Executive Assistant to the COO at Namati

Key responsibilities of this role’s support to the COO will include:

• Calendaring, scheduling, and meeting preparation: The EA will manage Laura’s calendar and develop a deep understanding of how her time is best spent based on her unique role and  organizational needs. Beyond simply supporting Laura, the EA can facilitate smoother operations across the organization by proactively flagging potential conflicts, working deftly around complicated schedules, and ensuring that the entire team has visibility into Laura’s activities. They will also help in the preparation for meetings (e.g. by sending bios of key attendees) as well as documenting next-steps and ensuring follow-up commitments are completed. 
• General administrative support: The EA will support Laura with a variety of administrative tasks, which could range from computer troubleshooting to reviewing timesheets, to taking notes during critical meetings, to conducting online research. Taking these administrative tasks off Laura’s plate allows her to focus deeply on managing organizational operations.
• Travel arrangements, procurement, and expense reporting: Our work often takes Laura all over the globe. The EA will research and book travel, ensure travel logistics are smooth and that travel agendas are set up beforehand, and that expense reports are correctly filed afterward. The EA will also handle Laura’s other purchase requests and expense reporting  as needed.
• Draft communications: The EA may draft emails, memos, reports, and other needed communications for Laura.

This role will also support Kenya’s culture and office operations: 

• Kenya office operations: the EA will support operational excellence in the Nairobi office. This may include providing logistical support for team-building activities, ensuring the office is welcoming to external visitors, liaising with vendors for ongoing office maintenance and repairs, or other administrative support that ensures all team members are able to do their best work. 

Here’s what you might have tackled last week –

• Coordinated with Laura to untangle the week after an essential meeting needed to be rescheduled, sorting out the cascade of reschedulings impacting several Namati staff. Your familiarity with the organization, and the needs of each stakeholder, allowed you to find new meetup times with minimal stress or back-and-forth, ensuring staff know their time is valued despite the change-up. 
• Worked with the Managing Director, Partnerships to ensure they have prepared and sent an agenda to Laura in advance of their biweekly check-in.
• Upon learning of an upcoming multi-country trip the COO is planning, proactively researched how to secure travel visas in each country, mapped out complex itineraries, and coalesced comprehensive logistical details for every step of her trip, coordinating closely with the COO to ensure all needs are met before she departs.
• Tracked down missing receipts from one of the COO’s previous trips to the United States, and submitted the relevant expenditure forms to the finance team.
• Vetted external venues for a Namati Kenya team retreat based on cost, location, and the purposes of the retreat, ensuring that the three options you present align with budgetary considerations and the retreat’s purpose. 

Must-Haves

• You find true joy in supporting others: You genuinely enjoy, and have experience with,  providing high-quality support to senior managers and executives. The frustration of spending three hours troubleshooting a computer issue melts away when you see the crucial work they were able to move forward as a result of your efforts. 
• You’re exceptionally proactive, organized, and attentive to detail: You are detail-oriented and take pleasure in letting no ball drop as you deftly juggle multiple projects, all while maintaining professional composure and confidentiality. As a matter of practice, you proactively check and double check your work to ensure it’s free of errors, and you maintain strong systems to keep all the details straight.
• You’re calm and effective under pressure: In previous jobs you have excelled at a high volume of complex logistical details, switching gears, and thoughtfully prioritizing at high speeds. You understand that people have diverse working styles, organization skills, strengths, and weaknesses, and that a successful partnership with leaders means meeting them where they are and accommodating their unique needs rather than expecting them to operate differently.