Chief Finance and Operations Officer

St. Luke’s School

New York, New York

Start Date: July 2023

Opportunities and Challenges

St. Luke’s is an inclusive, welcoming, child-centered community that has enjoyed robust growth over the last decade. Under the strategic and visionary leadership of current Head of School, Bart Baldwin, enrollment has grown to include parallel classes for its JK – Grade 4 students and a doubling of its teaching space. This summer, St. Luke’s newly appointed Head of School, Tracy Fedonchik, will devote her vision and talents as a gifted educator and strategic administrator to bring further innovation, infrastructure, and support processes to the delivery of St. Luke’s tradition of academic excellence.

St. Luke’s next CF&OO will work closely with the Head of School, senior leadership team, and Board of Trustees as a trusted strategic and critical business thought partner to ensure financial sustainability, strategize about staffing and organizational structure, build program, assess, enhance, and integrate systems, and optimize space utilization commensurate with the school’s growth. The CF&OO will match financial oversight with efficiencies demanded by the growth in enrollment, a larger physical campus, and expanded faculty and staff. Strategic analysis of resources, exploration of alternative revenue sources, and sophisticated but digestible long range financial modeling will be required.

The CF&OO will lead highly competent finance and operations teams and will best support them with strong leadership skills and advocacy. Many opportunities exist to collaborate with them to bring further efficiencies to financial and operational processes, procedures, and protocols, and to work toward data integration and streamlining. While no major construction projects are currently on deck, sizeable capital improvement projects will require the attention, collaboration, and leadership of the CF&OO.

Responsibilities

In addition to embracing St. Luke’s School’s mission, supporting its Head and leadership, and representing the school at professional and public forums, the new CF&OO has a number of primary responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership, analysis, and management of finances and operations
• Establish financial and capital strategies that are consistent with the strategic priorities
• Serve on the Head of School’s Administrative Team and lead, co-lead, or participate in several other teams and committees
• Oversee all business office functions including all financial reporting to the Head of School, Board of Trustees, and its various committees
• Serve as chief staff liaison to Board committees
• Build and/or maintain the school’s short- and long-term strategic financial models
• Oversee the administration of the school’s endowment; execute endowment and investment policies; implement decisions of the Investment Committee; and coordinate with the investment manager to ensure effective endowment allocations, performance, and reporting
• Oversee School operations including personnel, maintenance, and vendors
• Maintain strong relationships with banks and lenders to ensure that funding is secured for the needs of the school and compliance with loan terms
• Partner with the Chief Community Officer in decisions around employee benefit programs including health insurance, retirement, worker’s compensation, life insurance, and other related plans
• Manage insurance programs including property, casualty, medical, workers’ compensation
• Ensure compliance with all local and state reporting requirements
• Collaborate effectively with Advancement, Enrollment Management, and other departments
• Participate in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging professional development
• Coordinate closely with the Facilities Director on oversight of the physical plant, grounds, and construction functions
• Coordinate closely with the Technology Director on the optimization of technology infrastructure and systems functioning

To Apply

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to contact the consultant in confidence. Candidates will ultimately need to submit the following materials as separate PDF documents:

• A cover letter expressing their interest in this particular position
• A current résumé
• A list of five professional references with name, relationship, phone number, and email address of each (references will not be contacted without the candidate’s permission) to:

Elyse Waterhouse

Search Consultant

elyse.waterhouse@carneysandoe.com

About Carney, Sandoe & Associates

Carney, Sandoe & Associates has been placing financial leaders at independent schools since 1977.

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