Special Assistant to the CEO

Job Description

Job Description

About Incandescent

Incandescent is a boutique management consulting and venture development firm. We advise leaders, conduct research, and collaborate with entrepreneurs. As advisors, we serve as thought partners to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, founders of early- and growth-stage ventures, and visionary leaders in social sector organizations (with clients such as The Rockefeller Foundation and B Lab). Our dynamic team of generalists serves clients across a broad range of issues, including strategy, organizational design, organizational change, culture, capability building, and talent. Founded in 2013, we’ve been building a small team, slowly, and carefully. Each team member plays an integral part in developing Incandescent as a firm that discovers better ways to create, build, and run organizations.

About the position

We are looking for an unusual assistant with a high level of drive, curiosity, and passion for growth and learning. This role is demanding and fast-paced, and is designed to serve as a “boot camp” for learning how to manage complex workflows in a consulting environment. Working closely with the Founder and CEO, the role will be a strong learning and development experience with a significant amount of responsibility.

Responsibilities will include :

Administrative and tactical support . In this role, you will manage the CEO’s calendar with a high level of precision and help him stay ahead of priorities. In doing so, you will communicate extensively with the internal team, external partners, and clients. The aspiration of this work is to move beyond the transactional level and think strategically, as you negotiate the demands on the CEO’s time and the diverse priorities of the business. Responsibilities include calendaring, supporting the CEO throughout the day, preparing daily materials, organizing pre-work and research for meetings, and email management.  You will also help build and maintain the systems that allow the CEO to operate smoothly. This includes helping to design and manifest systems that make the CEO’s world more navigable, and maintaining the firm-wide structures where those systems intersect.

Project management and communications . You will support the CEO in advancing a wide range of projects and initiatives. A key part of your job is tracking the many balls in the air and maintaining organizational and knowledge management systems. You will also help to prepare client documents, create visuals and PowerPoint decks, and help to maintain intellectual capital collection. In addition, you will add leverage to our thought leadership work, including social media posting and management.

Business development systems and operations. You will help manage and facilitate the CEO’s business development efforts, ensuring that opportunities are tracked, advanced, and followed through with care. This includes supporting outreach, pipeline management, building research briefings ahead of conversations with prospective clients or partners, and experimenting with how to leverage AI to make these processes sharper, broader, and more effective.

Thought leadership support. You will help amplify the CEO’s ideas and voice in the world by assisting in drafting, editing, and publishing his thinking across multiple platforms.

Special projects. As your role develops, we will find ways to draw you into work across the team, through client engagements, special projects centered around internal firm priorities, and other topics of interest, including research & AI. These opportunities are typically shaped at the intersection of the Special Assistant’s strengths and interests and the firm’s needs.

Building Incandescent! On a small team like ours, every member is a vital part of building the culture, systems, and practices that define this firm. Your contributions to firm-building will help shape the future of Incandescent. You will play a vital role as a connector across the organization, helping to ensure that people, projects, and priorities are linked to create coherence. This means supporting the Chief of Staff in identifying synergies between streams of work, surfacing insights from one context that are valuable in another, and ensuring that information flows smoothly across the team. By helping others see the larger picture, you will strengthen alignment and make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Learning and development. Finally, you will contribute to a culture of learning and individual growth. You will not only build your own knowledge of our work and client contexts, sharing insights from your perspective, and helping to codify and disseminate learning across the team, but you will also be paired with a development manager who will help you identify your growth edge and work with you to chart your developmental trajectory.

No particular type of experience is a prerequisite, as the right candidate will be someone who can quickly learn to do things they’ve never done before – we’re interested in meeting candidates from a range of backgrounds. The right candidate could be a few years out of school, or could be in the process of changing careers. We’re looking for candidates who are “servant leaders” and who are excited to use the next step in their role as an opportunity to learn, grow, and chart a path to the next era in their career.

Key Attributes

You’re action-oriented. You derive pleasure from working systematically, checking things off your list, and figuring out knotty problems. You love coming up with creative solutions just as much as the tactical work of implementing them.

You are intentional . Your working style is about creating order and planning ahead. You think systematically and establish elegant processes.

You are highly empathetic . You are able to imagine how the world looks to other people and enjoy helping others.

You are a skilled communicator . You’re both a great listener and an effective speaker and writer. You’re a whiz at befriending difficult-to-charm people, and build new relationships easily.

You are passionate about learning . You seek out direct feedback and love to invest in your personal development. You’re intellectually curious about the world of business, how organizations work, and how they can run better. You’re resilient in the face of challenge.

You are adaptable . You stay calm and resourceful when plans shift, and you can quickly reorient when priorities change. You bring structure without rigidity, able to hold both clarity and openness as situations evolve.

You are detail-oriented and have excellent organizational skills. Typos make you cringe, and you are quick to spot formatting and grammatical errors. You like creating structure in your work.

Why the Role is Compelling

Working directly with an extraordinary business thinker, you will experience first-hand what it means to lead a well-run, growing professional services firm. We’re exceptionally focused on how work gets done, and are deeply committed to excellence in both results and in the thoughtfulness and intentionality we each bring to our daily work. You’ll be part of an accomplished, diverse, and close-knit team in which each individual is committed to rapid development of themselves and others. This role is meant to be “preparatory” : we’re committed to helping people grow through this role into the next stage in their career.

Our work spans a wide range of sectors, including venture, social impact, and more traditional corporate environments. You will be exposed to an unusually wide range of people and issues in the business and social sectors, as well as the internal infrastructure and operations of a growing firm, and innovative thinking and research.

Compensation Range : $75K - $100K