Vice President of Operations

Louisville Ballet; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Creative West, a fully virtual nonprofit, seeks a Vice President of Operations to design and manage internal systems across grants, advocacy, policy, and technology. The VPO translates CEO priorities into a sequenced operating plan, ensures cross-department alignment, and monitors budgets, risks, and performance across the enterprise.

Leading a diverse Directors team, you will drive efficiencies, establish governance, and foster a high-accountability culture in a remote setting.

Responsibilities

• Workflow Design: Develop and enforce standardized 'Inter-Departmental Agreements' (IDAs) – policies to ensure clarity when projects move from Development to Grants or from Tech to Marketing.
• The 'Buy-In' Gatekeeper: Establish a formal vetting process for new initiatives, ensuring inter-departmental sign-off before resources are committed.
• Virtual Infrastructure: Oversee the auditing and optimizing of the Creative West tech stack to ensure seamless communication and project tracking across all departments.
• Public Policy & Advocacy: Partner with Directors to ensure state arts agency programs, and state and federal advocacy efforts are operationally supported and aligned with organizational milestones.
• Grants & Programs: Oversee the operational lifecycle of grant cycles, ensuring the Grants, Awards, and Programs (GAP) team has the administrative and technical support needed for high-volume periods.
• Revenue & Growth: Work with Development and Finance to ensure fundraising targets are integrated into the operational budget and that Business is positioned as a sustainable revenue or service pillar.
• Budget Optimization: Collaborate with the Finance Director to monitor departmental budgets and ensure operational spending aligns with long-term sustainability.
• Silo Risk Mitigation: Mitigate 'Silo Risk' by establishing cross-functional syncs that prevent departments from developing programs lacking consensus, stakeholder buy-in, redundant tools, or conflicting schedules.
• Legal & Compliance: Identify and manage legal risk, including human resources, to determine when to prioritize or deprioritize specific concerns.
• Accountability Systems: Foster a high-accountability and high-reliability culture in a virtual setting, utilizing asynchronous communication tools to maintain momentum without 'meeting fatigue'.
• Team Supervision: Supervise a diverse group of Directors with a wide range of skills and competencies, balancing the needs of the sector with the rigorous demands of program development and execution.
• Strategy Translation: Translate CEO and Trustee priorities into a sequenced, organization-wide operating plan with clear dependencies and timelines.
• Enterprise Prioritization: Lead an annual and quarterly enterprise prioritization process, ensuring staff capacity aligns with strategic goals.
• Portfolio Management: Maintain a centralized initiative portfolio dashboard tracking status, risks, and resource allocation.
• Operational Solutions: Identify and resolve pain points across departments before they impact delivery.
• Governance Frameworks: Define and implement decision-making frameworks to clarify ownership and input across teams.
• Cross-Functional Resolution: Serve as the final arbiter for cross-functional trade-offs when Directors cannot reach alignment.
• Escalation Thresholds: Establish thresholds for what requires executive (CEO/Chair) escalation vs. internal resolution.
• Metrics & Oversight: Ensure major initiatives have clearly defined success metrics, owners, and post-mortem processes.
• Lifecycle Integration: Oversee 'start-to-finish' integration of major initiatives spanning multiple departments (e.g., new grant programs, tech launches, policy campaigns).
• Cross-Department Alignment: Ensure Development, Finance, Programs, and Technology are aligned before external commitments are made.
• Capacity Protocols: Create program launch and sunset protocols to manage organizational capacity.
• Workflow Optimization: Monitor and resolve breakdowns in handoffs between departments.
• Metric Definition: Define a core set of organizational metrics spanning programs, revenue, advocacy, and platform performance.
• Executive Dashboards: Build and maintain executive dashboards for real-time insight into organizational health.
• Data Integrity: Partner with Directors to ensure data consistency and integrity across systems.
• Performance Reviews: Lead regular performance reviews (monthly/quarterly) focused on insight, not just reporting.
• Budget Process: Lead a cross-departmental budget integration process in partnership with Finance.
• Integrated Planning: Ensure budgets reflect true operational needs and interdependencies, not siloed planning.
• Resource Monitoring: Monitor resource allocation (staff time, contractors, tech) across initiatives.
• Agile Reallocation: Recommend resource reallocation or de

Job description

About Us

At Creative West, we build equitable technology, funding, advocacy, and policy systems to generate creative capacity in the West and beyond. We offer direct, practical support to state arts agencies, advocacy groups, artists, culture bearers, and creative organizations, serving a region that stretches from the Arctic Coast to the Desert Southwest, and from the Great Plains to the Pacific Islands. By building systems that change systems, we advance equity, justice, and regenerative action - seeing these values as essential as creativity itself.

Position Overview

The Creative West organization continues to grow within a virtual workplace. This growth presents tremendous opportunity as well as risk through deepening silos and increasing strain on work systems and culture. As development efforts expand, so too does this work demand more of the CEO’s dedicated attention. As Creative West reimagines its covenant with State Arts Agencies, collaborates in national initiatives of the USRAO collective, and stewards key relationships with the NEA, NASAA, and AFTA, greater dedicated strategic attention from the CEO is required.

