Head of Operations & Planning

Job Purpose:

The Head of Operations & Planning serves as second-in-command within Office of Faculty Excellence and Advancement (OFEA), providing day-to-day operational oversight of the office’s program teams, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), Nexus, and Postdoctoral Affairs. This role maintains a single consolidated view of OFEA’s processes, projects, and capacity; owns the office’s data and reporting infrastructure; and translates OFEA’s strategic priorities into consistent, well-documented operations across teams. The ideal candidate combines strong program oversight and coordination skills with a genuine interest in building the operational infrastructure (templates, SOPs, workflows, dashboards) that lets a growing, multi-team office scale smoothly.

Key Responsibilities:

Portfolio & Capacity Management

• Maintain one consolidated view of all major OFEA processes, events, projects, deadlines, staffing demands, and decision points
• Run a short weekly or biweekly operational meeting with workstream leaders, and provide the Associate Director with a concise summary of progress, risks, and decisions needed
• Ensure recurring processes — P&T, faculty reviews, orientation, mentoring, recognition, policy development, and Nexus planning — have clear owners, timelines, templates, and escalation paths
• Consolidate the office’s budget picture, including Nexus event activity, staffing, consultants, and project costs, without taking financial authority away from relevant unit leads
• Track decisions from the Associate Director, the Vice Provost, SMT, and committees, ensuring actions are followed through and do not disappear between meetings

Team & Program Oversight

• Oversee and coordinate daily operations across CTE, Nexus, and Postdoctoral Affairs, ensuring alignment with OFEA’s overall goals and calendar
• Serve as the primary point of coordination between team leads, surfacing risks, resourcing gaps, and cross-team dependencies — without holding direct-line management authority over them
• Act as deputy to the Associate Director, representing OFEA in meetings and decisions when needed

Project Management

• Own project plans and timelines for major OFEA initiatives (e.g., faculty orientation, retreats, program launches), tracking milestones and deliverables across teams
• Introduce and maintain lightweight project management practices (status tracking, milestone reviews) suited to a small, fast-moving office

Process Documentation & Templates

• Build and maintain a library of reusable templates (event planning, communications, onboarding, reporting) to standardize how teams operate
• Document standard operating procedures for recurring OFEA processes, ensuring continuity as the office and its teams grow
• Partner with team leads to capture undocumented institutional knowledge and convert it into repeatable process

Data & Reporting

• Own OFEA’s data and reporting infrastructure, including tracking systems, dashboards, and shared data repositories across CTE, Nexus, and Postdoctoral Affairs
• Consolidate program metrics (faculty engagement, event participation, P&T milestones, survey results) into regular reports for the Associate Director, SMT, and other stakeholders
• Establish data collection standards and governance practices so metrics are consistent, accurate, and comparable across teams
• Identify opportunities to automate or streamline recurring reporting needs

Cross-Team Integration

• Support the integration of newly added or merged teams (most recently Postdoctoral Affairs) into shared OFEA workflows, tools, and reporting structures
• Identify redundancies or gaps across CTE, Nexus, and Postdoctoral Affairs and propose consolidated processes wherever useful

Other Duties

• Contribute to university-wide programs, including orientation, wellbeing initiatives, global observances, leadership development, and personal growth activities.
• Perform all other duties as reasonably directed by the line manager that are commensurate with these functional objectives.

Qualifications and Criteria:

• Bachelor’s degree required; master’s preferred (higher education administration, business administration, or related field)

Essential :

• 8+ years of experience in program/project management, ideally within higher education, faculty affairs, or a similar multi-stakeholder environment
• Demonstrated experience coordinating or overseeing multiple teams/programs without formal line authority
• Strong process-documentation and systems-thinking skills — comfortable building from scratch in a growing office
• Experience consolidating budget or resource visibility across multiple workstreams
• Comfort working with data tracking tools, dashboards, and reporting systems (e.g., Excel, Power BI, or similar)

Preferred :

• PMP or similar project management certification a plus