Operations and Finance Administrator

The world’s biggest social problems are complex, multi-faceted, and pervasive. No academic center, company, or organization can solve systemic issues – such as economic inequality, inequitable access to health care and education, and racial discrimination – alone. We need leaders with different skills and experiences to come together to generate fresh insights, evidence, and action to make progress. Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) was created to help make such progress possible.

A major initiative at Stanford University, SIL invests in mission-driven teams of researchers and practitioners from government, business, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropy. These teams (we call them impact labs) work together on social problems of their choice, where practical progress is possible. With our support, these impact labs rapidly develop, test, and scale new solutions to social problems that affect millions of people worldwide. Learn more about our work at https://impact.stanford.edu/.

Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) is an equal opportunity organization strongly committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. To that end, we particularly encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply for open positions.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

Stanford Impact Labs is seeking an Operations and Finance Administrator to support the design and execution of people, administrative, and financial practices to help our startup team and culture thrive within the administrative requirements of the university. The Operations and Finance Administrator will support the Director of People, Finance, and Administration with a team and operating budget with a unique portfolio and mission within the university landscape. They will coordinate and help manage resources, processes and priorities across 3 major portfolios:

Finance Operations

●        Support the Director of Finance & Administration in managing budgets for SIL’s various programs and initiatives, including updating, maintaining actual expenditure reports, and assisting in forecasting scenarios

●        Analyze and understand financial reports based on multiple reporting systems and databases. Identify opportunities and implement practices for communicating budgets and requirements to the team, as well as identifying when expenditures will be over budget

●        Process and approve financial transactions in adherence to university and department policies and guidelines. 

●        Develop and facilitate onboarding/training for team members on budgeting, budget reviews, submitting transactions for reimbursement, financial reporting and other administrative processes.

People Operations

●        Support hiring managers to attract, recruit, and onboard new team members, centering diversity and equity. This includes developing and executing on recruitment and outreach plans, advertising the position through traditional channels, and providing input into the strengths of candidate pools.

●        Assist the administration of hiring processes, including scheduling screening interviews and competency assessments, interfacing with University HR on job classifications and compensation approvals, etc.

●        Support the documentation for academic and staff appointments/reappointments and student/postdoctoral appointments, including visa processing.

●        Assist in onboarding and offboarding employees.

●        Support the Director of People, Finance, and Administration in strengthening team culture & employee engagement, professional development, and performance management (including performance review and annual team retreat).

●        Interpret, adapt, and provide advice on people policies, processes, procedures, and issues. Resolve issues as appropriate, research, and make recommendations to the director to resolve more complex issues (e.g., compensation, vacation, sick leave, miscellaneous authorized absences, etc.).

●        Maintain other miscellaneous people-related systems such as staff directories, listservs, distribution lists, Stanford ID cards, etc.) to ensure compliance with the University’s policies while advancing progress on Stanford Impact Labs’ priorities.

General Administrative Operations

●        Coordinate and lead projects and events related to people, finance and general administration (e.g. team retreat, annual team picnic, and annual celebration) including the organization, scheduling, budgeting, and implementation.

●        Coordinate space management and planning activities including: analyzing and coordinating office moves for minimal disruption; optimizing workspace allocation and utilization; providing input into facilities renewal model; and capital plan implementation (as assigned).

●        Core Duties

●        Act on behalf of the supervisor, department manager, or chair in regards to establishing priorities and identifying and resolving problems that are administrative in nature.

●        Research and/or write background information for meetings. Participate in meetings on supervisor’s behalf, inform after the fact.

●        Oversee and/or perform duties associated with scheduling, organizing, and operating complex conferences, seminars, and events, including arranging with vendors for services, overseeing the production and distribution of materials, administering logistics, and managing event within budget.

●        Compose and draft documents and correspondence for presentations, course handouts, grants, conferences, seminars, and reports; perform substantial research editing and fact checking. Create, maintain, modify, and/or ensure accuracy of content in various unit documents, displays, reports, brochures, social media, and/or websites.

●        Plan and schedule calendar(s) without prior consultation, resolve calendaring conflicts, and arrange travel in compliance with unit, university, and sponsor policies.

●        Create complex reports and spreadsheets which may utilize specialized software and systems. Make recommendations based on reports.

●        Oversee and/or process a variety of complex financial transactions; produce, monitor, and reconcile budget statements; research, identify, and resolve discrepancies. May assist with capital or special equipment requests and/or vendor selection.

●        Coordinate complex office moves. Plan and coordinate routine remodeling and renovations.

●        Analyze and review material and extract pertinent information for briefing purposes.

●        Positions at this level also include one or more of the following duties:  

●        In conjunction with financial lead and/or principal investigator, assist with sponsored project research proposal submissions and post award administration.

●        Responsible for leading the administrative functions of a program or unit.

●        Perform human resources transactional support and/or faculty affairs support; coordinate or manage the visa process.

●        Serve as building coordinator.

●        Oversee or supervise day-to-day work of other administrative or support staff, student and/or temporary workers, including scheduling, assigning, and prioritizing workloads, setting appropriate deadlines, reviewing work for quality, timeliness, and providing performance review input.

WHO YOU ARE

The ideal candidate possesses a passion for making meaningful change, building and improving processes to make coworkers and partners’ experiences more efficient and seamless and is ready to work in an openly collaborative work environment. No candidate will meet every requirement. If you may be a good fit, we encourage you to apply.

●     You are familiar with Stanford’s financial and administrative systems, including the reimbursements system, Oracle financials, one-time payments, invoicing, and the contracts system.

●     You are an experienced self-starter. You have a history of identifying problems and barriers to successful work, and you take initiative to propose solutions. Your solutions are practical, and you plan for execution. You seek input into your own ideas, rather than instructions from others. 

●     You are a creative and collaborative problem solver. You have a track record of analyzing problems, extracting insights from different types of data, identifying and structuring key issues, and simplifying the approach to solving them. You use data to make decisions and are comfortable defining and testing your hypotheses around any topic, especially people operations and financial management. You are keen to try ambitious ideas to design and improve systems and processes that affect our team, our partners, vendors and other stakeholders.

●     You are versatile and are willing to roll up your sleeves. You love wearing multiple hats and the thought of switching from submitting a complex reimbursement to planning a TGIF event to educating the team on university requirements (all before lunch time!) excites you. You are able to strategize and execute, and you are excited to execute on the finicky details in line with our “no task too small” culture. You care about the little things without losing sight of the big picture.

●     You are a collaborative and inclusive teammate. You have experience building trust-based relationships and partnerships to deliver shared goals. You have a track record of teamwork and leadership, especially across different ways of working. You have experience reconciling multiple, diverse viewpoints to negotiate across internal and external stakeholders. You take ownership over multiple work streams, and demonstrate comfort amid ambiguity, proactivity, dependability, and a strong work ethic.

●     You are flexible and committed to learning. You have a track record of seeking and learning from feedback. You can quickly pivot based on operational needs, and have demonstrated a growth mindset and comfort with change. You love improving processes and are comfortable and confident learning new tools, processes and ways of working. You are excited to learn and grow in the entire portfolio of people, finance, and administration, even as you deeping your existing core areas of interest/experience/specialization.

●     You are an effective communicator. You have experience communicating in writing, documenting complicated processes in ways non-experts can understand, and clearly explaining the reason behind any changes to policy or procedure. You are capable of  communicating effectively and compassionately both verbally and in writing to understand and advocate for competing needs, inquire about workarounds, and influence and persuade people.