Executive Assistant

Department/Team: Business

Responsible to: Executive Director

Contract: Permanent

Location: The Old Vic, 103 The Cut, London, SE1 8NB

Hours: Full-Time – 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday, generally 10am-6pm

Home working and office working will reflect the schedule of the Executive Director and the postholder must be available to work from the office on a regular basis. Additional hours may be necessary in order to fulfil the requirements of the post.

Salary: £40,000 – 43,000 per annum

Direct reports: None

Benefits:

• Enhanced annual leave, starting at 25 days per year, increasing by one day per year up to 30 days (plus bank holidays). Opportunity to switch statutory bank holidays to mark a religious event or festival.
• Company culture that promotes good work/life balance.
• Complimentary tickets for you and a guest to Old Vic preview productions.
• Discretionary invite to Press Night performances and parties.
• Free therapy from our therapy partner SelfSpace.
• Mental health support via our in house Mental Health Champions.
• Enhanced employer pension contributions with The People’s Pension.
• Festive day – one discretionary additional paid day off around the festive period for a collective pause.
• Time to volunteer – one day per year to support a charity or project of your choosing.
• Commitment to learning, education and development.
• Enhanced sick pay.
• Access to interest free travel schemes including Cycle 2 work and Season Ticket loans after your probation period.
• Family friendly policies and enhanced maternity/paternity/adoption/shared parental pay.
• All staff social events.
• Staff discount in Penny and The Old Vic bars as well as discounts in local bars and restaurants.
• Opportunities to get involved with staff clubs and working groups such as the Inclusion Working Group.
• Buddy schemes including New Starter and Parental buddies to support your induction and return to work after parental leave.

Role Summary:
To provide executive level assistance to the Executive Director with all aspects of their work at the theatre and provide smooth and efficient senior administration and diary management. This role will also have key governance responsibilities as part of the day-to-day role. The Executive Assistant will also act as a key point of contact for a wide range of stakeholders at all levels both internally and externally and operate with integrity and professionalism at all times.

Your Team:
This role will work closely with the Senior Team, staff across the organization and the Board of Trustees.

Areas of Responsibility:
The Executive Assistant Will Be Responsible For:

• Diary Management and Meetings:
  • Accurate and efficient high level diary management for the Executive Director.
  • Ensuring the Executive Director is fully briefed and has all necessary documentation for meetings.
  • Minuting meetings to a high standard and distributing as required.
  • Arranging and minuting All Staff meetings (weekly virtual meeting and bi-monthly in-person meetings).
  • Coordinating any travel arrangements and couriers as requested.
  • Conducting any preparatory high-level research and providing detailed briefing notes where requested.
  • Organising meetings including booking space and ensuring refreshments and IT needs are arranged and welcoming guests, anticipating any requirements for accessibility.
• Administration:
  • Assisting in and/or creating correspondence in all forms, ensuring that these are prepared in a timely and professional manner; drafting emails/letters, preparing agendas and meeting schedules, collating documentation, copy typing of notes, minutes and reports.
  • Ensuring that any required documents are prepared, drafted and produced to a high standard of presentation, and to proofread such papers.
  • Processing invoices, expenses and credit card statements.
  • Updating and maintaining systems (filing, accounts, credit cards statements, contacts, etc.).
  • Drafting and editing quality documents, including PowerPoint presentations and other documents as needed.
• Governance:
  • Supporting the management of the Board relationships.
  • Supporting with corporate governance, including company secretarial filings, Charity Commission filings, Board appointments and retirements, management of conflicts of interest, servicing of Board sub-committees and compliance with relevant governance standards and codes.
  • Administering the Board and sub-committee meetings including setting the dates, coordinating the papers and taking minutes as required.
  • Updating and maintaining the Board meeting software, Convene.
  • Managing Board agendas and planning throughout the year with the SLT.
  • Developing and updating the strategic Business Plan with the SLT.
  • Coordinating updates to the annual report.
  • Ensuring updates to Policies and Terms of Reference requiring Board approval are carried out in a timely manner.
  • Supporting the Senior teams and Board in maintaining and reviewing the risk register.
  • Managing and updating the induction process for new Trustees.
  • Overseeing Trustee communications and administration, keeping Trustees informed of relevant events and booking tickets for Trustees as needed.
• General Support:
  • Attending press night events and other current shows as and when requested.
  • Coordinating communications to key stakeholders, government officials, and donors on behalf of the Executive Director.
  • Coordinating and manage any ad hoc administration resource support where required.

This is not an exhaustive list of duties and the Theatre's management may, at any time, allocate other tasks which are of a similar nature or level.

Person Specification:
Essential:

• Demonstrable experience as a Personal Assistant or Executive Assistant to a Director or equivalent senior individual.
• Flexibility to work from our offices in London Waterloo on a regular basis.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills and able to pitch at the appropriate level for various different audiences.
• Proven stakeholder management with a range of levels.
• A proven ability to deal diplomatically, sensitively and discretely with information, which may often be confidential.
• Experience in diary management.
• An ability to organise work and prioritise effectively between multiple tasks and meet deadlines.
• A clear communicator, with strong relationship building skills.
• Ability to work independently and autonomously.
• A meticulous eye for detail, a good proof reader, and immaculate presentation of work.
• Computer literate (Microsoft Office suite and SharePoint essential).
• Experience taking and transcribing minutes, drafting and editing written documents.

How To Apply:
We understand that everyone is different and we want you to apply in whichever way you feel best shows your skills and experience. There are a range of ways that you can apply with us:

• 1. Sending a short video file of yourself (no longer than two minutes in length), detailing your experience, why you are applying for the role and what about working at The Old Vic interests you.
• 2. Sending a short audio file of yourself (no longer than two minutes in length), detailing your experience, why you are applying for the role and what about working at The Old Vic interests you.
• 3. Completing our application form.
• 4. Uploading your CV and covering letter, explaining why you are interested in the role and working at the Old Vic.

As a Disability Confident employer, The Old Vic has made a commitment that all applicants with disabilities who meet the essential criteria for this job will be invited to interview. However, in the event that we have a high volume of applications all of whom meet the criteria and identify as disabled, meaning it is not practicable to interview everyone, we may apply a weighting to the shortlisting criteria, or add an additional shortlisting stage before any interviews take place. In all cases we will take care to ensure that any criteria or weightings do not disadvantage disabled applicants.

All appointments are made subject to satisfactory references and proof of eligibility to work in the UK.

The Process:
The recruitment process for this role will be two stages:

• 1st stage virtual conversation
• 2nd stage in person conversation
• You may be asked to complete a work based skills assessment or challenge.

The closing date for this role is 12pm on 3 March 2025. First Conversations are likely to take place w/c 10 March 2025.

Equal Opportunities:
We actively support and encourage people from a variety of backgrounds, experiences and skill sets to join us and help shape what we do. We are particularly keen to receive applications from people of the global majority, LGBTQ+, neurodiverse and disabled candidates.

We may take positive action, in cases where candidates are equally qualified, to increase the employment of under-represented groups at The Old Vic.

In the event that we ask you to attend the theatre for a conversation and you are struggling financially, we may be able to reimburse you for any reasonable travel costs.

We partner with a range of inclusive organisations, to find out more please read our FAQs.

FAQs:
Read our recruitment and selection and equal opportunities FAQs here.