Senior Administrative Assistant at Portico Benefit Services – Minneapolis, Minnesota

Job Title: Senior Administrative Assistant

Role Summary

The Senior Administrative Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer serves as a strategic partner and operational extension of the COO. This role is responsible for maximizing the effectiveness, focus, and impact of the COO by driving prioritization, enabling high-quality decision-making, and ensuring disciplined execution across the enterprise.

This individual operates with a high degree of autonomy, judgment, and discretion, and plays a central role in coordinating leadership cadence, synthesizing information, and connecting work across teams. The role requires strong business acumen, exceptional organizational capability, and the ability to anticipate needs, remove friction, and drive follow-through in a complex, fast-moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Manage the COO’s calendar as a strategic asset, aligning time with enterprise priorities, sequencing and filtering requests, anticipating needs, and preparing the COO for key meetings, decisions, and interactions.
• Serve as gatekeeper and facilitator by ensuring clarity of purpose, expected outcomes, and effectiveness for all COO engagements.
• Coordinate and operationalize leadership forums (ELT, OLT, O&I), including agenda planning, materials preparation, meeting flow, and alignment to enterprise operating cadence and standards.
• Reinforce execution discipline by tracking decisions, actions, and follow‑ups across leadership forums and driving resolution of gaps, delays, or breakdowns.
• Synthesize organizational inputs into clear summaries, briefing materials, talking points, and executive‑level documents for internal and external engagements, including Board interactions.
• Identify and elevate risks, dependencies, and emerging issues with context and recommendations to improve decision‑making quality.
• Improve information flow to the COO, ensuring clarity, accuracy, and strategic relevance in all materials and communications.
• Act as a central coordination point across teams, aligning priorities, timelines, and ownership; facilitating communication; and ensuring follow‑through on cross‑functional initiatives.
• Clarify decision rights, roles, and responsibilities to support effective execution while cultivating strong working relationships across all organizational levels.
• Support Board and executive‑level processes by partnering with the Executive Assistant to the CEO on materials, logistics, and high‑quality deliverables, and coordinating executive communications and enterprise initiatives.

Qualifications

• Ability to understand organizational priorities and synthesize complex information; exercise sound judgment and discretion; anticipate needs; solve problems independently; operate in ambiguity; and build trust and influence across all levels.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word); executive-level written and verbal communication skills; and the ability to organize and prioritize competing demands in fast-moving environments.
• Familiarity with collaboration and workflow tools (e.g., SharePoint, Notion, or similar), enterprise operating rhythms, leadership governance cadences, and executive-level workflows.
• Knowledge of executive operating models, decision-making processes, organizational dynamics, administrative best practices, workflow optimization, and techniques that improve clarity, alignment, and execution across teams.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field

Experience

• 8 to 15+ years of experience supporting senior executives, preferably at the C-suite level.
• Experience working in complex, cross-functional, and multi-stakeholder environments with a high degree of autonomy and trust.
• Proven ability to manage executive time strategically; drive follow-through and accountability across cross-functional initiatives; support disciplined leadership forums; and foster organizational alignment and strong relationships.
• Demonstrated ability to operate beyond administrative support and meaningfully contribute to business operations and decision-making, including communication, coordination, and information flow.

Starting Pay Range: $30.00 -$41.00/hour

Benefits Summary: Portico offers a comprehensive benefits package which includes premiums paid for health care coverage, 10% employer retirement contribution, and competitive time off and wellness benefits.