Executive Assistant to the CDO

Position Summary
The Executive Assistant to the Chief Development Officer of Real Estate Management serves as a high-trust execution partner who enables the Chief Development Officer to operate at maximum effectiveness. The position requires exceptional judgment, accuracy, initiative, discretion, and follow-through in a fast-paced real estate and affordable housing environment. The Executive Assistant proactively manages the executive's calendar, priorities, communications, meetings, executive documents, approvals, stakeholder coordination, travel, and follow-up systems; anticipates needs; identifies risks; and drives assigned matters to closure with minimal supervision. The role supports the Chief Development Officer's strategic and operational priorities, including development and capital initiatives, organizational execution, project pipeline advancement, and executive/board-facing work. The duties listed below are illustrations of the various types of work that may be performed. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Responsibilities

1. Own executive calendar strategy and meeting logistics, including prioritizing requests, protecting focus and preparation time, identifying conflicts and risks, confirming the correct attendees, and ensuring each meeting has a clear purpose, location/link, and required materials.

2. Serve as a proactive gatekeeper and workflow partner for the Chief Development Officer by triaging requests, determining the next appropriate steps, resolving routine matters independently, and escalating high-risk, sensitive, strategic, or authority-dependent matters with a recommended course of action.

3. Manage executive follow-through from start to finish. Maintain a reliable system for commitments, deadlines, approvals, signatures, decisions, and items waiting on others; follow up without prompting and close loops with internal and external stakeholders.

4. Prepare, edit, proofread, format, and quality-control confidential correspondence, memoranda, reports, presentations, spreadsheets, talking points, executive summaries, and meeting materials. Verify names, dates, figures, attachments, formatting, and source information before release.

5. Coordinate preparation of CEO-, board-, executive-, and stakeholder-facing materials by gathering current source files, consolidating inputs, identifying missing information and owners, version-controlling drafts, and clearly stating what changed, what remains open, and what decision or approval is required.

6. Translate short instructions, forwarded emails, meeting notes, and other executive signals into executable work with minimal back-and-forth. When direction is ambiguous, apply established operating rules, make a reasonable assumption, and confirm the proposed action or present concise options rather than asking broad open-ended questions.

7. Manage meetings as an execution process, not only a calendar event. Prepare agendas and materials as needed; capture or organize decisions, actions, owners, due dates, dependencies, and success standards; distinguish actionable tasks from strategic issues; and track open items to completion.

8. Provide concise daily and weekly executive visibility into priorities, including items requiring executive input, work being handled, items waiting on others, calendar or deadline risks, completed items, blocked items, and upcoming priorities.

9. Coordinate internal and external communications and logistics with staff, board members, elected officials, lenders, investors, development partners, attorneys, consultants, vendors, residents, and other stakeholders with professionalism, discretion, responsiveness, and sound judgment.

10. Support the Chief Development Officer's real estate, development, capital, and organizational priorities by maintaining project and milestone trackers; coordinating meetings and deliverables; organizing due diligence and approval materials; and following up on assigned dependencies without assuming decision-making authority reserved for management.

11. Support recurring financial and administrative workflows, including budgets, invoices, purchase card matters, expenses, reimbursements, development or capital reporting, approvals, signatures, and reconciliations. Track owner, due date, status, blocker, and next action until resolved.

12. Conduct targeted research; compile and organize information from multiple sources; and prepare clear summaries, comparisons, background materials, and decision-support documents for the Chief Development Officer.

13. Manage complex travel, training, conferences, and executive events, including itineraries, reservations, registrations, ground transportation, changes, confirmations, and contingency planning. Ensure the Chief Development Officer has complete and accurate logistics in advance.

14. Plan and coordinate leadership meetings, staff meetings, retreats, interviews, partner meetings, and special events, including invitations, agendas, materials, venue/technology, food or activity logistics, RSVPs, and final confirmations.

15. Maintain an organized, secure, and current executive information system for key documents, correspondence, contacts, recurring reports, meeting materials, decisions, and reference files so information can be retrieved quickly and accurately.

16. Handle highly confidential, sensitive, privileged, personnel, financial, and strategic information with the highest degree of discretion and in accordance with Agency policies and applicable requirements.

17. Exercise rigorous quality control and accountability. Independently verify work before sending, identify discrepancies or missing information, meet deadlines, surface risks early, and promptly correct errors when they occur.

18. Build strong working relationships across the Agency and with external partners; communicate clearly and concisely; represent the Chief Development Officer professionally; and use tact, diplomacy, and appropriate firmness to move work forward.

19. Continuously improve executive support systems by documenting effective preferences, checklists, templates, standard operating procedures, and recurring workflows that reduce unnecessary back-and-forth and increase reliability.

20. Provide back-up support to other Executive Assistants and perform other duties as assigned, while maintaining the Chief Development Officer's priorities and critical deadlines as the primary focus of the role.

Education and Experience

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Public Administration, Real Estate, Finance, Communications, or a closely related field is preferred. A minimum of five (5) years of progressively responsible executive support experience, including substantial experience supporting a senior executive in a complex, fast-paced organization, is strongly preferred. Experience in real estate development, affordable housing, finance, construction, asset management, government, or a similarly complex regulated environment is desirable. An equivalent combination of education, training, and demonstrated experience may be considered.

