Executive Operations Manager

 

Golden Gate Institute for AI | San Francisco Bay Area strongly preferred

Posted June 2026. Applications will be processed on a rolling basis; we encourage you to apply as soon as possible. We will update this document when the role has been filled.

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TL;DR: We're looking for a highly competent, trusted right hand to our CEO and executive team – someone to manage and protect our CEO’s calendar and time; to whom she or our COO can hand a sensitive project requiring great judgment; and who supports them to keep the broader organization running smoothly. This is a judgment-heavy role for someone who takes ownership, exercises great discretion, and can juggle many tasks without dropping a ball. You don't need to be an AI expert, but you should be excited about our mission of bridging parts of the AI ecosystem to help society make better decisions about AI. 

About Golden Gate Institute for AI

AI is changing the world faster than any technology in history. Experts can't agree on what's happening, and decision-makers are drowning in contradictory information. The Golden Gate Institute for AI is a new nonpartisan think tank that bridges disciplines, convenes experts, and publishes accessible analysis to help leaders navigate AI's transformation.

Through our flagship conference The Curve, intimate expert gatherings, and collaborative research projects, we've built an unparalleled cross-sector network spanning frontier AI labs, venture capital, policy shops, civil society, elected officials, and academia.

Golden Gate is led by CEO Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, a longtime leader at the nexus of technology, democracy, and social innovation, and President Steve Newman, creator of Google Docs and a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful exits. We're scaling from a small founding team to ~10 staff by the end of 2026.

The Role

As Executive Operations Manager, you'll:

• Extend the CEO’s reach and capacity. This goes well beyond scheduling: You'll keep the rhythm of her work humming, prep her for meetings and events, and take on substantive projects she needs driven to completion.
• Provide similar support to our other senior leaders (our President and COO) as needed.
• Help the broader organization run smoothly and keep our day-to-day office life working.

We're looking for someone who can manage up impeccably, and to whom we can hand an ambiguous project and trust them to use great judgment to drive it to completion. You’ll report to our COO, Jon Finley.

Although we are open to different experience levels, this role could be a strong fit for someone mid-career with experience in an high-performing executive assistant, operations, bizops, management consultant or similar support role – and who wants a stable, mission-driven home where they can build deep institutional knowledge, become deeply embedded in the AI space, and grow over the long term.

What You'll Do

Be the CEO's right hand (and back up the rest of the senior team)

• Keep the rhythm of the CEO's work humming: structuring her time, tracking decisions and follow-ups, and proactively filling her in on updates
• Manage and actively triage her calendar, inbox, travel, and priorities – protecting her time against competing demands.
• Prepare the CEO and executive team for meetings with briefing materials, context, and clear asks; capture and drive follow-ups afterward.
• Handle sensitive correspondence and communications on her behalf with discretion and good judgment.
• Take administrative tasks (e.g., expenses/receipts, managing group chats) off her and the COO’s plate.

• Serve as a thoughtful, professional point of contact for high-profile partners, funders, and members of our network, managing relationships and expectations on the CEO's behalf with tact and care.

Keep things running day to day

• Take on substantive projects that the executive team doesn’t have capacity for and don’t clearly belong to anyone else on the team – e.g., research, planning, coordination across stakeholders, hiring processes, one-off initiatives – and own them end to end.
• Support our COO to develop and implement the systems, processes, and team norms that help a growing team operate effectively.
• Help keep our CRM and contact database accurate and up to date.
• Manage our office and coworking life: scouting and coordinating coworking spaces, organizing logistics for in-person work days (ordering lunch, booking rooms), and generally making sure the team's physical working environment runs smoothly.
• Support operational tasks across the org – events logistics, vendor coordination, expense and invoice tracking, and other work the team needs owned.

Help manage funder and board relationships

• Support our COO on fundraising operations: help manage the funder pipeline, track outreach and follow-ups, and keep the CEO on top of her donor and prospect relationships.
• Prepare and help produce fundraising materials, budgets, proposals, and funder updates
• Prep the CEO for funder meetings and own the follow-through afterward
• Manage relationships with our advisory board – and if we decide to spin out from our fiscal sponsor, work with the CEO to develop and manage our official non-profit board.

