Senior Director of Workplace Operations #0912

Job Description

Job DescriptionOverview

Our search team has been engaged by Earthjustice — the country's foremost nonprofit public interest environmental law organization — to identify their incoming Senior Director of Workplace Operations.

Since its founding in 1971, Earthjustice has used the courtroom as a tool to protect human health, defend treasured natural places and wildlife, accelerate the shift to clean energy, and confront the climate crisis. Because the earth needs a good lawyer.

With a workforce of approximately 700 employees distributed across 17 offices, Earthjustice has grown by a factor of five over the last ten years — and the infrastructure supporting its operations must now rise to meet that scale. The Senior Director of Workplace Operations will step into the organization's top real estate and facilities leadership seat, reporting directly to the CFO and assuming stewardship of a recently refreshed national portfolio. No pressing deals are sitting on the table. What this moment calls for is a builder — a leader who can architect the programmatic scaffolding (facilities standards, utilization tracking, safety protocols) that will support Earthjustice's continued expansion.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Strategy & Real Estate (30%)

• Own every dimension of real estate deals, lease negotiations, office relocations and consolidations, and space planning, including sourcing and managing the performance of third-party brokers, advisors, and supplemental resources as required.
• Maintain rigorous oversight of, and accountability for, every lease term, insurance obligation, and regulatory requirement — ensuring landlords and property managers deliver on what they owe Earthjustice.
• Convert portfolio analytics and data into plain-language, actionable guidance for executive leadership.
• Steward Earthjustice's real estate footprint; shape the organization's workplace strategy; and advance initiatives grounded in its values, analytical insights, and sector-wide trends.

Operational Program Design (30%)

• Set the bar for facilities operations practices, supplies, and beyond, applying frameworks that calibrate standards appropriately across varying regions, footprints, and use cases within the portfolio.
• Construct and operationalize management systems for all mission-critical real estate and workplace programs, spanning lease administration, space allocation, maintenance and CapEx planning, and safety and security.
• Act as the organization-wide point of leadership for office security, emergency readiness, and continuity-of-business planning.
• Build out and launch programmatic initiatives — utilization tracking, amenity offerings, facilities hygiene standards — across the entire footprint.

Operations & Business Administration (20%)

• Build the systems, capture the data, and deliver the analytics that empower leadership decision-making and keep a finger on the pulse of the real estate and facilities functions.
• Steer third-party vendor relationships and budgets — both one-off projects and recurring engagements — ensuring Earthjustice's resources are handled with care.
• Partnering with the Real Estate and Workplace Operations teams, embed training and drive accountability around national standards throughout the office manager community.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• History of standing up or maturing real estate and facilities programs in environments where the underlying systems were still developing, including generating organizational support for new tools and processes.
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent professional experience, in a related discipline.
• Strong emotional intelligence; a constructive, solutions-driven orientation; and a demonstrated ability to carry staff through workplace change with warmth and decisiveness.
• At least 10 years of increasing responsibility across real estate, facilities management, and organizational change management; background in a multi-site organizational environment is strongly preferred.
• Solid people leadership capabilities, covering both direct reports and influence-based leadership in the absence of formal authority.
• Sharp critical thinking combined with the skill to both plan and deliver — from big-picture strategy through hands-on execution.
• Consistent history of hitting organizational targets and timelines; established chops in vendor management and budget stewardship.
• A track record of leading sizable real estate deals or office transformations end-to-end, including the stakeholder management, change leadership, and communications aspects.
• Sharp interpersonal and communication abilities; capacity to turn complex data into clear, useful insights and to coach or guide others through business processes and tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Credentials in facilities management or sustainable real estate (CFM, LEED, RPA, or equivalent).
• Prior exposure to a professional services, legal, or nonprofit context in which real estate decisions are driven by program leaders rather than through a dedicated real estate arm.
• Hands-on experience with a geographically distributed, mixed-tenure portfolio (leased, co-working, and owned) of comparable scope — roughly 15 to 20 sites and under 250,000 sq ft.

Benefits

Base Salary: $205,300 – $228,100 per annum, commensurate with experience

Bonus: No bonus structure

Retirement: Employer contribution of 3.5% of salary after year one, rising to a fixed 10% from year two onward — regardless of your own contribution

Healthcare: Fully employer-paid healthcare coverage

Leave: Generous PTO, corporate holidays, year-end closure, personal days, and civic engagement days

Hours: 37.5-hour target work week

Work model: Hybrid — 1 to 2 days per week in office

Travel: Ad hoc, less than 10% annually

Visa sponsorship: Not available for this position

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