Executive Director of the Office of the Chancellor

About the role

Vanderbilt University is seeking an Executive Director to serve in the Office of the Chancellor in Nashville, TN. This role is central to the institution's operations and growth.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day administrative work for the Chancellor.
• Oversee the Senior Executive Coordinator, Assistant Director of Briefings and Research, and other administrative support staff.
• Create the structure, rhythm, and accountability required to prevent missed information, duplicated work, dropped commitments, and unnecessary churn.
• Absorb matters that require judgment and coordination without unnecessarily escalating every decision.
• Own the strategic framework governing how the Chancellor’s time is allocated.
• Evaluate meeting requests, institutional priorities, travel demands, media opportunities, and external engagements.
• Determine what belongs on the Chancellor’s calendar, what should be delegated or declined, and where tradeoffs must be made.
• Protect time for writing, strategic thinking, and focus, and strategically reduce inefficient travel.
• Maintain a forward-looking view of the Chancellor’s commitments across the institution and beyond.
• Connect information and activity across executive leader offices and other university functions to build strong working relationships.
• Ensure the Chancellor’s direction is understood, translated accurately, and carried forward.
• Coordinate complex engagements that involve multiple offices, stakeholders, and competing timelines, following up when information is incomplete or responsibilities are unclear.
• Set the strategic direction for the Chancellor’s briefing process in partnership with the Assistant Director of Briefings and Research.
• Ensure the Chancellor receives the right level of information, context, analysis, and stakeholder intelligence before each significant interaction.
• Create reliable systems to identify when information is missing, inconsistent, overly detailed, politically sensitive, or insufficient for the Chancellor to make an informed decision.
• Serve as a point of contact for trustees, donors, elected officials, corporate executives, civic leaders, and media, representing the Chancellor with maturity, discretion, credibility, and sound judgment.
• Carefully coordinate high-level external engagements, including objectives, participants, protocol, preparation, logistics, and follow-up.
• Travel with the Chancellor as needed for major university, donor, government, media, and stakeholder engagements.
• Improve workflows related to calendar decisions, briefing preparation, information sharing, stakeholder management, and commitment tracking.
• Lead the thoughtful use of AI to improve visibility and decision-making.
• Use data to identify patterns in the Chancellor’s time, travel, and meeting load, then translate those findings into practical recommendations.
• Provide the Chancellor with useful outputs and recommendations without expecting him to personally operate every tool.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in management, public administration, communications, higher education, or a related field.
• Advanced degree preferred.
• 10+ years of progressively responsible experience in high-level executive-office leadership, operations, government, higher education, philanthropy, or a similarly complex environment.
• Strong proficiency with Microsoft Office, executive calendar systems, CRM platforms such as Salesforce, Box, project-management tools, and AI-enabled workflows.

Compensation, Requirements & Logistics

• Full-time, benefits-eligible position based on Vanderbilt University’s campus in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Travel with the Chancellor may be required, including domestic and occasional international travel.
• Competitive compensation commensurate with the scope and seniority of the role.
• Comprehensive benefits, including medical, prescription, dental, and vision coverage beginning on the hire date; a 403(b)-retirement plan with university matching contributions; paid time off; life and disability insurance; tuition assistance for self and up to three (3) dependents; and employee wellness and professional development resources.