Chief of Staff to the CEO - Urban Villages

ABOUT the CEO and URBAN VILLAGES

Grant McCargo is the founder and CEO of Urban Villages, a multi-billion dollar real estate firm focused on stewardship development and ecological design, developing buildings and neighborhoods that are as socially vibrant as they are ecologically sound. Grant’s professional mission – which he pursues via Urban Villages and other ventures and organizations – is to disrupt our existing patterns around the built environment. This position will be Grant’s Chief of Staff.

Urban Villages has acquired, developed, and managed over $3 billion in transformative mixed-use real estate assets in multiple markets. Our portfolio of projects includes the largest net-zero energy housing project in the US (West Village), the revitalization of Denver’s original main street (Larimer Square), the first carbon-positive hotel in the US (Populus), and one of the largest adaptive reuse LEED Platinum development in the country (RailSpur). Today, Urban Villages has:

• Approximately $1B of mixed-use real estate assets under management 
• Approximately $1.5B of development pipeline with land control
• 35+ full time employees across four offices in Colorado, Washington, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania
  

Strategic market opportunities, along with a robust existing development pipeline, have provided the opportunity to expand our capital partnerships. Urban Villages has enjoyed industry-leading returns while delivering high quality, high-impact projects. The company is poised for substantial growth over the next decade, and is navigating a series of high-potential opportunities while working to develop the next generation of executive leadership. We are seeking new investor partners to join our existing investment group and expand our real estate investment capabilities.

ABOUT the ROLE

Grant is looking for a skilled, high-output operator with strong intuition for organizational dynamics and a capacity for critical thinking to help him increase his operating leverage both within Urban Villages and across a few external projects (including personal sustainable development projects, unrelated operating ventures, and personal projects such as writing multiple books). 

The essence of this role is enhancing and extending Grant’s leadership, by both making him more effective and by helping Grant and other organizational leaders make effective business decisions, at a fast pace, while executing adeptly. This will be the first time this role will exist at the company. 

In this role you will have direct exposure to executive decision-making in real estate, hospitality, wealth management and direct investing, navigating capital markets, philanthropic giving, and early stage operating venture development. You will play a key role in developing and enhancing the leadership team, including strategic planning, succession planning, executive role scoping and search, and other key workflows. Your work will touch many functions, most notably company strategy, recruiting and hiring, finance, legal & compliance, and research. 

This is not an executive assistant role. If once in this role you feel that an EA would be valuable, there is an opportunity to scope and hire that as a distinct role that would operate with your oversight.

As Grant’s Chief of Staff, you’ll be responsible for:

Principal Effectiveness

• Establishing a clear understanding of Urban Villages, the leadership team and organizational dynamics, and the interplay of opportunities and challenges that it faces; building rapport with a range of leaders and staff of the company.
• Maintaining a comprehensive list of Grant’s projects, commitments, and to-dos, organized by urgency, importance, and size of effort.
• Running a consistent check-in cadence with Grant that works well for him.
• Iteratively refining and perfecting Grant’s schedule and calendar; making sure that his meetings are correctly prioritized and strategically sequenced, not merely calendared with correct calendar information. 
• Liaising with key leaders across the portfolio organizations to make sure that Grant is reviewing project work at the right stages of progress, that feedback is flowing effectively and without delay, and that work product across the portfolio is meeting standards or quality and rigor. 
• Toggling between well-composed memos and deep dive discussions, to support Grant’s thinking and work style.
• Overseeing the development of a briefing system (making use of virtual assistants and/or AI tools) so that Grant has key information about new people he is meeting.
  

Business Strategy

• Supporting Grant in developing and deploying well-supported strategies and priorities for Urban Villages, and other organizations under his purview.
• Advising and triangulating to determine that key org leaders are working on the highest leverage projects and initiatives, and that they have sound approaches and perspectives in doing so.
• Developing quarterly portfolio progress review dashboards, workshops or other solutions to ensure momentum is building for Urban Villages.
• Conducting and overseeing market research, building simple models, and otherwise contributing to conviction for or against various projects and/or capital deployment strategies.
• Developing an operating plan for Urban Villages, and similar plans for other organizations under Grant’s purview.
  

Org Building

• Developing comprehensive plans for team-building inside the organizations within Grant’s purview.
• Support onboarding, ramp-up, and development of new executives.
• Project manage the drafting and revising of role scopes for various leadership and operational roles across the portfolio.
• Designing and coordinating interview processes, and leading or joining interviews on relevant searches.
• Overseeing final stages of hiring, including background checks, reference checks, offer letters, employment agreements, and onboarding plans.
• Liaising with any recruiters, talent advisors, or other stakeholders throughout hiring processes, to get positive outcomes.
  

Special Projects

• Surfacing, scoping, and personally owning or delegating a wide-ranging set of special projects, from corporate structuring to real estate development pro formas to industry trend analysis.
• Supporting Grant in writing one or more books in the coming years, including owning the process to find & vet an agent, publisher, supporting writer(s), etc.

Requirements

IDEAL CANDIDATE

You are a great fit for this position if you:

• Have an elite level of effectiveness, and the ability to enhance others’ effectiveness when collaborating with them. You are highly organized, with innate strengths in sense-making, rapport-building, strategic prioritization, and business writing. 
• Have experience in a top-tier management consulting context, or similar work environments that require fast and accurate analysis of organizations and strategies, structured business and thinking, and persuasive business communications.
• Have an MBA or other graduate degree from a competitive and well-respected program. (Bonus points if you also have a law degree.)
• Have an entrepreneurial spirit, high energy level, and operating experience in multiple business contexts, especially successful startups or other environments that correctly balanced quality of work with rigor of pace.
• Have discerning taste and high standards when it comes to food & beverage experiences, hospitality, and design. 
• Have deep comfort with a wide range of digital tools, and good judgment about when it actually makes sense to invest further in (new) systems and/or additional process.
• Are ready to sink your teeth into a multi-year role, with the ability to create very large business outcomes if you do your job well.
• Experience with family offices with operating entities, and/or real estate development, is a major plus.

LOCATION & TRAVEL

This role must be based in Denver or San Francisco. Candidates who can be based in Denver are preferred. Seasonal work travel (~25%) will be required, to spend time with Grant and other stakeholders in whichever of the above locations you are not based out of, as well as the Teton County, WY.

Benefits

Compensation for this role includes competitive base salary based on candidate background (target range is $175-225K) and performance bonuses, with comprehensive health insurance. This role is a unique opportunity to learn from and support an industry leading family office, with the ability to shape and deliver large projects.  This role has a long runway, and will open many career doors if done with excellence.