Assistant City Manager

North Carolina’s City of Arts & Innovation, the vibrant and historic City of Winston-Salem, NC, is seeking adaptive leaders with excellent strategic thinking and community engagement experience to serve as Assistant City Manager. There are two positions available. Working effectively within the Council-Manager form of government, the successful Assistant City Manager candidates will have a track record of effectively leading competent staff, communicating a clear vision of service excellence, promoting community engagement, holding themselves and direct reports accountable, and experience working with a diverse portfolio of departments and strategic initiatives like livable neighborhoods, economic vitality, transportation mobility, healthy environments, and safe and secure communities. The new Assistant City Managers must be effective contributors to the leadership team and be committed to the community goals desired by the Council and community, as shown in the strategic plan.    

The City of Winston-Salem values diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Assistant City Managers, working with the City Manager, will establish an accountable environment where DEI is honored in all decisions, policies, and procedures. These leaders must be adept at leading communities through change, are sensitive to preserving the culture and history of the community and address the short and long-term needs of community members. With considerable experience facilitating plans for growth and sustainability in urban communities, the next Assistant City Managers will support the City Manager in overseeing development and redevelopment projects while bringing innovative and creative approaches to address the City's challenges, including retaining a skilled workforce, availability of affordable housing, poverty, and crime. 

The City Manager and Assistant City Managers uphold a standard of excellence and accountability and foster unity around the City’s mission to provide quality, affordable services that ensure community members' health, safety, and well-being while collaborating throughout the community to ensure its economic, social, and environmental vitality.

About the Community:  

Winston-Salem is the County seat of Forsyth County and the fifth-largest City in North Carolina. Forsyth County is the fourth-largest county in the state. With a population of around 252,000, Winston-Salem, eighty miles northeast of Charlotte, is part of the Piedmont Triad region with the neighboring cities of Greensboro and High Point. A city of dual histories, Salem was a Moravian community in the 1700s, and Winston was established as the county seat for newly established Forsyth County and became a hub of business and economic activity for the region.  

Winston-Salem is more than a destination: North Carolina's City of Arts & Innovation is an unexpected discovery waiting to happen. More than seventy-five restaurants and thirty bars & breweries adorn the streets of Winston-Salem’s walkable downtown. The Arts District, Innovation Quarter, and Industry Hill offer unique cultural experiences to explore just moments away from Winston-Salem’s roots in Old Salem’s renowned historic district. Further out, Winston-Salem is the gateway to the Yadkin Valley Wine Country region, which is home to more than seventy wineries within a short drive of the city. 

 The birthplace of R.J. Reynolds, Winston-Salem, has strong ties to its rich history in tobacco and textile manufacturing, which are woven seamlessly into the fabric of this future-looking NC city. The city’s rankings for job growth outlook and safety are among the best nationwide. Innovation Quarter, one of the country’s foremost innovation districts, houses many biomedical, pharmaceutical R&D, and biotechnology businesses. Corporate giants like HanesBrands, Garner Foods, and Inmar Intelligence have built business empires in Winston-Salem alongside Collins Aerospace, Caterpillar, Cook Medical, Corning, and others. The sites of excellent higher education institutions such as Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem State University, UNC School of the Arts, Salem College, Carolina University, and Forsyth Technical Community College are all within the city.

Winston-Salem is a city that will surprise, delight, and inspire you with its welcoming spirit and creative soul. Come see why Southern Living called Winston-Salem a "glorious gem of a destination" and one of America's "Best Cities on the Rise." Grab a creative craft brew, stroll through Winston Salem’s heirloom gardens, or its 3,500 acres of parks and recreation and twenty-five miles of greenways and trails. Attend a game at The Dash or one of the city’s renowned events, including the International Black Theatre Festival and the RiverRun International Film Festival. Experience the city’s celebrated culinary scene and admire its dazzling murals. To learn more about this vibrant community, take a video tour of the city.

About the Organization:

Operating under a Council-Manager form of government, the City of Winston-Salem has a mayor elected at-large, and an eight-member City Council elected every four years in each of the City's eight wards. The City Council is responsible for adopting and providing for all ordinances, rules, and regulations necessary for the city's general welfare. It approves the city budget, sets property taxes and user fees, appoints the City Manager and City Attorney, and approves appointments to city boards and commissions. 

With a AAA bond rating, Winston-Salem is dedicated to being a municipal government deserving of public confidence, providing excellent and innovative services, and being an active and cooperative partner in creating a vital community. The framework for all decisions and strategic planning is the City's core values of Accountability, Continuous learning and improvement, Equity, Fiscal Soundness, Integrity, Openness, Respect for all Residents, and Teamwork. The city has dedicated resources to transparency and accountability for meeting city goals and objectives through the Budget and Performance Management Department. The city employs about 2,500 full-time employees across multiple departments and offices. 

