Arena Careers

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Priority consideration will be given to applications submitted by November 20, 2026. Applications received after this date may be considered until the position is filled.

Job Title: Chief of Staff & Director of the Executive Office

Position: Full-Time

Reports To: Executive Director

Direct Reports:

Executive Assistant
Deputy Director of the Executive Office

Job Family: Confidential Employee
Bargaining Unit: No
FLSA Status: Exempt
Salary: $150K - $160K
Work Location: Remote (U.S.-based); flexible, with in-person attendance as required
Target Start Date: February/March 2027

The National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) is the leading national voice for dignity, respect, and recognition for domestic workers in the United States. NDWA was founded in 2007 by organizers and worker leaders in six cities representing nannies, house cleaners, and care workers, and now represents an alliance of more than 76 organizations across 22 states and 395,000 domestic workers nationally.

We envision a society where domestic work is valued as essential to our collective well-being, domestic workers are leaders in shaping the care sector, and domestic work jobs are good, economically secure jobs.

For over 15 years, we've worked to advance our mission by making domestic work visible. We've worked to pass policies that enable rights and higher wages for domestic workers across the country, changed public awareness and opinion about the dignity and value of care work, and built the capacity and leadership of domestic workers to organize and advocate for their rights.

We see the next era of our organization as an opportunity to move domestic work from newfound visibility towards transformation, and we're ready to elevate care workers to the essential workers of the 21st-century economy.

We're a multi-racial, multi-lingual organization building a powerful movement rooted in the human rights, dignity, and equality of domestic workers, care workers, immigrant women, and women of color.

POSITION SUMMARY

The National Domestic Workers Alliance seeks a seasoned, strategic Chief of Staff & Director of the Executive Office to serve as a senior leader within NDWA and a trusted thought partner to the Executive Director. Reporting to the ED, this role shapes how the organization’s senior leadership sets priorities, makes decisions, and drives execution, and holds direct ownership of the ED’s time, priorities, and communications. The Chief of Staff also stands in for the ED when needed, representing her in meetings and decisions with the judgment and credibility to speak on her behalf. And the role is the connective tissue between the ED and the President, ensuring the organization’s two principals stay coordinated and aligned.

The Chief of Staff thinks like the ED, not just in support of her, and exercises organizational judgment across a broad, enterprise-wide portfolio. The role stewards NDWA’s leadership teams, building the cohesion, rhythm, and decision-making practices that allow senior leaders to work as a team. It also stewards the organization’s relationship with its boards, setting the strategy for board engagement and ensuring the ED and board leadership stay aligned. It holds strategic ownership of organizational development and effectiveness, including internal communications, staff engagement, organizational structure and design, change management, and annual planning. As Director of the Executive Office, the Chief of Staff leads the Executive Office team, supervising the Executive Assistant and Deputy Director of the Executive Office, and carries significant influence over leadership dynamics and organizational culture across NDWA.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

Executive Partnership

• Serve as a thought partner to the ED on organizational priorities, decisions, and leadership challenges, offering candid advice and perspective.

• Represent the ED in meetings and with internal partners, with authority to make decisions within agreed parameters.

• Facilitate coordination, alignment, and communication between the Executive Director and the President.

• Act as a bridge between the ED and the organization, ensuring appropriate visibility and elevating issues that require ED attention.

• Oversee the systems that manage the ED’s time, commitments, and communications, ensuring priorities match the schedule and follow-through happens across the organization.

• Own special projects for the ED and the organization that don’t have an existing organizational home.

Executive Office Leadership

• Supervise the Executive Assistant and Deputy Director of the Executive Office, ensuring the Executive Office functions as a high-performing, coordinated team.

• Fill interim staffing or leadership gaps across the organization as needed.

Leadership Team Stewardship

• Design and steward the operating rhythm, agendas, and decision-making practices of the organization’s leadership teams, ensuring decisions are made, documented, and followed through

• Hold responsibility for overall leadership team alignment and cohesion.

• Own hiring processes for direct reports to the ED.

Organizational Development & Effectiveness

• Hold strategic ownership of internal communications, developing and managing the organization's internal communications strategy.

• Hold strategic ownership of staff engagement, alignment, and cohesion, including staff meetings, retreats, and special events.

• In partnership with the ED, own organizational structure and design, ensuring structure aligns with organizational strategy.

• Manage organizational change, guiding the organization through structural and strategic transitions.

• Lead the strategic planning process and own the practice of annual planning, with regular review of progress to goals.

Board Stewardship

• Support overall strategy for Board engagement, in collaboration with ED, ensuring the Board is positioned to effectively govern and support the organization's mission.

• Own the content of Board and committee meetings, ensuring the Board's time is focused on the organization's highest-priority questions and decisions.

• Serve as a key point of contact between the Executive Director and Board leadership, helping ensure alignment between the Board and executive leaders.

• Oversee the organization's overall approach to Board communication, ensuring the board has the information it needs to govern effectively between meetings.

• Oversee board operations, including meeting calendars, materials, minutes, and member terms, recruitment, and onboarding, in partnership with the Deputy Director.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• Significant senior leadership experience, ideally as a Chief of Staff, COO, or in another senior operating or executive support role within a mission-driven organization.

• Demonstrated experience managing up and partnering closely with a senior executive, with sound judgment about priorities, time, and organizational needs.

• Demonstrated experience leading organizational development work– internal communications strategy, staff engagement and cohesion efforts, and organizational design– and managing organizational change.

• Strong people-management skills, with experience supervising staff and fostering high-performing teams.

• Demonstrated ability to facilitate leadership team meetings and retreats, and to attend to group dynamics with skill and discretion.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to draft on behalf of senior leadership in their voice.

• Strong project management skills, with the ability to hold multiple concurrent workstreams and competing priorities.

• Discretion and integrity, given regular access to sensitive organizational, personnel, and strategic information.

• Experience in a nonprofit and/or unionized environment; familiarity with national nonprofits.

• Alignment with NDWA's mission, vision, and values, and an understanding of the issues facing low-wage workers, immigrant communities, and women of color.

Preferred

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

• Experience with multi-entity nonprofit structures.

• Experience supporting coordination between two or more senior principals or executive offices.

How to Apply: Please apply directly to the job posting and send a resume and cover letter tailored to the job. Your resume and cover letter must clearly describe your senior leadership experience, including your experience supporting senior executives and holding organization-wide strategic portfolios, the organizations, your role, and the years in that role. Applications, reviewed on a rolling basis, will only be accepted electronically, and solicitations to individual staff are unlikely to be responded to.

NDWA provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

NDWA is a union employer; this position is an executive leadership position.

NDWA participates in the E-Verify program and is an Equal Opportunity Employer.