This role won’t have any direct reports initially, but it could in the future as the team grows.

What We're Looking For

Must-Haves

• Mission-aligned. You are deeply interested in helping society navigate the AI transition, and believe that our role in the ecosystem as a trusted, nonpartisan convener and source of reliable, independent analysis will help towards that end!
• Prior experience as an executive assistant, operations manager, executive business partner, or in a similar high-trust support or operations role.
• Scrappiness and adaptability: You thrive in a small, fast-moving environment, are comfortable with ambiguity, and can context-switch between very different kinds of work in a single day.
• Exceptional organization: You never drop a ball.
• Judgment and discretion: You can be trusted with sensitive information and sensitive work. You know what to handle, what to escalate, and what to keep confidential.
• Strong written and verbal communication: Your emails and verbal communication are concise, clear, and professional. Your written output (even if assisted by AI) is stronger and more fit for purpose than AI alone can do. You take excellent notes in meetings that can’t be recorded.
• Great memory for people and organizations: You're good at retaining and recalling details about lots and lots of people and organizations – who's who, how they're connected, and what matters to them.
• Proficiency with productivity tools: You pick up new tools quickly – from CRMs to task managers – and are excited to use new AI tools to work faster and better.
• Familiarity with the AI discourse: You don't need deep expertise (though it’s a plus – see below!), but you follow the AI space well enough to get up to speed quickly on who's who.

Big Pluses

We don't expect any one person to bring all of these, but strong candidates will likely bring 4-6 of these bullet points:

Programmatic knowledge

• Deep knowledge of the AI discourse, whether from a policy or a technical lens – and/or existing networks in the AI space.
• Policy/political experience: You understand the DC policy ecosystem and what types of convenings and analysis are useful to policymakers.

Management & leadership

• People management experience – You’ve hired, onboarded, and managed vendors, contractors, and/or staff.
• Relationship/stakeholder management: You’ve managed relationships with very influential, prominent, and busy people – e.g., legislators, CEOs, senior academics.
• Complex project management: You’ve run large-scale projects with many stakeholders – building processes and keeping the trains running on time.
• Team culture and alignment: You have experience keeping a team working well together — running OKR or similar planning cycles, helping people navigate difficult conversations, and building the norms and rhythms that make a growing team coherent.
• Meeting facilitation: You've run enough off-sites or large/sensitive/complex meetings to have developed real craft around it — creative agenda design, reading the room, managing group energy, keeping things moving without being heavy-handed.

Experience with specific workstreams

• Fundraising: You’ve successfully raised money for a project yourself, or you’ve been part of a fundraising team where you managed the pipeline or drafted the proposals. Bonus points for nonprofit fundraising
• Calendar/inbox management: You’ve managed someone else’s time and inbound communication before. 
• Financial and legal chops: You’ve worked with lawyers and/or accountants before – reviewing contracts, building budgets, helping reconcile books, etc
• Workflow automation/AI chops: You’re an early AI adopter; you’ve automated workflows using AI tools and tools like Zapier, vetting SAAS products, and/or vibe-coded custom productivity apps.
• Event operations: Experience running or supporting events, convenings, or conferences.
• Board experience: You’ve served on, worked with, or helped support a board of directors – especially a nonprofit board.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $100,000-$150,000 in the Bay Area, depending on experience; may be lower for candidates based outside the Bay Area
• Benefits: Health, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k), generous sick leave and PTO (federal holidays, 2 weeks of office closure at EOY, and an additional 3 weeks vacation time)
• Location: San Francisco Bay Area strongly preferred; we plan to have an SF office where the team will work in person ~2 days/week. Remote considered for exceptional candidates, but must be US-based and able to work hours that overlap highly with 9-5 Pacific time. 
• Work authorization: This role requires work authorization in the US. We cannot support visa applications or visa transfers.

Start date: ASAP