Executive Assistant to MD, SSA at EBRD

Purpose of Job

• The Executive Assistant provides high quality secretarial and administrative support to the Managing Director Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA); together with any ad-hoc and personal assistance that may be required. The Executive Assistant may also assist with a number of administrative tasks for their department. The role will interact with all levels within their Department, their Vice-Presidency and Bank wide, to include Banking Department Budget Officers, HR, Board Secretariat, President’s Office as well external clients and institutions.
• The Executive Assistant is responsible for providing administrative and secretarial support from Nairobi to the Managing Director based and providing support to all RO visitors to HQ (to the extent they are not being assisted by their own country MD front office). The role is responsible for the smooth running of the Managing Director’s/Senior Manager’s business activities including extensive travel planning, diary management and a variety of ad-hoc tasks. The Executive Assistant may co-ordinate a small secretarial team ensuring that the Team/Department has adequate support at all times and/or act as a Budget Officer. For this role to be successful key relationships are with Managing Director, Team Directors/Managers, colleagues in the ROs, as well as in the various departments in HQ and with external clients & service providers.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

The Executive Assistant is responsible for providing comprehensive high quality secretarial and administrative support to the Managing Director; together with any ad-hoc and personal assistance that may be required to the Managing Director ensuring that day-to-day operations run smoothly which may include, but is not limited to the following:

• Efficient diary management
• Monitoring e-mails; screening and prioritising messages and replying on behalf of the Managing Director where appropriate; manage incoming telephone calls; prioritising communications and re-routing as necessary and taking comprehensive messages
• Drafting correspondence for the Managing Director signature/review; taking minutes; proof-reading and checking documents to for the Managing Director ensure quality management and control. Coordinate team submissions acting as quality control & ensuring all deadlines are met.
• Arrange all elements of travel according to EBRD travel policy including arranging visas, accommodation, ordering currency and preparing itineraries. Check travel expense reports and other expenditure for the relevant cost centre(s) to ensure adherence to the Bank's policy; monitor and assist the MD in claiming expenses in a timely manner.
• Maintain comprehensive filing in various hard copy and electronic systems and archiving for Managers’/team to ensure instant retrieval of documents.
• Liaise with the relevant Committee Secretariats with regard to the scheduling of their department’s items at Bank committee meetings and Board of Directors’ meetings 
• Produce and/or prepare team related documents such as Power Point presentations, business correspondence, factsheets, briefing notes, reports  ensuring all deadlines are met and contents are accurate in accordance with the requirements of the relevant Bank Committee procedures.
• Conduct ad-hoc or specific tasks assigned by Line Manager which may be related amongst others to pipeline or reporting.
• Support RO visitors to HQ (e.g. finding office space / arranging printing/other HQ-based assistance, etc.) to extent not provided by their own Country MD front office.
• Provide occasional cover for the Banking VP front office.

Dependant on team, the role may also include:

• Support budget officer and/or conduct budget officer duties with routine budgetary functions for the Team / Department (Purchase Orders, checking re-charge, departmental accruals and various housekeeping reports) to ensure costs are as pre-approved and deliver reports as requested.
• Departmental Co-ordinator, IT co-ordinator, HR co-ordinator, Stationery co-ordinator ensuring all  administrative procedures surrounding on-boarding, moving and leaving of staff/consultants; entering sick leave into SAP and compiling monthly sick and overtime reports for their manager’s signature and review before submission to HR. Maintain Team shared calendar, Weekly Whereabouts & Contact Database.
• Assist the Team Portfolio Manager including tasks such as regularly updating DTMs, informing the Team of signing dates, sending PMM/XNR reminders, creating new projects in the system and updating the Director weekly on pipeline if relevant
• Maintain an up-to-date disaster recovery and business continuity call out cascade to refer to in the event of an emergency
• Organise Departmental events: e.g. Team Meetings, Conferences, Presentations, Seminars, Team Retreats and Off-sites
• To act as a key person in preparation for the regular senior level events with participation of the President, Board members and other senior managers.
• To anticipate the need for background briefing material and ensuring it is available in advance of meetings with the President, the Banks senior management, Board Directors, members of the Group and other internal/external officials as required.

Knowledge, Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Academic Qualifications

• Degree and/or equivalent relevant business experience
• A recognised secretarial qualification would be useful, but is not essential;
• Fluent English, with excellent written and oral communications skills
• Knowledge of another language (e.g French) both written and spoken would be desirable

Experience/Knowledge

• Proven experience at working at a senior level within a multi-disciplined and multi-cultural organisation
• Excellent organisational and effective planning skills with a demonstrated ability to prioritise and independently co-ordinate workload to comply with deadlines
• Ability to keep calm under pressure and be flexible; also be able to anticipate needs/issues, drawing on a high degree of initiative and judgement in reliably executing or coordinating a range of tasks independently
• Excellent interpersonal skills; including tact and diplomacy
• A proactive and can-do attitude, approach and team ethic
• Good level of numeracy and ability to work with numbers
• Internal candidates to have a thorough knowledge of the Bank’s procedures, policies and of institutional working practices
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English
• Good material presentation skills with attention to detail and the ability to judge required accuracy.
• Willingness to take on additional responsibilities
• Excellent time keeper
• Due to the complex nature of the role the Executive Assistant should be comfortable interacting with staff at a very senior level both within their own department and Vice-Presidency as well as Bank wide
• EBRD experience and/or knowledge of the Bank’s policies and systems desirable (e.g. SAP, Project Link, Live-link, Bold-net, DTM; and Data Warehouse Reports etc).

Technical Skills

• At least 55 wpm typing
• Intermediate/advanced computer literacy (Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint) as well as the ability to format large documents, charts and tables to publication quality is essential
• Knowledge of SAP desirable but not essential