Reporting to the City Manager, the Assistant City Managers are vital members of the City Manager’s executive team. The Assistant City Managers execute strategic city priorities by engaging with various staff, elected officials, community members and groups, non-profits, and the business community. A successful Assistant City Manager candidate must have experience that illustrates a track record of innovation and accomplishment of results. The portfolio of the Assistant City Managers will be determined based on skills, interests, and abilities. Along with the other Assistant City Managers, the successful candidates will oversee a wide range of activities, multiple departments, divisions, and special projects and have a proven track record of success managing complex projects in one or more large governmental agencies, including resolving sensitive, significant, and controversial issues.

The Assistant City Managers will support the City Manager in overseeing the City’s FY 23-24 budget of $607.8M ($442.80M for operations, $105.9M for new capital, and $51.5M for debt service). The budget is supported by a property tax rate of $.661 per $100 of assessed evaluation) and will assist in executing the City’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan and the Council’s new strategic planning process. This plan ensures that strategic objectives align with the City’s focus areas: Economic Vitality and Diversity, Livable Neighborhoods, Safe and Secure Community, Quality Transportation, Healthy Environment and Service Excellence.

Key Priorities for the next Assistant City Managers: 

• Support the City Manager in building an organizational culture of trust and excellence. 
• Facilitate a team approach to staff leadership that encourages staff to have passion for their work, meet high-performance standards, and work together in a unified fashion. 
• Collaborate in solving difficult community issues such as affordable housing, perceptions of inequitable allocation of resources and persistent challenges of poverty in the city. 
• Collaborate with stakeholders to create jobs and programs for development of the workforce of the future. 
• Communicate and engage proactively with a diversity of stakeholders, including residents, staff, city leadership, Council members, and regional partners, in a manner that promotes the values of transparency, accountability, and understanding. 
• Demonstrate commitment to an emphasis of customer service in effectively engaging and delivering services to those who want to do business and increase access for community members. 
• Skillfully apply equity and environmental sustainability lenses from project conception through decision-making and implementation.

The next Assistant City Managers must be experts in effectively listening to stakeholders, balancing competing interests, finding effective solutions to challenges, and transforming organization culture. Effective goal setting, acting with integrity, clear communication, ability to build relationships, develop and retain staff, building a culture of collaborative innovation, and consensus-building with community members are leadership principles vital for these roles. Thus, strategic thinkers who are not merely consultative but truly collaborative will be needed to sustain this highly valued culture. 

Qualifications: The successful ACM candidate will have a bachelor’s degree (a master's degree is strongly preferred) and ten years of increasingly responsible professional experience in municipal government management, including five years of administrative and supervisory experience at the senior or executive level or other equivalent experience and education. 

The Successful Candidates will: 

• cut through the jargon of complex topics to make essential information about city projects accessible to all stakeholders;
• be knowledgeable of principles and practices of public administration, including budgeting, planning, administration, and supervision, and preparing and implementing proposals that affect the operations of city government;  
• cultivate an outstanding workforce through the development and management of staff talent, including career development and succession planning, while ensuring a commitment to diversity in staffing where the employees reflect the community they serve;
• have excellent track records in establishing and maintaining working relationships with diverse internal and external stakeholders such as city staff, City Council Members and other public officials; business and community leaders; and the general public through demonstrated personal community engagement;
• be able to lead cross-functional and cross-departmental teams using a collaborative, team-based style to resolve complex problems and capitalize on opportunities with creative solutions;
• think strategically with experience in articulating visions, cultivating buy-in, and implementing the community ’s strategic priorities;
• possess executive-level skills in interpersonal and written communications, strategic planning, finance and budget development, execution of business plans, interacting with the media, and intergovernmental relations;  
• value and thrive on accountability through varied means, including metrics and performance measures, while holding high expectations of self and others and being a highly effective leader; and
• proactively monitor and evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery methods and procedures against defined metrics.

Salary and Benefits: The hiring range for this position is $175,000 - $220,000. Starting salary range is dependent on qualifications. The city offers a comprehensive benefits package. Winston-Salem residency is required within 12 months of appointment.

To apply, please visit https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/developmentalassociates and click the "Assistant City Managers – Winston-Salem, NC” link. 

Please note the following: 

• All applications must be submitted online via the Developmental Associates application portal (link above) – NOT the City’s employment application portal or any other external website. 
• Resumes and cover letters must be uploaded with the application. 
• Applicants should apply by May 25, 2024. 
• The hiring team will invite successful semi-finalists to participate in virtual interviews and skill evaluations on June 27-28, 2024. Candidates are encouraged to reserve these dates for virtual meetings should they be invited to participate. 
• Interviews with the City Manager will follow at a subsequent time. 
• Direct inquiries to hiring@developmentalassociates.com. 

The City of Winston-Salem, NC, is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Developmental Associates, LLC manages the recruitment and selection process for this position. To learn more about our selection process, visit https://developmentalassociates.com/client-openings/, select “Client Openings," and scroll down to “Important Information for Applicants.”