ROLE
Executive Assistant
The Executive Assistant is the first voice on the phone and the first face clients see for a growing $375M AUM firm — and at a six-person firm, that means becoming a familiar, named presence to a few hundred families in the Saratoga Springs community. Beyond the front desk, this role owns the operational spine of the office: advisor calendars, meeting prep, Schwab paperwork, CRM accuracy, and client events.
ROLE HIGHLIGHTS
SALARY
$50,000 - $65,000 + bonus
LOCATION
Saratoga Springs, NY
TYPE
Full-time
Job description
Our client is an independent wealth management firm in Saratoga Springs, managing about $375 million for roughly 380 local families. It took its current shape in 2010 and has grown entirely by referral since. Their focus is retirement planning: people a year out from it or newly into it, most of them in their late sixties and seventies, most of them from the local area. The team lives here too, which means they run into clients in town, which is something they love about the work.
There are six people, five of them in one office. They have more than 45 five-star reviews and have won the local paper's best-of award three of the last four years. They take the work extremely seriously and themselves not at all — everyone is self-deprecating, everyone jokes, and when someone gets something wrong they say so out loud and fix it.
Advisory assets custody at Charles Schwab; the firm runs on Advyzon, RightCapital, Asset-Map, Dropbox, DocuSign, Jump, and Microsoft 365.
The Executive Assistant is the first voice on the phone and the first face clients see in the lobby. That sounds like a small description of the job until you understand what it means at a firm this size: within a year, several hundred families will know your name, and you will know theirs. You'll know which grandchild just started college, who just had a knee replaced, who prefers a phone call to an email. Clients here don't get routed through a queue. They call, you pick up, and guide them to answers for their questions.
Behind the phone, the role owns the operational spine of the office, including: advisor calendars' meeting prep and follow-up; Schwab paperwork; CRM accuracy; planning seminars and client events. The seat has been empty since May and the work has been absorbed by two people who need it back, so there is real volume from week one and a genuine backlog waiting for an owner. From there the job grows in whichever direction the person pushes it: deeper into client operations and reporting, or toward the CFP and an advisory track. The firm supports both paths and wants to support the person coming in on where they want to grow.
What makes this role unique?
You will be known. Many executive assistant roles are structurally anonymous where you support the people who support the clients. This one isn't. You're a named, familiar presence to a few hundred families in your own community, and the firm's reputation runs partly through you.
Hospitality is the actual standard, not a value on a wall. The team is working from the book Unreasonable Hospitality and applying it daily. Noticing that a client mentioned surgery, or a trip, or a grandchild, and connecting with that information. That expectation sits with this seat more than any other, and it's the part of the job the firm cares most about.
The firm bets on you before you've proven anything. Any licenses, dues, exam fees that are part of your professional growth journey are paid upfront, not reimbursed after.
Two real paths, both respected. Someone who wants to own this seat and be exceptional in it for a decade is exactly as welcome as someone who wants to become an advisor. In a six-person firm, the ceiling is genuinely open, and staying put isn't treated as failure to advance.
Compensation that keeps climbing without a promotion. Base plus a firm performance bonus tied to how much the firm grows, plus profit sharing from year two. A role that begins in the fifties reaches the mid-eighties in a normal year, and it moves with the firm's success rather than waiting on a title change.
A firm planning years ahead. The founder retires in about two and a half years and the firm is building its bench now, deliberately, rather than reacting later.
What you will do
Answer the phones as the firm's primary point of contact.
Greet clients and visitors arriving for appointments and make the office experience feel personal and prepared.
Manage advisor calendars and scheduling across the team, including dual-advisor meetings, and confirm, prep, and follow up on each one.
Support the firm's client seminars and events end to end.
Process Schwab account maintenance — beneficiary changes, account forms, service requests, post-meeting paperwork — and chase what's outstanding without being asked.
Own CRM accuracy in Advyzon: client records, beneficiaries, meeting notes, follow-up tasks.
Maintain organized digital client files in Dropbox and process client documentation.
Coordinate office operations including mail, supplies, vendors, and internal logistics.
As knowledge builds, take on quarterly performance reporting, the monthly newsletter, client portal improvements, tax-season document collection, and client appreciation initiatives.
The ideal candidate
Is naturally good with people — warm on the phone with a 72-year-old client, easy in conversation with someone who just walked in the door. The firm has said plainly this is the one thing they can't teach.
Solves problems rather than routing them. When something unfamiliar lands on your desk, the instinct is to work it out.
Finishes what they start. Projects here run start to finish with one owner, and nobody checks behind you.
Is careful with detail, particularly on paperwork and CRM records where errors reach clients.
Can laugh at themselves, admit a mistake out loud, and hear a direct answer without flinching.
Is comfortable being the newest person in a room where everyone else has a decade of context — listening first, executing reliably, and earning the standing to change things.
Wants to build something over years rather than pass through.
Presents professionally in a business-casual office. No suit required, but this is a client-facing seat at a firm people trust with their retirement savings.
A college degree is preferred but not required — proven workforce experience, attention to detail, and real customer service instincts outweigh a diploma. Financial services experience is a plus and shortens the ramp, but attitude and aptitude matter more. No Series 65 is required on day one.