Senior Project Manager, Strategic Operations

Summary

The Senior Project Manager, Strategic Operations serves as the primary project management and strategic operations partner to the Senior Vice President for Administration and Operations / Chief Operating Officer (SVP/COO). This role drives the strategic execution of complex initiatives across the four areas within Administration and Operations (HR, Finance, Facilities, and IT), maintaining close alignment with institutional priorities and cross-functional leadership. The Senior Project Manager directly optimizes the operating rhythm of the executive suite by providing strategic calendar, briefing, and operational oversight to the COO.

This position requires exceptional independent judgment, operational diplomacy, and the ability to build immediate credibility with leaders across a complex organization. Because this role regularly supports confidential management-side labor relations, workforce planning, personnel strategy, financial planning, and other sensitive institutional matters, the position is designated as confidential and non-represented.

Essential Job Functions

Project Management

• Lead project management across Administration and Operations, including human resources, finance, facilities, technology, risk management, institutional strategy, campus operations, procurement, policy implementation, and emergency preparedness.
• Develop project plans, timelines, workback schedules, status reports, action trackers, and decision logs.
• Monitor progress against milestones and proactively identify risks, blockers, dependencies, and areas requiring escalation.
• Coordinate deliverables across departments and leaders, ensuring workstreams remain organized, visible, and moving forward.
• Translate broad priorities into clear tasks, owners, timelines, and follow-up mechanisms.
• Support implementation of process improvements, organizational initiatives, policy updates, and operational planning efforts.
  
  

Cross-Functional Leadership and Division Partnership

• Serve as a regular point of contact for the leaders of each of the four areas under the COO on project status, priorities, risks, and follow-through.
• Build productive, credible working relationships across schools, departments, administrative units, the President’s Office, Human Resources, Finance, Facilities, IT, Campus Safety, faculty, staff, and students.
• Exercise diplomacy and judgment when navigating sensitive issues, competing priorities, or ambiguous situations.
• Represent the COO’s priorities in cross-functional discussions and follow up to ensure commitments made in those conversations are tracked and carried through.
  
  

Executive Operations and Priority Management

• Manage the COO’s and CFO’s calendars as strategic operating tools, ensuring that time, meetings, and follow-up align with Institute priorities.
• Evaluate, prioritize, and triage requests for the COO’s attention, using sound judgment and an understanding of urgency, sensitivity, and institutional impact.
• Prepare meeting agendas, briefings, talking points, background materials, presentations, summaries, and follow-up documentation.
• Track commitments, decisions, action items, deadlines, and next steps across the COO’s portfolio.
• Anticipate needs, identify conflicts or gaps, and proactively resolve scheduling, communication, or workflow issues.
  
  

Meeting, Governance, and Event Support

• Plan and coordinate senior-level meetings, divisional meetings, retreats, working sessions, project meetings, town halls, and other operational gatherings for areas within the COO’s primary portfolio.
• Coordinate confidential meetings involving the SVP/COO, Human Resources, Finance, Legal Counsel, and designated management representatives, including scheduling, agendas, materials, notes, action items, and restricted follow-up
• Prepare agendas, materials, room logistics, technology needs, attendance lists, notes, action items, and post-meeting follow-up.
• Support preparation for Cabinet, Board, and committee or governance-related meetings involving the COO, and at times the CFO.
  
  

Administrative and Budget Support

• Track budgets, expenses, invoices, purchase orders, P-card reconciliations, reimbursements, memberships, subscriptions, travel, and vendor coordination for the offices of the COO, CFO, and Human Resources.
• Maintain organized records, contact lists, templates, briefing books, process documents, shared files, and office systems. Support personnel filing with Human Resources.
• Maintain and organize restricted management-side labor relations, HR strategy, personnel, privileged, and predecisional files and materials, including materials relating to bargaining preparation, labor-management meetings, employee-relations strategy, workforce planning, and communications with counsel.
• Support procurement, contract routing, document preparation, and internal approval workflows as assigned.
• Maintain strict confidentiality over privileged, predecisional, personnel, legal, labor relations, financial, and operational information.
  
  

Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education, training, and progressively responsible experience.
• Demonstrated project management experience, including developing timelines, tracking deliverables, managing dependencies, and driving cross-functional follow-through.
• Demonstrated experience serving as a trusted operational partner to executive leadership — including in ambiguous, fast-changing, or resource-constrained environments — whether gained through an executive support, project management, operations, or similar role.
• Demonstrated ability to handle confidential labor-relations, employee-relations, or HR-strategy matters in a unionized or similarly sensitive environment, with exceptional judgment and discretion.
• Experience building credibility and productive working relationships with senior leaders across a complex or multi-divisional organization.
• Excellent writing, editing, verbal communication, and presentation-preparation skills.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to work independently, think proactively, solve problems, and exercise sound judgment with limited supervision.
• Experience with budget tracking, expense reporting, invoice processing, procurement workflows, or similar administrative-financial processes.
• Proficiency with common office and collaboration platforms, including Google Workspace, Zoom, calendar systems, shared drives, and project-tracking tools like Asana and Google Keep.
• Commitment to equity, inclusion, access, and respectful engagement with a diverse community of artists, students, faculty, staff, trustees, and external partners.
• Ability to work full-time, in person, on campus in Valencia/Santa Clarita, with occasional evening or weekend availability as needed.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in higher education, arts education, nonprofit administration, or another mission-driven institutional setting.
• Experience working in or around a unionized environment.
• Project management training, certification (e.g., PMP), or demonstrated experience using project management methodologies.
• Experience preparing materials for senior leadership, boards, committees, or governance bodies.
• Process-improvement experience, including creation of SOPs, workflows, dashboards, or operating cadence tools.
  
  

Work Environment & Physical Requirements

This position operates full-time in person on an active arts college campus. The role requires the regular use of standard office equipment, computers, and digital communications tools. It involves prolonged periods of sitting/desk work, as well as regular walking across campus to attend meetings and oversee event logistics. The employee must occasionally lift or move office supplies up to 15 pounds. Occasional non-standard hours may be required to support critical labor relations deadlines, emergency response coordination, or board meetings.

Equal Employment Opportunity

CalArts is committed to equal opportunity and prohibits discrimination and harassment based on protected characteristics, including race, color, sex, pregnancy-related conditions, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion or religious creed, disability, medical condition, marital status, age, military or veteran status, ancestry, ethnic or national origin, and other legally protected classifications.

Disclaimers & Employment Contingencies

• Background Screening: Employment is contingent upon successful completion of CalArts’ pre-employment screening process, including comprehensive reference checks and criminal background checks conducted in compliance with state and federal laws.
• At-Will & Modification Notice: This job description outlines the primary organizational duties and performance standards required for the position. It does not constitute a contract of employment. CalArts retains the right to revise, amend, or change job duties, reporting structures, or operational arrangements based on institutional necessity and in accordance with applicable laws.