Executive Assistant

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Job description

About Voice 21

Voice 21 is the national oracy education charity. We exist to empower every child to use their voice for success in school and life. Our work transforms learning and life chances through talk by increasing access to a high-quality oracy education for those that need it most.

Over the past five years, Voice 21 has grown from operating in a single school in London to a national organisation, with a network of over 600 schools across the country. We are now embarking on our new five year strategy which aims to deepen our impact on outcomes for this generation of children and young people and those to come by significantly increasing the number of Voice 21 Oracy Schools in areas of high need and mobilising a movement of teachers and schools. To help us achieve this, we are recruiting for a number of new roles designed to enable the organisation to reach and support more schools, improve our ways of working and deliver our ambitions.

Role purpose

We are looking for someone who loves to organise and organise others, has a keen eye for detail and can build strong relationships with people at all levels. This person will have a key role in supporting Voice 21's continued growth and effectiveness primarily through providing administrative support to the Senior Leadership Team (SLT), to make our meetings more impactful, and ensure that decisions made are followed up on and implemented.

The Executive Assistant will also have a vital responsibility in providing administrative and logistical support to the whole team, to ensure that they have the correct equipment to enable them to work smoothly from wherever they are based; that our London Office has the right setup and supplies; and that our team meetings and socials are well planned and communicated.

Finally, The Executive Assistant will work closely with the Director of Operations to manage all the things behind the scenes which make Voice 21 work. A typical project might be working with various internal and external stakeholders to coordinate the change of Voice 21's postal address to our new office location.

Key responsibilities

Support to SLT and CEO

Organise and attend all SLT meetings (these will be in our office in London); take minutes and capture actions

Coordinate the production of the SLT agenda and any other supporting documents as required

Between SLT meetings, work with action holders to ensure that actions are completed as agreed

Own the production and updating of Voice 21's annual calendar, as well as responsibility for ensuring everyone has key dates in their diaries

Support to CEO and Director of Operations in collating agenda items and documentation for Board and Board subcommittee meetings

Diary management for the CEO

Ad hoc administrative and logistical support to the CEO and other members of SLT as required

Office management and team administration

Act as the first point of contact for all things office-related, and ensure the office is fit for purpose, clean and tidy, with the right equipment and levels of stock to meet our needs as an organisation

Regularly engage with the building and facilities management to ensure issues are dealt with promptly

Coordinate the planning for whole team meetings and V21 social events, working with the SLT and other members of staff, including booking venues, accommodation and organising food

Ensure all staff have the equipment they need to be able to work effectively

Support the People, Data & Admin Officer in managing the administrative aspects of the employee lifecycle, from recruitment to outprocessing

Project and process management

Act as an ad hoc project manager for organisation wide projects, such as moving our address details to our new office location

Any other tasks as required by the Director of Operations

Role Progression

Within 1 month, you'll have:

Begun attending SLT meetings, taking minutes and capturing actions

Identified key internal and external stakeholders and started to build good relationships with them

Taken over responsibility for office management and established yourself as the POC with the team

Taken over responsibility for administrative aspects of the employee lifecycle and established yourself as the POC with the team

Within 3 months, you'll have:

Taken on responsibility for driving SLT agenda planning and action tracking, and have made a significant impact on SLT's effectiveness and efficiency

Taken on ad hoc diary management responsibilities for Beccy, our CEO

Taken on responsibility for supporting SLT with planning face to face whole team meetings, as well as any administrative or logistical support required

Established basic requirements and guidance for our office and ordered equipment and supplies necessary to make it a pleasant place to work from

Within 6 months, you'll have:

Led at least one cross-organisational project, such as changing our registered address

Fully immersed yourself in how Voice 21 works and taken a lead in proactively suggesting ideas to enable us to scale our impact, and taken the lead on implementing agreed projects and actions

Lead on the annual planning process, and produced an annual calendar and meeting planner for September 2022 - August 2023, as well as circulating and updating calendar invites as required

From 6 months onwards, we expect for you to be:

Seen as the glue that knits the organisation together by the whole team, and the first point of contact for any question where people don't know who to turn to

Acting as a partner to our SLT to drive the implementation of our strategic objectives, and to ensure that actions agreed are tracked and followed up on, and that any potential blockers are identified and highlighted

This job is for you if you...

Have strong organisational and time management skills, able to stay on top of multiple, varied projects and relationships, and get a kick out of being organised and organising others

Are tenacious at chasing down information and are skilled at following up with people to ensure actions agreed are being completed and that potential snagging points are addressed and communicated

Are ambitious to see what a fast growth charity looks like and understand the dilemmas that the leadership are grappling with on a daily basis

Are a natural relationship builder, able to work with and gain the confidence of people at all levels to help us collaborate across boundaries.

Have previous start-up/ scale-up experience and are comfortable working at pace and under uncertainty

Are excited by being given a great degree of autonomy, ownership and flexibility about how you work, but are prepared to be flexible to meet the changing needs of the charity

You are passionate about Voice 21's mission and helping us meet our ambitions.