Executive Assistant Job Description for Founders: Hire for Leverage, Not Busywork

Why founders need a dedicated executive assistant: fast, high-trust leverage

Founders trade attention for outcomes. A senior Executive Assistant (EA) who operates as a strategic partner recovers founder time, reduces context switching, and closes execution gaps: materially different from a scheduler or generic PA. This guide gives a copy-ready JD, U.S.-calibrated expectations, compensation benchmarks with dated sources, interview rubrics, and practical KPIs so you can hire an EA who reliably acts as an extension of the founder’s judgment.

Who this JD is for (founder & company profiles)

This template is for founders who need more than clerical support: solo founders scaling to product-market fit, co-founders dividing strategic and operational work, and early-stage VC-backed founders who require investor- and board-facing discretion. If you run customer calls, fundraising, and a small engineering org (or are preparing to), hire for judgment and stakeholder management.

Job title + one-line elevator pitch

Executive Assistant to Founder: strategic partner managing calendar, communications, investor logistics, and follow-through so the founder spends time on high-leverage decisions.

Core responsibilities (copy, adapt, and paste into your JD)

Group responsibilities so candidates understand scope, decision authority, and what ownership looks like. Below are founder-specific groupings and sample tasks you can use verbatim.

Calendar & meetings

• Proactive calendar management: batch themes (focus blocks, investor windows), own agendas, circulate pre-reads, and convert notes into tracked tasks.
• Gatekeeper & prioritizer: negotiate trade-offs aligned to founder priorities, propose time-saving alternatives, and protect uninterrupted deep work.
• Meeting prep & note-taking: produce succinct action items with owners and deadlines within 24 hours for priority meetings.

Email & stakeholder communications

• Inbox triage: prioritize, draft replies in founder voice, and resolve or escalate routine items independently.
• Investor/board & partner communications: manage scheduling, prep, and follow-ups with discretion and polished written correspondence.
• Template & cadence ownership: maintain investor update templates, shareholder calendars, and recurring follow-up workflows.

Travel, logistics & events

• End-to-end travel planning: itinerary, travel brief, contingency plans, and on-the-ground support when required.
• Vendor and expense management for events, catering, and workspace logistics; reconcile and report spend against policy.
• Travel policy stewardship: track approvals, thresholds, and enforce per-trip escalation rules.

Project execution & follow-through

• Turn meeting notes into tracked tasks: set owners, timelines, and status checks, own small programs end-to-end (e.g., hiring timeline, launch logistics).
• Drive cross-functional follow-ups and escalate blockers on agreed cadences.
• Maintain a founder-facing dashboard of active commitments and upcoming deadlines.

Board, investor support & discretion (consolidated expectations)

• Board packet coordination, secure document handling, minute-taking, and post-meeting action tracking.
• Investor meeting prep: briefings, follow-ups, sensitive background research limited to agreed scope.
• High-discretion personal support as negotiated (e.g., family travel), with written boundaries and approval flows.
• Suggested NDA / confidentiality bullets for the JD or offer: explicit non-disclosure scope (investor/board materials), device & remote-work security expectations, and a clause on staged access during onboarding.
• Reference-check prompts: 'Describe a time they handled investor or board materials. How did they protect confidentiality?' and scenario interview questions: 'You receive an urgent message from an investor after hours requesting a draft term sheet, what do you do?'

Required qualifications & skills (tight seniority signals)

Be explicit about seniority and examples of ownership so senior candidates self-select in: avoid generic 'years of experience' alone.

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Part-time or full-time support for calendar, inbox, travel, vendor follow-up, and personal logistics. Tell us what you need and we will scope the right plan.

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Professionals from top brands trust Aurora

• 5+ years supporting C-level or founders with tangible examples such as ownership of board packet cycles, investor meeting prep, or cross-functional program ownership; OR 3+ years supporting founders plus explicit investor-facing experience.
• Documented examples of discretion (investor/board/legal work) and written communication calibrated to U.S. business norms.
• Proficiency in calendar and task tooling (Google Calendar, Notion/Asana/Trello, Slack) and confidence running remote meetings (breakouts, recordings, prep packs).
• Demonstrated proactive problem-solving: show one example of anticipating a conflict, preventing it, and closing the follow-up loop.

Nice-to-have / differentiators

• Startup experience or prior work supporting Series A/B founders or VC partners.
• Willingness to travel for investor/press events and be on-call for critical windows.
• Executive-level references who can speak to discretion and investor interactions.

Hours, location & reporting structure (U.S.-calibrated)

• Location: U.S.-based preferred for investor/board-facing roles. If remote, explicitly state whether non-U.S. candidates will be considered and for which tasks.
• Time-zone coverage: require overlap with U.S. working hours: practical phrasing: 'Must reliably cover at least one consistent U.S. core window (e.g., 9:00 AM–4:00 PM in one U.S. time zone, EST–PST) and be available for occasional early/late calls.'
• Reports to: Founder (primary). State escalation paths for HR, legal, and travel exceptions.

Compensation & perks (U.S. guidance, dated sources)

Compensation varies by city, sector, and scope. Below are conservative U.S.-calibrated ranges with dated source labels: use these as posting guidance, not guarantees. Links and access dates are included for transparency.

Classification & benefits note: Not legal advice: consult employment counsel or HR on W-2 (employee) vs. 1099 (contractor) classification and local tax/employment rules. Consider a 25–30% employer burden on top of base salary for benefits (health, payroll taxes, retirement) when modeling full-time cost (BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, 2024). For more on pricing and how models differ, see Executive Assistant Pricing Guide: What You Are Really Paying For (Aurora, Oct 2024).

Interviewing & evaluation checklist: screen, test, hire

Use a three-stage hiring flow: (1) phone screen, (2) practical assessment, (3) reference & scenario checks. Below are concrete items you can copy into your workflow plus measurable KPIs and how to calculate them.

• Screening questions (30-min phone): Ask for one example of protecting a founder’s calendar, one example of handling an angry investor or sensitive email, a brief tech-stack walkthrough, and two executive-level references.
• Practical assessments (take-home or live): A calendar triage (reorder a mock week based on priorities), an inbox rewrite (propose 3 concise responses and folder strategy), and a 1-page travel brief for a multi-city investor trip.
• Reference checks & red flags: Ask references about discretion and investor-facing work; red flags include evasive answers about confidentiality, inconsistent timelines, and inability to produce executive references.
• Sample KPIs & measurement methods: see next block for detailed measurement methods and 30/60/90 benchmarks.

Accessibility & remote-hiring note (if you consider non-U.S. hires)

• If hiring non-U.S.-based assistants for non-investor tasks, require an onboarding checklist: U.S. communication examples, timezone overlap commitments, documented escalation rules, sample investor correspondence templates to study, and a 30/60-day QA cadence.
• Limit initial access to sensitive docs until references and a short trial are complete; require device security settings and at least one video-recorded handoff for critical processes.
• Use weekly status reports and a founder-facing dashboard until calibration is proven.

Next steps: copy-editable JD snippets and hiring resources

Ready to post? Copy the responsibilities, qualifications, and screening checklist above into your job posting. For downloadable assets and practical screening tasks, use these guides: What Does an Executive Assistant Do? The Complete 2026 Guide, Calendar Management for Executives: What to Delegate, and Inbox Management for Executives: How an EA Takes Control. If you want Aurora to run the screening tasks or help write the JD, reach out via our hiring page (link in footer).