Operations & Finance Manager

Organization Overview:

Tens of millions of people in the U.S. live with chronic financial insecurity, inadequate savings, and no meaningful wealth, with deeply harmful consequences for themselves, their children, families, communities, employers, and the economy.

Black, Latinx, and women-led households disproportionately experience financial insecurity due in large part to longstanding, systemic racism and gender discrimination. Addressing these issues is critical to Commonwealth’s work of making wealth possible for all.

For over two decades, Commonwealth’s fundamental purpose has remained to create a stronger and more prosperous society where everyone has financial opportunity. Our work has enabled over 2 million people to save nearly $8 billion on a path to greater financial security and wealth. We are now embarking on a new 4-year strategic plan that seeks greater impact and builds on our systems-focus to expand workplace benefits, strengthening partnerships with financial institutions and fintech partners, and exploring new frontiers like climate and generative AI.

Commonwealth strengthens the financial opportunity and security of financially vulnerable people by discovering ideas, piloting solutions, and driving innovations to scale. We understand broad change requires market players to act. That’s why we take a unique approach to collaborate with consumers, the financial services industry, employers, policymakers, and mission-driven organizations. The solutions we build are grounded in real life, based on our deep understanding of people who are financially vulnerable and how businesses can best serve them.

For more than 2 decades, we have moved employers to prioritize worker financial security, the financial service industry to bring products to market that better serve financially vulnerable people, and policymakers to pass legislation and take action to enable savings and financial security. To learn more about the organization, please visit buildcommonwealth.org.

Diversity of background and perspective are strengths that we value. We are committed to creating a diverse, dedicated, skilled, and collaborative environment, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Commonwealth recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected statuses.

Position Overview:

The Operations & Finance Manager plays a critical role in keeping a fast-paced, ambitious, matrixed organization humming and achieving its social change mission. The ideal candidate will foster an effective, efficient, and comfortable work environment that supports hybrid and remote staff and their work with each other and with external partners. This work includes: onsite office management at least one day per week; maintaining and improving organizational systems and procedures; supporting critical financial tasks; and supporting staff and senior leaders with administrative and IT support. Key to this position is the ability to be self-starting, and highly organized with excellent attention to detail.

This is a temporary employment position with an initial term of one year. The annual salary is $66,000. This role is intended as a temp-to-perm placement with a strong likelihood of a permanent placement at 1 year based on performance and grant funding. A temporary evaluation process will be initiated shortly before the one-year mark to assess fit and provide adequate notice and transition time should the employment agreement conclude.

Responsibilities:

Day-to-day activities vary in this dynamic position and include the following:

Operations:

• Monitor and manage organizational resources, including office space, equipment, and IT systems.
• Onsite office management at least one day per week.
• Evaluate, improve and maintain the information technology (IT) and systems infrastructure.
• Support onboarding and offboarding tasks for employees and consultants.
• Manage relationships with vendors and service providers.
• Liaising and representing the company needs to the Boston office’s landlord.
• Ensuring equipment is maintained and functional.
• Monitoring and ordering office supplies and office snacks as needed.
• Responding to all internal employee requests, questions, and issues in a friendly and timely manner.
• Coordinate the logistics of internal training sessions, in person meetings, staff retreats, and external events including securing space, room setup (including IT), and catering.

Finance:

• Execute accounts payable and accounts receivable tasks.
• Monthly processing of staff credit card expenses and reimbursements.
• Prepare supporting documents for annual audit.
• Support the SVP of People, Culture & Finance in preparing documents for the annual budgeting process and other tasks as needed.
• Track and review for compliance with Commonwealth’s standards, contracts, grants, memoranda of understanding, and non-disclosure agreements.

Leadership Team:

• Support the CEO’s work with the Board of Directors by arranging logistics for board meetings, preparing materials for meetings, and other tasks.
• Support the Senior Leadership team with meeting scheduling support, expense reports and ad hoc administrative tasks.

Recruitment:

• Support Commonwealth’s recruitment efforts, including: posting of new positions on job boards, coordinating interviews, candidate communications etc.
• Support Commonwealth’s staff onboarding efforts, including: coordinating orientation meetings, facilitating operations-focused new hire orientation sessions, scheduling onboarding interviews/check points, etc.

Required Capabilities:

• Demonstrated experience with administration and task management in a hybrid or remote working environment, especially in building effective, and sustainable organizational systems to improve efficiencies.
• Exceptional project management experience, with the ability to manage various projects concurrently, with a high degree of organization, attention to detail and flexibility.
• Self-starter who is willing to roll up their sleeves and work hands-on.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and brings a customer service orientation.
• Ability to build rapport with a wide variety of constituents and communicate effectively with a welcoming demeanor.
• Technologically savvy, with experience managing information technology systems and vendors.
• Familiarity with a variety of IT systems and software including Microsoft Sharepoint, Google Workplace, Slack, and Zoom video conferencing.
• Demonstrated familiarity with QuickBooks and basic financial tasks including accounts payable and accounts receivable.
• Outstanding organizational skills including the ability to plan and prioritize work responsibilities and work delegated by others.
• Ability to manage deadlines and multiple tasks with patience, flexibility and with attention to detail.
• Ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities and navigate ambiguity in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to thrive in a collaborative, fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment
• Passionate about the mission of Commonwealth and driving change through promoting financial security and opportunity.
• Knowledge of the financial challenges faced by lower income households is strongly preferred.