Special Assistant to the Leadership Team - Remote at Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)

About the Role

The Special Assistant role is an exciting addition to HOT’s staff team which aims to increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the HOT Leadership Team. The Special Assistant reports to HOT’s Executive Director and serves as a close partner to the Executive Director (ED) and Leadership Team members in the US Eastern time zone including HOT’s Director of Finance and Operations. The Special Assistant supports the ED and Leadership Team members through a combination of project management, writing and editing, research, and high level administrative and relationship support functions.

The Special Assistant role is varied, involving interaction across all of HOT’s 85 staff members in more than 20 countries. The Special Assistant supports the ED and Director of Finance & Admin directly throughout the working day. Typically, about half of each day is spent in events or meetings with partners and staff. The Special Assistant enables this: from arranging schedules, to preparing draft slide decks, meeting agendas, and documenting and sharing outcomes from meetings. This may include conducting research and writing up findings and suggestions prior to meetings. Outside of meetings, the Special Assistant also supports HOT to operate smoothly, taking on management of items such as optimizing calendars, documenting and sharing outcomes from discussions and meetings, creating smooth travel plans for Leadership Team members, and picking up various administrative tasks such as time and expense management.

Responsibilities

• Meet regularly with the ED and Director of Finance & Operations 

Schedule / calendar management

• Develop time allocation priorities with ED and manage the ED’s agenda within those priorities
• Keeps abreast of Leadership Team’s immediate and long-term commitments and plans; identifies conflicts, flags problems for intervention and corrects course as appropriate
• Work with colleagues across timezones to schedule leadership team, senior management team, internal staff, and external partner meetings
• Triage external requests for meetings and work with HOT staff and partners to arrange
• Participates in selected meetings both internally and externally on behalf of the ED and/or the Director of Finance & Operations

Effective meetings

• Prepare meeting outlines and formal agendas
• Research and prepare draft talking points and slide decks using Google Slides
• Document meeting notes/minutes using Google documents and Salesforce; share with staff, voting members, and/or external partners
• Track follow-up actions, communicate, and remind action owners, including high level stakeholders such as Board of Directors and key partners

Email and correspondence

• On behalf of the ED, triage incoming email, organize inbox, and draft email
• On behalf of the Director of Finance & Operations, triage incoming emails
• Review and edit correspondence for accuracy and grammar
• Keep files organized in HOT’s Google Drive file system
• Organize work using digital based tools such as Miro, Loomio, Mediawiki, etc.

Travel, events, and special projects

• Arrange complex international travel itineraries for multiple staff members and group meetings
• Support HOT and OpenStreetMap community event planning and logistics
• Carry out research and analysis on special projects from time to time

We anticipate that the role would spend approximately 50% of your time supporting the Executive Director, 30% of your time supporting the Director of Finance & Operations, and 20% of your time supporting the leadership team and on ad hoc projects.

Qualifications

Essential

• Demonstrated experience in managing projects or providing administrative or operational support within the office of a senior executive
• Track record of working in diverse, international, and virtual office environments
• Fluency in virtual collaboration tools like Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides), Slack, Salesforce, Loomio
• Outstanding English language written and verbal communication skills
• Ultra-organized and have demonstrated experience with improving your workplace’s organization in a complex, international environment: everything from files to project management
• Able to track and stay on top of own multiple competing priorities as well as the leadership team’s priorities
• Comfortable working independently, yet staying in close contact with other colleagues in HOT and “managing up” to help ensure awareness of deadlines
• Has the drive to grow their career specifically within a rapidly evolving humanitarian and development NGO, and cares deeply about the mission

Application Close Date: May 24, 2022