Executive Assistant & Operations Manager

Job Description

Job Description

The Opportunity

We are looking for a high-capacity, proactive Executive Assistant & Operations Manager to work directly alongside the CEO of a growing West Michigan real estate organization encompassing residential real estate, wholesale acquisitions, and fix-and-flip investments.

This is not a traditional administrative assistant position.

We are looking for someone who wants to become a true right hand to the CEO—someone who can take ownership, solve problems, build systems, manage people and projects, and help turn ideas into execution. The right person will initially take significant administrative responsibility off the CEO’s plate while quickly growing into greater operational ownership.

Our goal is simple: free the CEO to focus on the highest-value activities in the business while you help make sure everything else gets done.

What You’ll Own

Executive Support & CEO Leverage

• Take ownership of the CEO’s calendar, scheduling, appointments and meeting coordination.
• Manage and organize the CEO’s email inbox, identify priorities, draft responses and independently handle communications when appropriate.
• Protect the CEO’s time by determining what requires her involvement and what can be handled independently.
• Prepare presentations, reports, spreadsheets, meeting materials and other executive communications.
• Maintain organized contacts, information and documentation.
• Anticipate needs rather than waiting to be assigned every task.
• Follow up on decisions and commitments to ensure things actually get completed.

Operations & Systems

• Identify inefficiencies and build systems that make the businesses easier to operate and scale.
• Create, document and improve SOPs and workflows.
• Own implementation of new systems and processes.
• Track projects, deadlines and priorities across the organization.
• Help establish accountability and reporting so leadership has visibility without needing to be involved in every detail.
• Coordinate with agents, contractors, vendors, the transaction coordinator and other team members as needed.

Marketing & VA Management

• Oversee our virtual assistant responsible for social media and marketing execution.
• Establish priorities, deadlines and expectations.
• Review work for accuracy, quality and brand consistency.
• Track marketing initiatives and results.
• Ensure ideas move from concept to execution without requiring constant CEO involvement.

Financial & Business Performance

• Work alongside our bookkeeper to prepare for regular P&L reviews.
• Organize financial reporting so leadership can quickly understand business performance.
• Identify unnecessary expenses and opportunities to improve profitability.
• Help establish budgets, reporting and expense controls.
• Track important business KPIs and provide consistent reporting to leadership.

You do not need to be an accountant, but you must be comfortable with numbers, spreadsheets and understanding the financial side of a business.

Growth Projects

This is where this position goes beyond a traditional Executive Assistant role. You’ll be given business objectives and expected to help figure out how to make them happen. For example:

“Build a vendor partnership program that creates an additional revenue stream for the company.”

Rather than waiting for step-by-step instructions, we want someone who can research the opportunity, develop the plan, identify what decisions need to be made, build the system and help execute it.

Other projects could include:

• Developing new revenue opportunities
• Improving lead-management systems
• Reducing operating expenses
• Improving marketing ROI
• Creating better reporting and accountability
• Evaluating vendors and technology
• Implementing new systems
• Improving processes across our retail, wholesale and fix-and-flip businesses

Who We’re Looking For

You’re likely a strong fit if you:

• Have approximately 5+ years of professional experience in executive support, operations, project management, business management or a similar high-responsibility role.
• Are extremely organized and naturally create order from chaos.
• Have excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Are confident managing multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment.
• Are technologically savvy and learn new platforms quickly.
• Are comfortable working with Excel/Google Sheets, reports, financial information and business metrics.
• Have experience managing people, contractors or virtual team members.
• Have strong judgment and know when to make a decision versus when to bring something to the CEO.
• Don’t need constant direction.
• See a problem and naturally start thinking about the solution.
• Follow through relentlessly.
• Are comfortable working directly with an entrepreneurial CEO who moves quickly and generates a lot of ideas.
• Want your responsibilities and impact to grow as the company grows.

Real estate experience is helpful, but strong business and operational experience is more important.

This Probably Isn’t the Right Position If…
You prefer having every task clearly assigned before taking action.
You need your manager to continually follow up with you.
You enjoy completing tasks but don’t particularly enjoy improving the way things are done.
You are uncomfortable making decisions without approval.
You want a predictable administrative position where the responsibilities will look exactly the same two years from now.

We’re looking for someone who sees growth as an opportunity—not a burden.

Schedule: This is a full-time hybrid position based in West Michigan.

In office: Monday, Tuesday & Thursday
Remote: Wednesday & Friday

There will occasionally be situations, meetings or business needs that require flexibility.

Compensation total annual compensation is depending on experience and performance.
Compensation will include a competitive base salary with the opportunity to earn additional performance-based compensation tied to clearly defined results and contributions to the business.

What Success Looks Like
Within your 6-months, we want to see:

• The CEO spending dramatically less time on administrative work.
• Email, calendar and communication operating smoothly without constant CEO involvement.
• Projects consistently moving forward without the CEO having to chase them.
• Stronger systems and documented processes throughout the businesses.
• Clearer financial and KPI reporting.
• Improved management and accountability of our VA and outside vendors.
• Identifiable expense savings and operational improvements.
• New growth initiatives successfully taken from idea to implementation.
• Increasing numbers of decisions being handled independently without needing CEO involvement.

Ultimately, you’ll know you’re succeeding when the CEO can say: “I don’t have to think about that anymore. It’s handled.”

Why This Role Is Different

You’ll have a front-row seat to building and scaling multiple areas of a growing real estate organization.

For the right person, this position can grow far beyond executive assistance. As trust, capability and the organization grow, we expect this person to take increasing ownership of operations, projects, people and business initiatives.

We’re looking for someone who doesn’t just want their next job. We’re looking for someone who wants to help build what’s next.

Flexible work from home options available.