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General Description of the Job Class

The Manager, CEO Operations, serves as a strategic and operational partner to the Chief Executive Officer, ensuring the CEO’s priorities are translated into actionable plans and executed across the organization. This role sits at the intersection of strategy, operations, and communication; driving alignment, enabling decision-making, and optimizing the effectiveness of the executive office. Dually reporting to the Chief of Staff and Board Secretary, the Manager converts the priorities set by the CEO into structured, executed work. The role owns the operating rhythm of the CEO Office and CEO’s executive team, including the cadence of recurring leadership meetings and reviews, the production of executive materials, and the project management of the executive team’s initiatives. The role is responsible for maintaining strong collaboration across a variety of roles in the Duke Health enterprise. This role is highly visible and required to accomplish goals and objectives via influence and relationships.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

Strategic Initiatives and Project Management

• Maintain integrated project plans, milestones, and timelines across CEO Office and the executive team’s initiatives and mission-critical projects.
• Track deliverables, dependencies, risks, and deadlines; proactively flag slippage and recommend and achieve resolution.
• Drive cross-functional task completion by coordinating with contributors across the organization, ensuring accountability and follow-through within priorities set by leadership.
• Establish and maintain trackers and systems that give the executive team clear visibility into priorities, status, and progress.
• Continuously improve processes, tools, and ways of working to enhance effectiveness and scalability.
• Responsibility for managing the CEO’s office budget, reporting variances and ensuring office budget to actuals.

Board & Committee Support

• Manage the preparation timeline and cadence for Board of Directors and committee meetings, partnering with the DUHS Board Secretary on content readiness by compiling, formatting, and quality-checking board materials and ensuring advance materials are distributed.
• In coordination with the Board Secretary, assist with projects, minutes and follow-up deliverables and ad hoc projects as needed.

Operating Rhythm & Meeting Cadence

• Supports the recurring series of CEO Office and executive leadership meetings (e.g., monthly operating reviews, executive committees, and leadership team meetings): maintain the annual cadence calendar, support preparation, design drafts, ensure accountability and delivery.
• Continuously improve meeting structures, objectives, templates, and pre-read standards to raise the quality and efficiency of leadership forums.
• Enable effective governance processes by ensuring clarity of decisions, documentation, and follow-up actions.

Executive Materials & Analysis

• Draft executive-level PowerPoint presentations, briefing documents, and memos from direction provided by the Chief of Staff and Board Secretary, delivering polished, decision-ready drafts for review and approval.
• Build and maintain Excel-based trackers, models, and dashboards, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and consistency. Includes overseeing office budget.
• Gather, organize, clean, and synthesize information and data sets into clear, usable formats that support leadership decision-making.

Required Qualifications at this Level

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required; degree in business, healthcare administration, public health, or a related field preferred. MBA/MHA strongly preferred

Experience

• Minimum of five (5) to ten (10) years of experience in project or program management, business operations, management consulting, or executive-office support, preferably in a complex, matrixed organization such as an academic medical center, health system, or research university.
• Experience supporting senior executives or C-suite leaders strongly preferred
• Proven track record managing cross-functional initiatives and delivering results

or an equivalent combination of relevant education and/or experience

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong project and program management skills; able to manage multiple workstreams, priorities, and deadlines simultaneously.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to produce clear, polished, decision-ready executive materials.
• Advanced proficiency in the Microsoft suite (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams); familiarity with project-tracking tools and virtual meeting platforms.
• Strong attention to detail, organization, and follow-through; able to turn ambiguity into structured, trackable execution.
• Ability to gather, synthesize, and present information and data in clear, usable formats.
• Sound judgment and the temperament to handle sensitive and confidential information with discretion.
• Collaborative, service-oriented, and adaptable in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment.
• Ability to demonstrate the DUHS values of teamwork, integrity, diversity, excellence, and safety every day.
• Treating all team members and constituents with respect and professionalism, always.
• Handling sensitive business and confidential information with discretion, tact, and diplomacy.
• Ability to manage in ambiguity in a fast-paced environment.