The Role
Leads a business operations team and owns nonprofit finance and accounting activities, including month-end close, budgeting, financial reporting, audits, 990 filings, banking, cash-flow forecasting, grant management, and policy development. Partners with program and event teams, supports external organizations, manages vendors, and delivers operational projects. The role requires nonprofit finance leadership, team supervision, forecasting, accounting systems expertise, and strong judgment in a fast-moving environment.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Constellation
Key responsibilities
Experience:
Skills
Constellation is an independent research center that brings together people throughout the AI safety ecosystem to accelerate insight, research, and talent through better cooperation. Unlike a conference or summit, Constellation operates continuously, in the form of a physical workspace as well as conference-style talks, workshops, and training bootcamps. Continuous operation allows for relationships and conversations to develop over time, meaningfully fostering trust, collaboration, and shared insight. It also makes Constellation a natural field-building hub by rapidly inspiring, orienting, and connecting people who are newer to the field.
Based in Berkeley, CA, our shared workspace hosts over 300 people per week across dozens of AI safety organizations in nonprofits, academia, industry, and government. Hundreds of other researchers spend time at Constellation for shorter visits each year. We believe this is the strongest and highest-output network of AI safety researchers in the world; dozens of participants in past Constellation programs have gone on to safety-focused roles at companies such as METR, Redwood Research, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and the US and UK Safety Institutes.
About the Role As our Business Operations Manager, you'll lead a talented team, report directly to our Director of Business Operations, and have visibility across the organization. As a support function delivering on a time-sensitive and critical mission, this role will help the team make fast decisions with sound financial information, while building the financial rigor and compliance that a field under increasing scrutiny demands. We're looking for a seasoned financial operator who leads and collaborates well, in an environment that moves as quickly as the field we work in.
Team Leadership:
- Lead and grow a small team of Business Operations generalists: coaching, performance management, workload balancing, and holding the team accountable for quality.
- Ensure process documentation is current, clear, and genuinely useful.
- Shape and update key BizOps policies, including billing and expense policies.
Finance and Accounting:
- Own month-end close and day-to-day accounting, working closely with our external accountants and the BizOps team.
- Lead annual budgeting process.
- Regularly report close to real-time budget vs actuals for team budgets.
- Own the annual financial audit and 990 filing, start to finish.
- Manage banking relationships and account administration.
- Build and maintain rolling cash flow projections.
- Support grant management for off-cycle funding.
Organizational partnership
- Partner with program and event leads so BizOps needs are built into planning and programs operate quickly and efficiently.
- Provide support to partner organizations as they build or strengthen their own business operations functions
- Take on additional BizOps projects as they come up, from negotiating a vendor contract to standing up a grant making system.
- 5+ years working in non-profit finance, with at least 2 years in a leadership role
- An ideal candidate has worked with a $20M+ budget with high transaction volume and complexity
- 3+ years supervising a team of 2 or more
- A "get to yes" mindset, paired with the judgment to know when and how to effectively deliver a no
- Experience building intuitive tools in Google Sheets or Excel for non-financial audiences
- Good judgment on speed vs. precision tradeoffs
- Experience with QuickBooks Online and Bill.com / Divvy
- Financial planning and analysis
- Business forecasting and program modeling
- Clear communication across internal teams and external stakeholders (auditors, accountants, vendors)
- Comfortable owning accounting operations directly, not just overseeing them
- Excellent time and project management
The base pay range for this role is $150,000 – $195,000 per year.
Our benefits are hard to beat! They include:
- Healthy lunches and dinners catered by our amazing kitchen team
- Unlimited snacks & drinks
- Generous vacation policy
- 401(k) with employer match
- Employer-paid commuter benefits
- High-quality health, dental, and vision insurance
- Friendly and supportive team
- Regular interaction with AI safety researchers and thought leaders
Skills Required
- 5+ years working in nonprofit finance
- At least 2 years in a leadership role
- Experience supervising a team of 2 or more for 3+ years
- Experience working with a $20M+ budget and high transaction volume and complexity
- Experience building intuitive tools in Google Sheets or Excel for non-financial audiences
- Experience with QuickBooks Online and Bill.com or Divvy
- Financial planning and analysis skills
- Business forecasting and program modeling skills
- Clear communication with internal teams and external stakeholders
- Ability to own accounting operations directly
- Excellent time and project management skills
- Sound judgment regarding speed versus precision tradeoffs
- A get-to-yes mindset and judgment to deliver an effective no when necessary
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The Company
What We Do
Constellation Institute is a non-profit independent research center dedicated to ensuring transformative AI is developed, deployed, and governed safely. It accelerates progress in AI safety by fostering collaboration across the ecosystem, bringing together experts from nonprofits, academia, industry, and government. Through its Berkeley-based research center and curated programs, it provides the infrastructure and talent development needed to navigate advanced AI risks.
