The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) is the national voice of local governments, representing their interests with the federal government. 

With over 2,000 members, including Canada’s largest cities, small urban areas, rural and remote communities, as well as 20 provincial and territorial municipal associations, FCM represents more than 90% of the country’s population. Through its advocacy, funding offers and diverse programs, FCM’s work has a direct impact on Canadians’ quality of life.

At FCM, we are committed to making the communities Canadians live in more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable. We aspire to be deeply respectful, collaborative, empowering and inclusive. All leaders in the organization embrace these values, the corporate culture and the passion for FCM’s mission.

The Executive Assistant is responsible for providing senior-level strategic coordination, executive support, and operational management support to the CEO and Chief of Staff within the CEO’s Office.

The role enables the CEO and Chief of Staff to focus on the organization’s highest-impact priorities by supporting executive coordination, information flow, prioritization, stakeholder management, and follow-through on key initiatives and commitments.

Moving beyond traditional administrative support functions, the Executive Assistant proactively supports executive decision-making, manages competing priorities, identifies risks and bottlenecks, and helps ensure alignment and execution across the organization.

The incumbent embodies FCM’s commitment to being a healthy, diverse, inclusive and anti-racist organization and exercises the highest level of professionalism, discretion, judgment, and responsiveness in a fast-paced executive environment.

Provides proactive executive coordination and strategic support to the CEO and Chief of Staff, including prioritization of schedules, meeting preparation, tracking commitments, coordinating follow-up actions, and supporting organizational alignment on key priorities.

Executive Prioritization & Coordination :

• Support the CEO and Chief of Staff in managing organizational priorities, workflows, and executive coordination activities. 
• Track commitments, action items, and strategic follow-through across the Senior Leadership Team and broader organization.
• Identify coordination risks, bottlenecks, and competing priorities and escalate issues as appropriate.

Briefing & Decision Support

• Coordinate and synthesize materials to support executive briefings, strategic discussions, and decision-making.
• Anticipate information requirements and proactively support preparation for meetings, engagements, and organizational priorities.
• Support development and coordination of executive-level correspondence, briefing notes, presentations, and communications.

Stakeholder & Executive Interface

• Serve as a key coordination point for senior internal and external stakeholders interacting with the CEO Office.
• Support engagement and coordination with Board members, Table Officers, elected officials, partners, and senior staff.
• Maintain high standards of professionalism, responsiveness, confidentiality, and judgment.

CEO Office Workflow & Organizational Integration

• Coordinate information flow and executive priorities across CEO Office, Governance, Communications, PPA, and Senior Leadership. 
• Support implementation of improved workflows, systems, and operational processes within the CEO Office.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of executive coordination and operational effectiveness.
• Oversees, coordinates and co-chair meetings, when assigned, for the CEO’s Office and provide logistical support, including tracking action items, ensuring accountability, venue-booking, briefing, collating/preparing materials, and inviting participants.
• Provides operational oversight to thecoordinator, to ensure the timely processing of expense claims, credit card and invoice reconciliation.
• Prepares and proofreads a variety of documents including correspondence, slide presentations, charts, and project plans for the CEO and Chief of Staff.
• Represents the President and CEO and their offices with professionalism and a collaborative approach with external organizations, elected officials, city staff, FCM employees, and other internal and external stakeholders. 
• Guides the day-to-day schedules for the CEO and Chief of Staff - and is responsible for keeping them informed of upcoming commitments and responsibilities and ensures appropriate follow-up actions are taken.
• Oversees the planning and coordination of meetings of the Smaller Leadership Forum and the Senior Leadership team and provides executive level administrative support at meetings as required including preparing agenda packages, minute-taking and logistics. 
• Guide special projects and workflows from initiation to completion, as directed.
• Ensures documents are kept updated and responds to requests for materials.
• Oversees the monitoring and management of incoming correspondence (such as mail and email) to the CEO inbox, which includes tracking urgent priorities, responding to straightforward requests as appropriate, redirecting requests to the appropriate department when necessary, and drafting responses for the CEO.
• Provides leadership and guidance to the Coordinator to prepare, translate and circulate communiques, letters and emails on behalf of the CEO and Board President
• Interacts with and maintains external business relationships with key stakeholders, Board Members, Members of Parliament, and other elected officials.
• Optimizes organizational procedures to increase efficiency and productivity and acts as an advisor to help improve internal administrative processes.
• Provides back-up administrative support within the CEO’s office as required for vacation coverage and other absences.  
• Helps to build a highly inclusive culture.
• Other duties and special project assignments, as required in the CEO’s office. 

People Leadership :

• Provides coordination leadership across executive support workflows connected to the CEO Office. 
• Supports alignment and accountability across cross-functional executive priorities and deliverables. 
• May coordinate work and priorities across administrative and operational support resources within the organization
  

Accountability :

• Works closely with the CEO and Chief of Staff to support prioritization, executive coordination, and organizational follow-through on strategic and operational priorities. 
• Exercises a high degree of autonomy, discretion, judgment, and initiative in a fast-paced executive environment.
• Responsible for proactively identifying emerging issues, competing priorities, and coordination risks affecting executive effectiveness.
  

Decision Making :

• Supports prioritization and sequencing of executive engagements, organizational priorities, and competing requests.
• Exercises judgment in triaging correspondence, stakeholder requests, and emerging operational issues.
• Provides recommendations and coordination support to facilitate effective executive decision-making.

• Post-secondary education in an administrative, office support or related field.
• Minimum 7–10 years of progressive experience providing executive-level support in a complex, fast-paced organizational, political, governance, or public sector environment.
• Demonstrated outstanding organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to prioritize workload, respond to shifting priorities in a fast-paced and evolving environment, while meeting deadlines.
• Proficient in using office software and tools, including MS Office Suite.
• Customer-oriented mindset, a genuine collaborative and professional style and highly effective interpersonal skills.
• Knowledge of business support processes and tools and administrative management practices and procedures.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with people from different cultural/diverse backgrounds and proven commitment to anti-racism, equity, and inclusion.
• Keen attention to detail and accuracy in all aspects of work.
• Possession of a high degree of professionalism, integrity and discretion.
• Highly resourceful and solution focused team player, with ability to work independently and with limited oversight and guidance.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and tact when dealing with sensitive issues and information.
• Demonstrated ability to support senior executive coordination, prioritization, and organizational workflow management.
• Strong organizational awareness and political acuity.
• Highly developed judgment, discretion, and relationship management skills.
• Experience supporting executive decision-making and strategic coordination activities.
• Comfort leveraging digital and AI-enabled productivity tools to support executive coordination and communications workflows.