Principal Advisor SME

Position: Principal Staff Advisor SME
The Principal Staff Advisor SME serves as a direct advisor to the Agency Director (DIR) and Deputy Director (Dep DIR), providing executive-level staff integration, coordination, and decision support across the organization.

The Advisor synchronizes administrative, logistical, planning, and staff actions to ensure Agency leadership is prepared to make timely and informed decisions. Serving as a primary advisor and gatekeeper to the DIR and Dep DIR, the individual manages the flow of information and actions into and out of the Director’s office, ensures staff products are fully coordinated and decision-ready, and maintains accountability for Agency-wide taskings and deliverables.

The ideal candidate brings extensive experience supporting senior government, military, or national security executives; exceptional organizational judgment; strong written and verbal communication skills; and the ability to coordinate complex actions across a high-tempo organization.

Key Responsibilities:

Serve as a primary staff advisor to the DIR and Dep DIR, coordinating executive priorities, staff actions, decision requirements, and organizational activities.

Synchronize administrative, logistical, operational, and planning actions across Agency directorates and functional organizations.

Manage the flow of information, correspondence, decision packages, and requests for engagement to the DIR and Dep DIR, ensuring leadership attention is focused on priority issues.

Prepare the DIR and Dep DIR for high-visibility engagements with congressional committees, Joint Staff representatives, Secretary of War staff, senior government officials, and other key stakeholders.

Review technical papers, policy recommendations, program status reports, briefing materials, and decision packages prior to submission to Agency leadership for completeness, accuracy, coordination, and quality.

Manage the Agency-wide action item and tasking register, assign or coordinate suspense dates, monitor progress, and ensure timely completion of leadership-directed actions.

Coordinate with organizational leads to resolve overdue, incomplete, or conflicting actions and elevate issues requiring senior leader attention.

Facilitate executive-level meetings, staff synchronization sessions, decision forums, and follow-up actions to ensure leadership decisions are communicated and implemented.

Maintain awareness of Agency priorities, major initiatives, emerging issues, and organizational dependencies to anticipate leadership requirements and improve staff responsiveness.

Required Qualifications:

20+ years of professional experience supporting senior government, military, Intelligence Community, or national security leadership.

Demonstrated experience serving on an executive staff, command group, front office, action group, or comparable senior leadership organization.

Experience coordinating complex staff actions across multiple organizational or functional areas.

Demonstrated ability to review, edit, and quality-control executive-level correspondence, technical papers, policy recommendations, briefings, and decision packages.

Experience managing organizational taskings, action items, suspenses, and deliverables across multiple stakeholders.

Experience preparing senior leaders for high-level engagements, meetings, hearings, briefings, or external stakeholder interactions.

Strong understanding of staff processes, executive decision-making, organizational coordination, and senior leader support.

Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information into concise, decision-ready products.

Strong organizational skills and ability to manage competing priorities, sensitive issues, and rapidly changing requirements.

Ability to exercise discretion, sound judgment, and professionalism when handling highly sensitive information and senior leader matters.

Ability to establish credibility and effectively coordinate with senior military, civilian, government, and external stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications:

Prior experience supporting an Agency Director, Deputy Director, flag/general officer, Senior Executive Service leader, or equivalent senior executive.

Experience with in the Department of War, Intelligence Community, Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, Defense Agencies, or other national security organizations.

Experience supporting congressional engagements, legislative affairs activities, Joint Staff coordination, or Office of the Secretary of War-level…