Vice President, Operations

WQED Multimedia•Pittsburgh, PA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

WQED is seeking an experienced operational leader to bring structure, discipline, and follow-through to complex work across the organization. The Vice President, Operations is a senior, hands-on leadership role for someone who can bring structure to complex operational work, translate decisions into operational plans, and make sure important work gets finished. This person will lead major facilities initiatives, strengthen cross-functional execution, and provide experienced coaching and mentorship to emerging leaders. The role is not about personally doing every task. It is about making sure the right work is identified, assigned to the right people or vendors, properly planned and budgeted, and completed to an appropriate standard. WQED is changing quickly. Many employees are new to their roles, teams are taking on new responsibilities, and some of our operating systems and practices need to evolve with the organization. This position will provide experienced judgment and practical leadership to our operations: building stronger systems for project management, facilities and vendor oversight, records retention, measurement, accountability, and cross-functional execution.

Requirements

Significant experience leading operations, facilities, logistics, project management, administration, engineering support, military operations, construction management, or another environment involving complex people, systems, vendors, assets, and deadlines.
A record of leading complex projects involving multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
Experience supervising, coaching, and developing people at different stages of their careers, including emerging managers and leaders.
Ability to influence and improve execution across departments without assuming ownership of their substantive work.
Strong project-management discipline and the ability to turn broad objectives into specific assignments, milestones, schedules, and decisions.
Experience selecting, coordinating, and holding outside vendors and contractors accountable.
Comfort managing budgets, reviewing proposals, evaluating tradeoffs, and approving work and invoices within established authority.
The ability to establish order where processes are incomplete, responsibilities overlap, or institutional knowledge is poorly documented.
Ability to help leaders define meaningful outcomes, measure progress, and strengthen accountability without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Strong judgment about when to act independently, involve subject-matter experts, or escalate an issue.
Clear, direct written and verbal communication.
High standards for reliability, discretion, accountability, documentation, and followthrough.
The ability to earn trust across technical, creative, administrative, and executive teams.
Willingness to spend significant time on-site and visit WQED facilities as operational needs require.

Nice To Haves

Experience in public media or broadcasting is not required.
Experience with facilities, construction, engineering environments, regulated operations, government or military service, emergency management, logistics, or similarly complex operating environments may be particularly relevant.

Responsibilities

Help leaders translate ideas and decisions into executable plans.
Identify risks, unresolved dependencies, and potential delays early and bring them to the appropriate decision-makers.
Develop practical systems, processes, and documentation that improve consistency without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Create useful mechanisms for defining expected outcomes, tracking commitments and progress, and identifying when work requires intervention.
Strengthen accountability by making ownership, expected outcomes, measures of progress, deadlines, and escalation points clear.
Provide hands-on mentorship to Operations staff in project planning, vendor management, prioritization, budgeting, communication, documentation, and decision-making.
Provide coaching and candid feedback to emerging leaders across WQED, helping them build the judgment, planning discipline, and confidence to lead work more independently.
Lead a structured review of WQED’s accumulated physical business records.
Establish and manage a process for identifying records for secure destruction, digitization, compliance retention, or archival review and potential physical preservation.
Coordinate with the appropriate internal owners for legal, financial, human resources, engineering, public file, rights, compliance, and archival records.
Establish priorities, workflows, staffing or vendor support, and tracking systems to move the project steadily toward completion.
Oversee the appropriate disposition of obsolete equipment and other accumulated materials.
Establish a practical organization-wide approach to tracking significant projects without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
Help leaders establish meaningful measures of progress and outcomes for significant initiatives, with an emphasis on useful information rather than reporting for its own sake.
Consistently measure progress on organizational objectives, identifying work that is off track, and helping owners determine corrective action as needed.
Facilitate cross-functional work when responsibilities overlap or successful execution depends on multiple departments.
Help WQED identify operational vulnerabilities before they become emergencies.
Support planning for physical security, business continuity, emergency preparedness, facilities access, critical infrastructure, and vendor coverage.
Maintain appropriate documentation of recurring responsibilities, vendors, systems, contacts, and escalation procedures.
Develop scopes of work, solicit and evaluate proposals, recommend vendors, establish schedules, monitor progress, resolve obstacles, review change requests, and hold vendors accountable for completion.
Coordinate work that may include physical security systems, masonry and tuckpointing, HVAC repairs and upgrades, electrical work, lighting, construction improvements, permitting and occupancy requirements, environmental remediation, equipment removal, and related site improvements.
Maintain visibility into facilities risks, deferred maintenance, capital needs, and significant operating costs.
Oversee preventive maintenance and service agreements involving generators, backup power systems, life-safety and fire protection equipment, and other critical infrastructure.