What does a senior executive do?
A senior executive is responsible for supporting the chief technology officer and other higher officials on implementing critical corporate decisions, especially on identifying business opportunities to extend business partnership scopes and drive more revenue resources, supporting the company's financial stability. Senior executives oversee departmental operations across the company, ensuring production efficiency and high-quality output deliverables. They may also handle operational budgets and allocate adequate resources to each department's head. A senior executive attends meetings and conferences with other executives, sharing updates with stakeholders, and strategizing project management processes.
Senior executive responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior executive resumes:
- Work with other team leads for integration of the software for deployment to QA area.
- Manage releases to multiple prod and non-prod environments using HPSD tool base in ITIL standards.
- Manage vendor selection, purchasing, budgeting, and asset management ensuring positive ROI on capital and expense dollars.
- Manage teaching hospitals and non-profit community healthcare institutions pharmaceutical supply chain operations (end-to-end services).
- Rationalize the portfolio through decommissioning and consolidation of legacy applications to accomplish annual cost savings of 900K.
- Manage a team responsible for designing service-orient application architecture, standards and best practices guidelines, security and data access frameworks.
- Schedule meetings handle logistics including room reservations, conference calls, agendas, etc.
- Process payroll and compensation adjustments; institute performance management system.
- Coordinate division meetings which include coordination of presentation materials for PowerPoint presentations.
- Support functions, domain windows.
- Implement many accounting policy changes with the rich expertise in mortgage back securities accounting and analysis.
- Draft work orders, contract documents and purchase orders using ERP, prepare amendments and variation orders.
- Produce PMO documents for use by the PMO, and act as mentor to other project managers.
- Position require detailed knowledge of margin calls concerning equities, options, short positions and fix income positions.
- Review pricing methodologies of investments including equities, debt, forwards, swaps, futures, and options.
Senior executive skills and personality traits
We calculated that 17% of Senior Executives are proficient in Customer Service, Project Management, and SR. They’re also known for soft skills such as Writing skills, Organizational skills, and Interpersonal skills.
We break down the percentage of Senior Executives that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Service, 17%
Designed business systems to manage processes resulting in improved profits, improved productivity, reduced costs and improved customer service levels.
- Project Management, 8%
Web Based Project Management and Distributed Learning Programs * Assists in the development of interactive multimedia instructions and computer based training.
- SR, 8%
Supported Sr. Management and Executive level personnel.
- Healthcare, 7%
Direct and coach multidisciplinary healthcare and engineering teams to collaboratively develop with sponsors successful solutions to identified areas of need.
- Human Resources, 7%
Assist with creating, documenting and implementing polices for improving human resources processes across Information Technology and professional departments.
- Macro, 6%
Identified and developed various tools and macros using VBA to automate the process which reduced around 300hr/year of manual work.
Common skills that a senior executive uses to do their job include "customer service," "project management," and "sr." You can find details on the most important senior executive responsibilities below.
Writing skills. One of the key soft skills for a senior executive to have is writing skills. You can see how this relates to what senior executives do because "secretaries and administrative assistants write memos and emails when communicating with managers, employees, and customers." Additionally, a senior executive resume shows how senior executives use writing skills: "implemented dod directives and doctrine pertaining to cbrne/nbc defense by designing, writing and continually updating lesson plans. "
Organizational skills. Many senior executive duties rely on organizational skills. "secretaries and administrative assistants keep files, folders, and schedules in order so that an office runs efficiently.," so a senior executive will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways senior executive responsibilities rely on organizational skills: "utilized $200,000 training budget to implement numerous training programs that measurably improved organizational training operation-wide. "
Interpersonal skills. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of senior executives is interpersonal skills. This skill is critical to many everyday senior executive duties, as "secretaries and administrative assistants interact with clients, customers, or staff." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "maintain excellent interpersonal and communication skills. "
The three companies that hire the most senior executives are:
- Chewy10 senior executives jobs
- American Management Association10 senior executives jobs
- Visa9 senior executives jobs
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Compare different senior executives
Senior executive vs. Assistant to vice president
An assistant to the vice president (VP) is an individual who acts as executive-level administrative support to an organization's vice president to oversee projects. Assistants to the vice president must help organize and manage managers' activities and clarify the strategies and business plans of the organization to them. They review the business activity and sales report from the organization's different departments and summarize the executives' information. Employers would also prefer their assistants to the vice president to hold a bachelor's or master's degree.
