Director of Operations

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Job Summary
The University of Michigan is establishing a flagship institutional hub in Washington, DC, located in an 11,600-square-foot multi-use facility at 1700 M St NW. The facility is designed to support classes, meetings, workspace, and high-profile university gatherings. As the Director of Operations, you will serve as the sole on-site operational lead, responsible for day-to-day facility management, stakeholder engagement, and delivering a seamless experience for a diverse range of users, including faculty, students, alumni, and university leadership. Reporting to the Provost's Office and operating in collaboration with its institutional co-sponsors, you will manage logistics, coordinate with property management and remote university partners, and build a reliable network of support resources to ensure consistent facility coverage. As part of this newly launched initiative, you will be uniquely responsible for developing a repeatable operational framework and site operations strategy. This is a term-limited appointment designed to support the launch and early operations of this new institutional hub.

Link to full job description.

Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day operations for a high-visibility university facility, ensuring spaces are clean, functional, safe, welcoming, and ready for meetings, classes, events, and daily use.
• Coordinate facility maintenance, custodial services, supplies, room configurations, vendor access, and building operations in partnership with landlords, service providers, and university units.
• Serve as the primary on-site point of contact for users, visitors, faculty, speakers, vendors, and campus partners, providing high-quality logistical, technical, and customer-service support.
• Support meetings, classes, and events through room setup, AV checks, signage, catering coordination, vendor logistics, troubleshooting, and post-event reset.
• Provide front-line support for core IT/AV systems, including Wi-Fi, displays, video walls, digital signage, conferencing technology, hoteling platforms, and room reservation tools; escalated complex issues to technical partners.
• Develop and manage on-site staffing and coverage plans, including temporary staff, event assistants, supplemental support, and coverage for evenings, weekends, or peak-use periods.
• Manage local purchasing, inventory, invoice routing, budget tracking, vendor billing, and operational spending in coordination with university finance and administrative partners.
• Enforce space-use policies, resolve scheduling or operational conflicts, and escalated safety, reputational, regulatory, or policy issues to appropriate leadership.
• Build strong working relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including university leadership, building management, vendors, municipal entities, public safety partners, and campus units.
• Track space usage, service requests, user feedback, staffing needs, and recurring issues to recommend operational improvements and support long-term planning.
• Support launch and activation activities, including move-in logistics, vendor onboarding, workflow testing, and development of a site operations strategy.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in operations, facilities management, hospitality, business administration, higher education administration, or a related field.
• 7 years of progressively responsible operations experience, including experience in facilities, events, hospitality, coworking/shared workspace, or another complex public-facing environment.
• 5 years of experience hiring, training, or directly supervising staff.
• Experience working in a newly launched or startup-like environment, with the ability to take broad goals and build organized routines, local service networks, and support pathways from scratch.
• Extensive experience supporting complex meeting, classroom, or high-profile event logistics
• Familiarity with digital tools like room reservation platforms, visitor software, and access control systems, alongside basic proficiency in content management platforms (e.g., WordPress) for light website updates.
• Demonstrated experience developing operational procedures, site documentation, training materials, checklists, and service standards.
• Experience being the primary on-site contact for external building staff, third-party vendors, and outside support teams.