Knowledge and Skills

1. Demonstrated executive presence, discretion, sound judgment, and the ability to represent a senior executive professionally with internal and external stakeholders.

2. Exceptional attention to detail and quality control, with a consistent record of producing accurate calendars, documents, communications, logistics, and executive materials with minimal avoidable errors.

3. Demonstrated proactive ownership: anticipates needs, identifies next steps, follows up without reminders, manages dependencies, and remains accountable for assigned outcomes until they are complete.

4. Advanced ability to manage a complex executive calendar, prioritize competing demands, protect strategic focus time, coordinate senior-level meetings, and anticipate preparation and logistics requirements.

5. Strong written communication, editing, proofreading, and executive-document skills, including the ability to synthesize complex information into concise summaries, presentations, memoranda, reports, and decision materials.

6. Strong project and workflow management skills, including the ability to maintain trackers, manage deadlines and approvals, monitor multiple workstreams, identify blockers, and close loops reliably.

7. Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, with the ability to make sound decisions within established authority, bring forward recommended options, and escalate appropriately when risk, strategy, reputation, legality, or authority is involved.

8. Ability to interpret limited or shorthand direction, apply established executive preferences and operating rules, and move forward with minimal unnecessary clarification.

9. Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and the ability to learn and effectively use collaboration, project-management, document-management, meeting, and AI-enabled productivity tools approved by the Agency.

10. Ability to organize and analyze information, perform targeted research, reconcile details across sources, and identify missing, inconsistent, or potentially inaccurate information.

11. Ability to build and maintain effective working relationships with senior leaders, staff, board members, public officials, lenders, investors, attorneys, consultants, vendors, residents, and community stakeholders.

12. Ability to handle highly sensitive and confidential information with discretion and to exercise tact, diplomacy, and appropriate firmness in challenging or time-sensitive situations.

13. Strong understanding of professional business practices, customer and stakeholder service, records management, and administrative controls in a complex organization.

14. Working knowledge of real estate development, affordable housing, capital projects, finance, or public-sector operations is preferred, including familiarity with the terminology and document flows used by development teams and external partners.

Supervision Controls

The Executive Assistant reports to the Chief Development Officer of Real Estate Management and is expected to operate with a high degree of independence within established authority, priorities, policies, and executive preferences. Instructions may be general, abbreviated, or specific. The employee is expected to determine appropriate execution steps, manage priorities and deadlines, proactively communicate status and risks, and bring forward recommendations when escalation is required. The Chief Development Officer reviews results, judgment, reliability, and outcomes rather than directing each administrative step. The employee has no supervisory duties unless specifically assigned.

Guidelines

Guidelines include applicable laws and regulations, Agency policies and procedures, established business practices, departmental standard operating procedures, executive preferences, and approved playbooks or workflows. Independent research and judgment may be required. When a situation is not addressed by existing guidance, the employee is expected to make a reasonable decision within established authority or promptly escalate the matter with relevant facts, options, and a recommendation.

Complexity

The employee manages a high volume of concurrent, deadline-driven, and often interdependent work that ranges from routine logistics to complex executive coordination. Assignments frequently involve incomplete information, changing priorities, sensitive relationships, multiple stakeholders, and the need to anticipate consequences. Success requires resourcefulness, pattern recognition, disciplined follow-through, strong judgment, and the ability to distinguish matters that can be handled independently from those requiring executive input.

Scope and Effect

The employee's work directly affects the Chief Development Officer's capacity, effectiveness, decision-making, and ability to advance the Agency's real estate, development, capital, operational, and organizational priorities. High-quality performance improves executive leverage, strengthens stakeholder relationships, reduces execution risk, supports timely decisions and transactions, and contributes to the Agency's mission and reputation.

Personal Contacts

The employee has frequent contact with senior Agency leaders and staff, board members, public officials, residents, lenders, investors, attorneys, consultants, development partners, vendors, and other external stakeholders. Contacts are made to obtain and clarify information; coordinate and schedule; prepare and route materials; track commitments; resolve administrative matters; facilitate decisions; and represent the Chief Development Officer with professionalism and discretion.

Physical Requirements

1. Work is principally sedentary, but may involve some physical exertion, such as kneeling, crouching, climbing, or lifting to obtain files and records, and eyestrain from working with computers and other office equipment.

2. Must be able to sit and/or stand for up to eight hours at a time while performing work duties.

3. Must be able to bend, stoop, push, and pull in the performance of office-related duties.

4. Must be able to use fingers bilaterally and unilaterally to operate office equipment.

5. Must have vision and hearing corrected to be able to perform essential job functions.

6. Must be able to perform essential job functions in an environment that will sometimes include increased levels of work-related stress.

7. An employee may request a reasonable accommodation to mitigate any of the physical requirements listed above.

Work Environment

Work involves the normal risks or discomfort associated with an office environment and is usually in an area that is adequately cooled, heated, lighted, and ventilated. From time to time, it may involve visits to housing developments, sites, dwellings, or facilities.

Other Requirements

Must possess a valid State of North Carolina or South Carolina driver's license as required for Agency business and regularly participate in continuous improvement and professional development. Must maintain the highest degree of confidentiality, demonstrate dependable attendance and responsiveness, and be able to adapt to changing executive priorities and occasional time-sensitive needs outside the normal workday when business circumstances require.