt.

EEO Statement

The Public Health Institute is committed to a policy that provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, pregnancy, medical condition including genetic characteristics, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identification and expression, sexual orientation, and to make all employment decisions so as to further this principle of equal employment opportunity. To this end, the PHI will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, pregnancy, medical condition including genetic characteristics, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identification and expression, sexual orientation, and will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are offered employment and employees are treated during employment without regard to these characteristics.

For further information regarding Equal Employment Opportunity, copy and paste the following URL into your web browser: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf

ADA Statement:

The Public Health Institute is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Recruitment Team at least 48 hours in advance at Recruitment@phi.org.

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We’re so pleased the Public Health Institute is an organization you would like to work with. Do you have questions about this opportunity? If so, email our recruitment team at Recruitment@phi.org.

Additional information about PHI’s benefits and compensation offerings can be found here.