Director of Operations

This new position will be the senior operating role at NBRR - focused on orchestrating and systematizing the ecosystem of programs and people that bring our mission to life. Our campus and technology set the stage for NBRR?s team, startups, interns, research partnerships, and community impact. We?re in pursuit of an experienced and vision-driven person who can maintain balance and contribute to growth across our programs. Here is how we see the roles: The CEO owns vision and strategy, fundraising, major external relationships, and the board. You would own execution and the daily running of the organization: operations, administration, and facilities. You would make routine operational, vendor, and personnel decisions within the approved budget. You and the CEO will keep a standing cadence to align on priorities, risks, staffing, and what is coming next. You would prepare for and present to the Board of Directors at its quarterly meetings. Your Areas of Responsibility People and administration Turn organizational priorities into plans with owners, timelines, and follow-through. Build and manage the operating team, including a site manager, as we grow. With the CEO, hold a culture built on clear communication, accountability, collaboration, and honest feedback. Support our department leaders in delivering their programs. Serve as first line contact to outside HR, finance, IT, and other providers. Make sure the way we recruit interns, hire staff, and fill programs reaches the whole community. Keep HR practice current with our HR partner: policies, documentation, onboarding, and performance conversations. Systems Build the annual operating calendar, the workflows, and the accountability systems that make follow-through visible. Evolve and maintain the policies and standard operating procedures a growing organization needs, sized to the organization we actually are. Own contracts, insurance, risk management, records, and compliance. Name capacity problems early and bring the staffing, vendor, or process answer. Community and members Own what it feels like to be here. The member experience is the systems plus everything else: how fast someone gets an answer or whether a new member knows five people by their second week. Make sure our 20 to 30 interns a year continue to have a home that is well-run so they can have a genuinely transformative experience here. They contribute to research and operations, and they are part of the work rather than adjacent to it. Support relationship building with community members and partner organizations, coordinating with the CEO and our organizational leaders. Campus Run the four-building, 33,000 square foot campus, located next to the downtown cultural district, a $2B deep water port and the new rail station for the train to Boston. Set the facility practices that keep the place efficient, safe, secure, clean, well used, and earning revenue. Oversee IT, capital equipment, and building systems, along with the service agreements behind them. Qualities and Capabilities We Are Looking For Seven or more years running operations, including at least three supervising people. We care more about what you have run than about the sector you ran it in. Experience running a complex physical site: a building, a plant, a campus, a facility. Vendors, systems, safety, capital equipment. A record of building systems that set an organization up for the long term. Strong people management: setting expectations, coaching, giving feedback, and handling the hard conversation with respect. The ability to work with a founder or visionary leader. You can execute someone else?s priority and originate your own, and you do not need every boundary drawn before you will move. Excellent written and verbal communication with a wide range of people, from an eighteen-year-old intern to a manufacturer?s VP to a city official. Commitment to New Bedford and the Southcoast.