VP of Operations & Systems Architecture

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

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.