Category: 
Job


Location: Philadelphia, PA

Chief of Staff (Office of Complete Streets)

Salary: $70,000 - $90,000

Agency Description
The Managing Director’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability (OTIS) is charged with driving change through our transportation and infrastructure systems. OTIS leads a portfolio of departments, including Streets Transportation, Streets Sanitation, Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), and the Office of Sustainability to provide cost-effective quality services with a focus on the resident. OTIS collaborates with a wide variety of organizations such as Amtrak, DVRPC, PATCO, PennDOT, and SEPTA.

Job Description
The Chief of Staff (CoS) reports to the Director of the Office of Complete Streets (OCS). This position provides advanced support to the Director and leadership of the Office of Complete Streets with a focus on keeping staff and projects performing at their best.

The position is responsible for providing strategic management, performance evaluations, and operations management for OCS. This includes developing systems for tracking and supporting transportation project development, ensuring alignment with the City’s transportation goals and strategic plans are met, and supporting a team of over 20 employees. This position will represent the Director of OCS at meetings when required and appropriate. The position requires someone interested in working in complete streets, transportation issues, and of a wide array of government functions, operations. Knowledge of complex and large organizational cultures, like City government, is desired.

The Office of Complete Streets (OCS) is experiencing significant growth in both staff and managed budgets related to projects funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) over the coming years. This Chief of Staff position will assist the Director by:

  • serving as a communication liaison with staff to ensure project issues and challenges are clearly presented to leadership
  • measuring and tracking productivity and team performance,
  • assisting in prioritizing and/or covering meetings or events for the Director,
  • ensuring appropriate employee development and issue resolution support.

The addition of the OCS Chief of Staff will ensure project development and production of grant application ready projects are meeting city policy goals through accurate tracking, problem triage, and staff support over the next 5 years.

Essential Functions
Strategic planning and Performance management

  • Collaborating with executive team members to determine and prioritize annual work plans, milestones, and multi-year strategies
  • Collaborate with Director on developing new program ideas, pilot projects, and strategic policy initiatives for the Office of Complete Streets
  • Leads measurement and evaluation of projects and programs with focus on creating organizational reporting methods, including annual reports, dashboards, or other means of measuring impact and progress towards strategic and tactile goals
  • Work within OCS to develop performance metrics relevant to the office’s varied work as well as systems for continuous tracking
  • Serve as a thought partner and strategic advisor to the Director, stand in on meetings, challenge ideas and offer different perspectives, follow up on action items with team accordingly
  • Working with leadership to deliver, monitor and communicate progress towards goals
  • Support City projects that advance the goals in the CONNECT Plan, Vision Zero Action Plan, the Philadelphia Transit Plan, and the City’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan.

Operations Management

  • Provide daily support to the Director, including tracking follow-up communication and attending meetings on behalf of the Director or other senior leaders, as assigned.
  • Work with Office’s leadership to ensure execution preparation for important internal and external meetings or events
  • Oversee daily operations through collaboration with executive team members and senior management, assisting with an array of administrative tasks from calendar coordination, correspondence, and managing media communications coordination
  • Monitor and respond to emerging needs and interests among key stakeholders such as residents, agency and department partners, and employees
  • Promote team integration as well as cross-functional communication and collaboration.
  • Serve as the budget manager for OCS and closely work with the OTIS Admin manager to manage, forecast, and coordinate with OCS District and Program managers on financial needs and spending thought the year
  • Providing tactical support to implement office priorities
  • Provide professional assistance and project management on various duties as assigned by the Director.
  • Other duties as assigned

Employee Support and Development

  • Collaborating with executive team members to develop employee development training opportunities
  • Manage conference and training requests to ensure staff development within a constrained budget
  • Providing department leaders with recommendations and consultation to improve teamwork
  • Planning, coordinating and leading meetings and workshops
  • Participate in meetings with staff and inter-governmental partners, stakeholders and community groups related to transportation concerns

Qualifications
Required:

  • Approximately 5-7 years of experience, including management, strategic planning, or operations roles in at least one of the following: growing non-profit, technology company, government, management consulting, other businesses, or academia.
  • A bachelor's degree or additional certification in transportation planning, engineering, management, government administration or related fields

Desirable:

  • A Masters degree or additional certification in the fields mentioned above
  • Experience working in the transportation field preferred

We welcome and encourage applicants with non-traditional career paths. If you don’t exactly meet the qualifications outlined here, please apply and describe in your cover letter how your own experiences equip you to excel in this position.

How to Apply
Interested candidates must submit a cover letter and resume at: https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/CityofPhiladelphia/743999886877805-complete-streets-chief-of-staff