Namati Hiring Executive Assistant to the COO

Applications Due: Friday, January 30, 5pm

About the Position

Namati is searching for an astute, mission-driven Executive Assistant (EA) to provide administrative and logistical support to our COO, Laura Goodwin, as well as to our Nairobi, Kenya office. This is a challenging and exciting position supporting Namati’s core operations and leadership team, with a unique vantage point into the running of a dynamic global justice organization.

A great assistant can be a tremendous force multiplier. Laura only has so many hours in a day. An exceptionally organized, proactive, creative, trusted, and most of all relentless EA can help focus Laura’s time and effort on her most crucial work. To succeed in this role, the EA should be deft at juggling multiple responsibilities while problem-solving and troubleshooting on many fronts,  with the tact and discretion to communicate graciously with both Namati staff and external stakeholders.

This role is well-suited for someone who wants to build an operations or administrative career in the world of international NGOs. Namati deeply values the contributions of  colleagues in administrative and operations roles, and the Executive Assistant will find themself in an authentically supportive and collaborative organization where they can make their mark and advance their skills. This position will report to our US-based Chief of Staff, Deyla Bradley, as part of our Executive Office team.

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.
• You feel a deep sense of ownership and responsibility over your work: You epitomize reliability, and you’ve always been recognized as the person others trust to get the job done quickly and accurately. When something goes wrong your first thought is how you, personally, could have fixed or prevented the issue, and you adjust accordingly.

We always look for incoming staff to be: 

• Collaborative and service-oriented: You greet everyone you encounter with a collaborative spirit, kindness, and empathy. You are known as a team-player who brings an “all hands on deck” mindset to all projects — you’re happy to contribute however you can to advance Namati’s mission.
• Growth oriented: You’re always seeking to better yourself and your work, and you will push yourself to the peak of performance to help fulfill our mission. In service of that growth, you welcome and delight in feedback from supervisors, peers, and anyone else.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience in non-profit organizations (international a plus)
• Familiarity with international travel requirements, either through personal or professional experience
• Comfortability with Asana or other project management software

Location 

This position will be based in Nairobi, Kenya. Please note, you must already be legally authorized to work in Kenya to be considered for the position. This position will need to work from the office regularly to fulfill the role and meet the team’s needs, though there may be occasional flexibility to work from home.

Compensation & benefits

The offer range for this position is an annual compensation of 2,500,000 – 2,950,000 KES. Final compensation will be commensurate with the depth of experience that the selected candidate brings. Namati also offers excellent benefits, which include health coverage, generous paid time off, retirement or old-age plan contributions, sick leave, and parental leave. All staff also have access to funds for professional development opportunities.

To Apply

Please complete our online application form. Applications are due by 5pm on Friday, January 30; no applications will be accepted after this date and time. 

No phone calls, please. Namati is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

About Namati

Since 2011, Namati has worked to build a movement of grassroots justice advocates worldwide. We’ve grown tremendously, from a small founding group of big-hearted change-makers to a global staff of 180+ people across 12 time zones in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The Grassroots Justice Network, which we co-founded and convene to this day, has grown from 30 people in one room to the world’s largest alliance of justice defenders, with membership from 4,200 organizations across 180 countries.