These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a senior executive are more likely to require skills like "customer service," "project management," "sr," and "healthcare." On the other hand, a job as an assistant to vice president requires skills like "powerpoint," "avp," "purchase orders," and "event planning." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.
Assistants to vice president earn the highest salaries when working in the media industry, with an average yearly salary of $128,662. On the other hand, senior executives are paid more in the pharmaceutical industry with an average salary of $116,546.assistants to vice president tend to reach lower levels of education than senior executives. In fact, assistants to vice president are 12.4% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.7% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Senior executive vs. Assistant to the director
An Assistant To The Director's duty, not to be confused with an Assistant Director, varies on the line of work or industry. In Film and Television, their responsibility will focus on the production operations and the workforce involved. When it comes to a corporate setting, an Assistant To The Director is responsible for clerical duties, such as handling different forms of correspondence, responding to calls and inquiries, communicating and coordinating with staff and other departments, arranging reports, appointments, schedules, and any necessary documentation.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real senior executive resumes. While senior executive responsibilities can utilize skills like "customer service," "project management," "sr," and "healthcare," assistant to the directors use skills like "financial reports," "cpr," "state regulations," and "powerpoint."
On average, assistant to the directors earn a lower salary than senior executives. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, assistant to the directors earn the most pay in the finance industry with an average salary of $84,618. Whereas senior executives have higher pay in the pharmaceutical industry, with an average salary of $116,546.assistant to the directors earn lower levels of education than senior executives in general. They're 11.5% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.7% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior executive vs. Administrative assistant to vice president
As the name entails, administrative assistants to the vice president (VP) provide administrative and secretarial support to an organization's vice president. They are responsible for managing the vice president's administrative and operational activities by managing the VP's schedule, arranging meetings and teleconferences, and organizing the incoming workflow. Also, administrative assistants are responsible for reviewing policy compliance, updating the VP's travel and vacation details, and auditing the reports on travel expenses.
Some important key differences between the two careers include a few of the skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of each. Some examples from senior executive resumes include skills like "customer service," "project management," "sr," and "healthcare," whereas an administrative assistant to vice president is more likely to list skills in "powerpoint," "financial reports," "purchase orders," and "domestic travel arrangements. "
Administrative assistant to vice presidents earn the best pay in the finance industry, where they command an average salary of $53,811. Senior executives earn the highest pay from the pharmaceutical industry, with an average salary of $116,546.When it comes to education, administrative assistant to vice presidents tend to earn lower degree levels compared to senior executives. In fact, they're 17.3% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 1.5% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Senior executive vs. Corporate manager
A corporate manager is responsible for leading the corporate team in operational processes and ensuring that the company provides the highest satisfaction for the clients. Corporate managers identify business opportunities through data and statistical analysis and review of current market trends to generate more revenue resources and increase the company's profitability. They resolve process gaps, handle the operational budget, and represent the company in regional corporate meetings, requiring them to possess excellent communication and leadership skills.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between senior executives and corporate managers, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a senior executive might have more use for skills like "customer service," "sr," "macro," and "strong analytical." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of corporate managers require skills like "oversight," "continuous improvement," "lean six sigma," and "strategic plan. "
In general, corporate managers earn the most working in the finance industry, with an average salary of $111,815. The highest-paying industry for a senior executive is the pharmaceutical industry.corporate managers reach lower levels of education compared to senior executives, in general. The difference is that they're 5.4% more likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.8% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of senior executive
Updated January 8, 2025