A newly conceptualized position, the Vice President of Operations (VPO) is the primary architect and manager of Creative West’s internal systems. In a 100% virtual environment, the VPO ensures that diverse departments—from grant funding to state arts agencies, advocacy to technology platforms—operate as a cohesive and efficient system. The VPO tracks projects, programs, services, and activities to ensure that all relevant parties receive communications updates and decisions stick, ensuring deadlines are met and budgets are maintained. The VPO will bridge the gap between high-level vision and execution. They will do this by developing, implementing, and monitoring cross-departmental processes, ensuring that new and existing programs are vetted, funded, and technically supported before launch.

Key Responsibilities

1. Processes and Policies

a) Workflow Design: Develop and enforce standardized 'Inter-Departmental Agreements' (IDAs) – policies to ensure clarity when projects move from Development to Grants or from Tech to Marketing.

b) The 'Buy-In' Gatekeeper: Establish a formal vetting process for new initiatives, ensuring inter-departmental sign-off before resources are committed.

c) Virtual Infrastructure: Oversee the auditing and optimizing of the Creative West tech stack to ensure seamless communication and project tracking across all departments.

2. Strategic Departmental Oversight

a) Public Policy & Advocacy: Partner with Directors to ensure state arts agency programs, and state and federal advocacy efforts are operationally supported and aligned with organizational milestones.

b) Grants & Programs: Oversee the operational lifecycle of grant cycles, ensuring the Grants, Awards, and Programs (GAP) team has the administrative and technical support needed for high-volume periods.

c) Revenue & Growth: Work with Development and Finance to ensure fundraising targets are integrated into the operational budget and that Business is positioned as a sustainable revenue or service pillar.

3. Financial, Legal, & Risk Management

a) Budget Optimization: Collaborate with the Finance Director to monitor departmental budgets and ensure operational spending aligns with long-term sustainability.

b) Silo Risk Mitigation: Mitigate 'Silo Risk' by establishing cross-functional syncs that prevent departments from developing programs lacking consensus, stakeholder buy-in, redundant tools, or conflicting schedules.

c) Legal & Compliance: Identify and manage legal risk, including human resources, to determine when to prioritize or deprioritize specific concerns.

4. Culture & Remote Leadership

a) Accountability Systems: Foster a high-accountability and high-reliability culture in a virtual setting, utilizing asynchronous communication tools to maintain momentum without 'meeting fatigue.'

b) Team Supervision: Supervise a diverse group of Directors with a wide range of skills and competencies, balancing the needs of the sector with the rigorous demands of program development and execution.

5. Organizational Planning & Prioritization

a) Strategy Translation: Translate CEO and Trustee priorities into a sequenced, organization-wide operating plan with clear dependencies and timelines.

b) Enterprise Prioritization: Lead an annual and quarterly enterprise prioritization process, ensuring staff capacity aligns with strategic goals.

c) Portfolio Management: Maintain a centralized initiative portfolio dashboard tracking status, risks, and resource allocation.

d) Operational Solutions: Identify and resolve pain points across departments before they impact delivery.

6. Decision Architecture & Governance

a) Governance Frameworks: Define and implement decision-making frameworks to clarify ownership and input across teams.

b) Cross-Functional Resolution: Serve as the final arbiter for cross-functional trade-offs when Directors cannot reach alignment.

c) Escalation Thresholds: Establish thresholds for what requires executive (CEO/Chair) escalation vs. internal resolution.

d) Metrics & Oversight: Ensure major initiatives have clearly defined success metrics, owners, and post-mortem processes.

7. Cross-Functional Program Integration

a) Lifecycle Integration: Oversee 'start-to-finish' integration of major initiatives spanning multiple departments (e.g., new grant programs, tech launches, policy campaigns).

b) Cross-Department Alignment: Ensure Development, Finance, Programs, and Technology are aligned before external commitments are made.

c) Capacity Protocols: Create program launch and sunset protocols to manage organizational capacity.

d) Workflow Optimization: Monitor and resolve breakdowns in handoffs between departments.

8. Data, Metrics & Organizational Intelligence

a) Metric Definition: Define a core set of organizational metrics spanning programs, revenue, advocacy, and platform performance.

b) Executive Dashboards: Build and maintain executive dashboards for real-time insight into organizational health.

c) Data Integrity: Partner with Directors to ensure data consistency and integrity across systems.

d) Performance Reviews: Lead regular performance reviews (monthly/quarterly) focused on insight, not just reporting.

9. Budget Integration & Resource Allocation

a) Budget Process: Lead a cross-departmental budget integration process in partnership with Finance.

b) Integrated Planning: Ensure budgets reflect true operational needs and interdependencies, not siloed planning.

c) Resource Monitoring: Monitor resource allocation (staff time, contractors, tech) across initiatives.

d) Agile Reallocation: Recommend resource reallocation or de