Executive Operations Manager

The National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing a competent, ethical, and diverse legal profession. We develop and deliver high-quality assessment products, services, and research that support state courts and licensing authorities in evaluating the readiness of aspiring lawyers.

NCBE is committed to fostering a collaborative, mission-driven environment with competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, flexible scheduling, and professional development opportunities. NCBE’s headquarters is based in Madison, Wisconsin, a dynamic community with exceptional amenities.

The Executive Operations Manager serves as the operational and administrative right hand to the Chief Product Officer (CPO), ensuring both the CPO and the broader division across Psychometrics, Test Development, Product, User Experience, and Assessment Operations operate effectively.

This role combines executive support, division-wide coordination, and operational organization. The position manages the flow of priorities, information, decisions, meetings, and commitments into and out of the Office of the CPO while maintaining visibility across the work of the Product organization.

The Executive Operations Manager is responsible for keeping the CPO organized, prepared, and focused on the highest-value work; ensuring commitments and follow-up; coordinating priorities and dependencies across teams; and creating the operating rhythms that allow the division to function as an integrated organization.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Executive & Administrative Support to the CPO

• Manage CPO Priorities: Maintain a comprehensive view of the CPO's commitments, deadlines, decisions, deliverables, and follow-up responsibilities.
• Support Management of Executive Calendar: Work with the CPO’s support team members to manage and prioritize the CPO's calendar, ensuring time reflects organizational priorities and appropriate preparation time is protected.
• Prepare Daily Priorities: Ensure the CPO knows what requires attention, what decisions are needed, what deadlines are approaching, and where follow-up is outstanding.
• Coordinate Meeting Preparation: Gather materials, background, decisions required, and relevant context so the CPO enters important meetings fully prepared.
• Drive CPO Follow-Through: Track commitments made by the CPO and proactively ensure drafts, decisions, responses, and other deliverables are completed on time.
• Manage Information Flow: Review and organize incoming requests, determine what requires CPO attention, and route or resolve matters elsewhere when appropriate.
• Coordinate Executive Logistics: Support scheduling and logistics for significant meetings, leadership sessions, Board and committee engagements, jurisdiction meetings, retreats, and other priority activities.
• Protect Executive Capacity: Identify meetings, requests, and activities that can be delegated, consolidated, deferred, or handled without CPO involvement.

Division Operations

• Coordinate Division Priorities: Maintain an integrated view of significant initiatives, commitments, milestones, and deliverables across the Product division.
• Connect Cross-Team Dependencies: Identify where work across Product Management, Engineering & AI, Psychometrics, Test Development, Product, User Experience, and Assessment Operations, and other teams intersects.
• Build Useful Agendas: Structure Product Leadership Team time around decisions, dependencies, risks, and issues rather than routine status updates.
• Coordinate CPO Communications: Help manage correspondence, presentations, briefing materials, leadership updates, and other executive communications.
• Draft Executive Materials: Prepare initial drafts of emails, talking points, agendas, presentations, summaries, and briefing documents for CPO review.

CPO Meeting & Decision Management

• Prepare Decision Context: Distill complex issues into the essential facts, options, tradeoffs, and decisions required from the CPO.
• Anticipate CPO Needs: Look ahead across the calendar and workstreams to identify preparation, conversations, information, or decisions needed before they become urgent.
• Capture Meeting Actions: Ensure important meetings result in documented decisions, owners, actions, and deadlines.
• Maintain Decision Record: Keep visibility into significant CPO and Product Leadership Team decisions and ensure they are communicated to affected teams.
• Coordinate Required Follow-Up: Make sure the right conversations happen after meetings rather than relying on the CPO to remember and initiate each one.

Planning, Tracking & Organization

• Maintain Master Tracker: Keep one reliable view of CPO and division-level commitments, decisions, risks, deliverables, and deadlines.
• Look Ahead Proactively: Maintain a rolling view of upcoming milestones, meetings, governance commitments, launches, administration dates, and other events requiring preparation.
• Coordinate Planning Cycles: Organize annual, quarterly, and initiative-level planning activities across the Product division.
• Create Organizational Systems: Develop lightweight processes and tools that make information easier to find, commitments easier to track, and work easier to coordinate.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience required.
• Five or more years of relevant experience required, including experience providing high-level support to an executive or senior leader in a fast-paced, cross-functional environment.
• Demonstrated experience managing complex executive calendars, priorities, meeting preparation, logistics, and follow-up.
• Ability to understand and synthesize complex information into concise, accurate, and decision-ready briefings, presentations, summaries, plans, and communications.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to prepare polished executive-level materials and communicate expectations and follow-up clearly and professionally.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities, anticipate needs, and meet deadlines in a changing environment.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to accuracy, consistency, and completeness.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify missing information, inconsistencies, risks, dependencies, and opportunities to improve coordination or processes.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the confidence and diplomacy to work effectively with executives, senior leaders, employees, and internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to exercise discretion, professionalism, sound judgment, and appropriate confidentiality in a highly visible role.
• Ability to work independently, navigate ambiguity, adjust to shifting priorities, and determine when matters should be addressed, routed, or escalated.
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams, and demonstrated ability to effectively leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools and automation to improve productivity, streamline workflows, and enhance the quality and efficiency of work products.

Theis position may work remotely. NCBE will consider applicants from the following states: FL, IA, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NE, NJ, NM, NV, OK, PA, WA, and WI.

This position may include up to 10% travel.

Mission

NCBE promotes fairness, integrity, and best practices in admission to the legal profession for the benefit and protection of the public. We serve admission authorities, courts, the legal education community, and candidates by providing high-quality

• assessment products, services, and research;
• character investigations; and
• informational and educational resources and programs.

EEO Statement

NCBE is proud to be an equal employment opportunity organization. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity to all applicants and employees regardless of their race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, military service, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. 

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