Executive Assistant

Executive AssistantRemote: must be located in the vicinity of Arlington, VA or Colorado Springs, CONooks is pioneering Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS) — designing, building, and operating Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and other secured, classified environments for the defense and national security community. We work with the agencies, contractors, and mission-driven organizations that keep the nation safe, delivering the physical infrastructure that makes classified work possible. We're growing fast, operating across multiple markets, and building a company that takes both the mission and the business seriously.About the RoleYou will own the CEO's calendar, inbox, travel, and follow-through, and you will do it at an altitude most executive support roles never reach. Most of these roles are measured on whether the calendar is accurate. This one is measured on whether it is right. The CEO moves quickly across customers, government stakeholders, investors, and the team. New priorities arise in the middle of a conversation or the end of a long travel day. They do not always find their own way onto a calendar or into a document queue.Your job is to close the distance between what the CEO has said matters and what his week actually reflects. You will report administratively to the Chief of Staff and support the CEO directly and Executive Leadership Team indirectly. You'll partner closely with the Chief of Staff to keep the CEO's time and Nooks' operating priorities aligned.Be clear-eyed about the environment you are stepping into. While this role has defined ownership areas, priorities shift quickly and often without announcement. What looked settled on Monday can be reordered by Tuesday night, and you will be expected to register that shift and adjust Thursday accordingly without being told to. You will support a demanding principal at a company that is building fast, and you will step into whatever needs to be done.The people who thrive in this seat are unusually observant, hold their read of a situation loosely enough to revise it, and are comfortable acting on incomplete information rather than waiting for certainty that is not coming.Key ResponsibilitiesExecutive OperationsOwn the CEO's calendar and inbox, scheduling across a West Coast principal and a distributed leadership team.Present logistical decision in a way that quickly forces clarity and simplicity, providing ease to planning the week ahead.Derisk the CEO's calendar of conflicts, missed meetings, or moderate priorities being repeatedly or extensively bumped.Coordinate frequent domestic travel, often multi-site within a single trip, anticipating what each trip requires before it is requested.Manage expense reporting and light financial administration to a current and clean standard.Manage conference registrations, dining reservations, event coordination, property visits, and other activities during travel.Priority StewardshipClose the gap between what the CEO says is important and what his calendar and to-do list actually reflect, aggressively protecting the important.Read how priorities move across a week, whether stated plainly or visible only in a shift of tone or attention, and reshape the calendar, preparation, and follow-ups to match.Flag and help reconcile misaligned prioritization in the day to day, surfacing genuine conflicts rather than resolving them silently.Protect the CEO's focus by deciding what reaches him, what waits, and what routes to someone else.Partner with Chief of Staff to delegate meetings and tasks that are better supported by other leadersInformation Flow and Follow-ThroughServe as the system of record for open items, document flow, decisions, and commitments, working with Chief of Staff to drive them to conclusion.Move documents through review and signature so nothing stalls from inattention.Deliver context to the people whose decisions depend on it, acting as a connector rather than only a filter.Work with Chief of Staff to ensure priority discussion topics are surfaced ahead of critical meetings with internal leadership and external stakeholders.Briefing, Projects, and RepresentationBuild the CEO's preparation for leadership, customer, board, and government meetings so he arrives knowing what he needs to know.Capture decisions, translate them into owned follow-ups, and support those follow-ups to completion.Execute projects scoped and assigned by the Chief of Staff, delivering defined work on time and to standard.What Success Looks Like in This RoleThe CEO's week reflects what he actually said mattered, not only what got formally scheduled. Commitments, especially mid-priority ones, do not decay and documents do not sit, even under heavy volume. He arrives at meetings prepared without having prepared himself. The calendar is efficient, derisked of conflicts, and he spends less than an hour a month handling travel logistics. Priorities shift and the calendar absorbs the change quietly, without a scramble. Leadership relies on you as the single point of truth for where the CEO's tactical commitments stand, and the Chief of Staff is not the one catching what was missed.Cross-Functional ExpectationsYou will work most closely with the CEO, whom you support directly, and with the Chief of Staff, who is both your manager and your closest working partner in keeping the CEO's time aligned to Nooks' priorities. In doing so, you'll develop and maintain strong relationships with the Executive Leadership Team and other company leaders, ensuring cohesion among that group in scheduling and priority logistics. The ELT views you as a trusted resource to advance their needs with the CEO and the CEO views you as a reliable source of where immediate, tactical focus is needed. Across all of these relationships you are executing on direction and exercising judgment within it, not setting company priorities.The SkillsetFive or more years in an executive assistant or executive operations role supporting a chief executive or multiple senior executives.A demonstrated track record of setting tactical priority order and acting on it without waiting for direction.Proven ability to notice unstated shifts in priority or attention and adjust before being asked.Experience representing an executive with board members, investors, or senior external stakeholders.Absolute discretion with sensitive personnel, financial, and strategic information.Availability for weekday after-hours support, comfort coordinating complex domestic travel, and residence in the Mountain or Central time zone.PreferredBackground in a high-growth startup, defense, or national security environment.Experience supporting a Program Management Office (PMO) or a comparable project tracking function.Experience supporting a principal located in a different time zone from the broader team.Eligibility & ClearanceCandidates must be authorized to work in the United States. All candidates must be eligible for and committed to obtaining and maintaining a U.S. government security clearance as a condition of employment. However, this role does not require independent access to controlled spaces; escorted access is sufficient.Salary Range for all departmentsSalary Range$115,000 - $130,000 USD