Executive Assistant
About us:
vineyard vines is a highly successful, privately held, American clothing and accessory retailer founded in 1998 on Martha’s Vineyard by brothers, Shep & Ian Murray. With Shep & Ian still at the helm today, vineyard vines has experienced exponential year over year growth and now operates over 120 retail locations including an outlet division, a successful e-commerce business, domestic distribution center, and expanding corporate headquarters. In addition, vineyard vines is carried in major department stores such as Nordstrom and Bloomingdales as well as numerous specialty boutiques across the US.
vineyard vines was founded on a state of mind that Every day should feel this good.
You don’t need to be on a beach, by the ocean or on vacation to have Every day should feel this good moments. It’s a state of mind that we all experience, and one where everyone is invited. At vineyard vines, we don’t just live an #EDSFTG life away from our desks - we bring it to work with us, too.
In our stores, or at our Harbor Drive headquarters, our company culture is fun, encouraging and welcoming to all. We work hard and play harder, and we never take ourselves too seriously. And while we have many company goals, our number one priority is making vineyard vines a great place to work for all employees.
Our team is our family, and we’d never have grown to where we are today without them.
We’re committed to building an inclusive team across all channels, departments and stores within our community. We hope you’ll join us and see what the smiling pink whale is all about.
Overview:
The Executive Assistant will provide high-level, confidential administrative support to the Co-Presidents. This individual must be professional, organized, and a problem solver allowing the Executives to arrive at meetings prepared. This position is often privy to privileged information and as such, requires diplomacy and discretion.
This role requires a team player with the ability to work with the business and - serve as the central hub of the vineyard vines office and leadership team. The Executive Assistant is able to balance high-volume and time-sensitive information and manage multiple action items. The ideal candidate is one who is willing to go above and beyond to proactively anticipate the needs of the Executives, manage changing calendar commitments, and balance work priorities.
Key Responsibilities:
Executive Support & Partnership
- Serve as a trusted, highly proactive partner, anticipating needs, managing priorities, and ensuring each day, commitment, and interaction is thoughtfully organized and seamlessly executed.
- Provide high-touch executive support with warmth, professionalism, discretion, and exceptional attention to detail across in-person, phone, email, and virtual interactions.
- Develop a strong understanding of individual working styles, priorities, preferences, and responsibilities while ensuring consistency and alignment across shared schedules and commitments.
- Navigate a complex organizational structure and build strong relationships across the company to quickly source information, solve problems, connect people, and facilitate communication.
- Serve as a key point of contact between senior leadership and internal and external stakeholders, using sound judgment to determine when to respond, escalate, redirect, or follow up.
- Provide appropriate guidance and clarification to senior leaders and internal partners, with professionalism and discretion.
- Handle sensitive and confidential information with the highest level of judgment and confidentiality.
- Bring an elevated level of hospitality and thoughtfulness to all executive engagements, ensuring every interaction is seamless, well-planned, and reflective of the vineyard vines brand.
Calendar & Time Management
- Own day-to-day calendar management, working closely with key stakeholders to ensure priorities are appropriately balanced and coordinated.
- Proactively manage competing priorities across multiple calendars, resolve conflicts, anticipate scheduling challenges, and build appropriate preparation, travel, and transition time into each day.
- Exercise sound judgment in prioritizing meetings, requests, and commitments based on business priorities and responsibilities.
- Maintain a clear understanding of schedules and priorities and proactively identify opportunities to improve efficiency, eliminate conflicts, and protect time for strategic work.
- Guide leadership through the day by discreetly providing time checks, anticipating transitions, and ensuring they are prepared for upcoming meetings, presentations, and commitments.
Meeting & Follow-Up Management
- Ensure meetings are seamlessly planned and executed, including coordinating participants, agendas, pre-read materials, presentations, meeting spaces, technology, and timing.
- Proactively request, organize, and distribute agenda items and pre-read materials in advance to ensure meetings are productive and participants are fully prepared.
- Coordinate both in-person and virtual meetings, including room setup, technology, presentations, participant logistics, and timing.
- Capture key meeting notes, decisions, action items, owners, and deadlines, ensuring clear accountability following meetings.
- Maintain visibility into follow-up items and proactively communicate with owners to ensure commitments are completed accurately and on time.
- Provide concise updates on outstanding priorities, decisions, and follow-up items requiring leadership attention.
Travel & Executive Logistics
- Coordinate complex business and personal travel, including flights, ground transportation, accommodations, itineraries, and related logistics.
- Anticipate travel needs and proactively manage changes, conflicts, and last-minute adjustments to ensure a seamless experience.
- Coordinate daily meal ordering and other executive needs while maintaining a high level of discretion and attention to individual preferences.
- Assist with occasional local errands and personal projects as needed, handling each request with urgency, discretion, and sound judgment.
- Support vineyard vines product orders, gifting, and special requests for family, friends, and other designated recipients.
- Manage follow-up on appointments and engagements, including correspondence, thank-you communications, and gifting when appropriate.
Office & Executive Administration
- Maintain organized, polished, and fully functional executive office environments, including supplies, meeting materials, hospitality items, and general office needs.
- Welcome and assist visitors, clients, and guests with warmth and professionalism, ensuring a seamless and elevated experience from arrival through departure.
- Prepare, format, print, and organize reports, presentations, meeting materials, notes, and other executive documents.
- Manage executive correspondence, contacts, phone calls, voicemail, and other communications with appropriate urgency and discretion.
- Maintain accurate and timely expense reports.
- Maintain calendars and records related to the usage, service, and maintenance of company fleet vehicles.
- Maintain inventory of promotional and gifting items and coordinate distribution as needed.
- Support Friends of vineyard vines (FOVV) promotional orders and related requests.
Events & Special Projects
- Support and, where appropriate, independently coordinate headquarters events and executive-hosted activities, including happy hours, BBQs, holiday celebrations, team-building events, and other company gatherings.
- Support event logistics from planning through execution, including activities, vendors, supplies, communications, scheduling, and day-of coordination.
- Support special projects and ad-hoc initiatives, bringing strong organization, resourcefulness, follow-through, and attention to detail to each assignment.
- Partner cross-functionally with senior leaders and internal teams to drive special projects and ensure timely completion of priorities.
- Identify opportunities to improve processes, anticipate needs, and create efficiencies that enhance the effectiveness of the executive office and broader leadership team.
What you bring:
- The right candidate is motivated, personable, detail-oriented, and able to multitask in a fast-paced environment
- The role requires someone who can maintain composure in a fast-paced setting, juggling a high number of internal and external requests and prioritizing appropriately.
- Executive professional presence
- 8+ years of recent, full-time executive support, reporting to one or more executives
- Must be extremely adaptable to the ever-changing needs of a growing retail company
- Highly proficient in Google Apps, particularly Google Calendar, and Google Docs -, excel
- Proven ability to drive projects forward while simultaneously multitasking in an environment with shifting priorities
- independent - able to work under little direction and exercise sound judgment when making time sensitive decisions
- Excellent organizational skills
- Personable able to work well with all personalities
- Intellectual curiosity. Desire to learn the business to facilitate thoughtful team support
- Ability to work out of the Stamford CT office 5 days a week
Every day will feel this good because:
- We have a fun-spirited entrepreneurial culture filled with truly “good” people
- We offer a generous employee discount so you can rep our lifestyle on-and-off the boat
- We offer a competitive salary package, 401-K, commuter benefits, and paid-family leave, health savings , flex spending accounts, life & disability insurance
- We have an onsite gym as well as health & financial wellness programs to keep you active
- We offer 2 summer Fridays to take off in addition to a competitive vacation policy & holiday calendar