Business Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer

Job description / Role

Business Assistant to the COO for established UK Business with a start up Environment in Dubai.

The Business Assistant to the COO (“BA”) is a critically important role, enabling the COO to work most effectively with internal and external stakeholders and fulfill his commitments to the companies clients, funders, CEO, Executive Team, Functional Heads and the Board of Directors.

This is not an administrative role; it is a highly strategic and facilitative one that requires a combination of focus and flexibility, as well as a willingness to play an active, behind-the-scenes role. As the COO’s ‘trusted counsel’, the role requires a highly resourceful individual with strong emotional intelligence, self-motivation, and strong analytical skills.

This position encompasses seven primary accountabilities:
• Scheduling, preparation for, and facilitation of “critical path” COO meetings (e.g., with ExComm, Divisional and Functional Heads, current or potential clients, funders and the Board). The BA is accountable to ensure that the rhythm of the business and reporting cycle is maintained, that key issues are highlighted early, that meeting objectives are realistic, that preparation is appropriate, and that the COO is well-prepared. This responsibility is less about logistics and more about content and the BA’s judgment about the appropriateness and sufficiency of the intended preparation. In other words, the BA’s role is to make sure the COO’s time is leveraged most effectively in the reporting cycle and meeting context. This may mean querying and pushing back on senior executives and assisting in their preparation for their interactions with the COO.
• Coordination/orchestration of projects or commitments directly involving the COO and his direct reports. This responsibility primarily focuses on ensuring alignment among the often competing priorities and resources and, when such alignment is absent, sharing this fact with the COO and recommending mitigating approaches. While this responsibility envisions the BA “going deep” on a relatively limited number of projects, s/he would also need to understand the breadth of the projects within the COO’s purview. Tact, diplomacy, and persistence are essential qualities in executing this dimension of the role.
• Independent leadership of special COO and CEO-initiated projects, ranging from written reports to be authored by the COO to convening thought leaders on various strategic topics. While many of the COO-initiated projects will be the primary responsibility of the relevant executive teams and their staffs, some confidential or time sensitive issues will need to reside within the office of the COO and be led by the BA and the COO. From time to time, the Board asks the COO to come back with specific analyses — these, too, would fall within the BA’s purview.
• Development of draft communications on behalf of the COO and/or research in support of these. Communications range from the COO report at Board meetings, to follow up correspondence related to the COO’s various meetings, to staff announcements and speaking engagements involving external audiences. In addition to the drafting of key communications, the BA should also be able to accurately reflect the COO’s position in internal meetings to help drive understanding of his views and requirements.
• Proactive identification of inefficiencies in the operations of the business and assisting Divisional and Function Heads to streamline business processes and eliminate inefficiencies.
• Proactive identification of issues that could impact the successful execution of the COO’s commitments. This responsibility involves elevating those issues about which the COO should be aware and framing/positioning ideas to resolve the problem/mitigate the risk. This is among the most challenging aspects of the job and will require the BA to focus on the underlying interests of the parties working with the COO, understand their requirements, and creatively identify alternative means of handling pressing issues.
• Support the executive team’s communications with each other and with the COO and CEO. The BA will help facilitate decisions on which the executive staff need feedback from the COO. S/he will support the needs of the executive staff in their ability to raise critical issues with each other, the COO and CEO and receive needed responses, guidance and decisions.

SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Meeting Preparation/Facilitation
• Work closely with CEO’s Executive Assistant to remain apprised of/schedule upcoming CEO and COO commitments
• Confirm objectives for the meeting and recommend participants and best approach
• Develop backgrounders for COO on the meeting
• Help ensure participants are aware of and prepared for the meeting
• Attend meetings, capture major take-a ways, and work with executive team to ensure follow up
• Work with CEO’s Executive Assistant to ensure appropriate and timely communication to participants
• Monitor progress/achievement of next steps

Project Coordination/Orchestration
• Develop and maintain a project schedule of critical path projects in which the COO is especially interested and/or for which his awareness and involvement is essential
• Work with Divisional and Functional Heads to align their actions and communications in support of agreed upon goals. Work with all staff to ensure that the COO’s needs are conveyed, that progress is being made in a timely way on budget, and that any demands on the COO’s schedule are understood and agreed upon. The BA will also work to ensure the Executive team’s needs are conveyed to the COO for consideration.
• Be prepared to apprise the COO of project status and variations from schedule or scope or budget

Leadership of Special Projects
• Scope, plan and execute multiple, often quick-turnaround projects with minimal outside assistance
• Present ideas for special projects that might facilitate the COO’s/leadership’s objectives
• Work with appropriate stakeholders, including outside parties, to undertake analysis
• Present findings to COO, Executive staff, or Board, as appropriate
• If necessary, oversee transfer of the project to other stakeholders within the organization

Communication
• Create and maintain corporate calendar of key “events”—including meetings, bids, conferences, project deadlines, key communications etc.
• Create, maintain and leverage a relationship mapping of the COO’s key external (including customer) relationships and their respective interconnectivity.
• Planning and/or researching in support of specific events.
• Perform agreed upon work—including coordinating with others who might be involved; communication must be clear, concise, and compelling and adhere to brand guidelines
• Prepare follow up correspondence for internal and external meetings, as directed by the COO.
• Conduct fact checking-in support of all communications.
• Present timely work-in-progress updates to the COO on the status of the communication materials mentioned above.
• Represent the COO in outside forums that the COO cannot attend.

Efficiencies
• Assist Divisional and Functional Heads to maintain current and relevant KPI’s and report to the COO on those, giving early warning failure trends
• Learning from KPI statistics to suggest alternative and more efficient business models
• Work with Divisional Heads to process map and improve operational procedures within and across divisions and with functional support departments
• Develop alternative processes and procedures to properly leverage HQ staff across the business in the most efficient way

Issues Identification
• Engage in root cause analysis—often without prompting from the CEO or others—on issues and opportunities that could impact the executive agenda
• Confirm hypotheses through tactful and discrete engagement with the relevant parties
• Develop alternative approaches to addressing the problem or opportunity
• Succinctly update the COO on the issues, supported with facts and recommendations
• Engage in coalition building in support of mitigation approaches

Requirements

• Highly-developed communications skills (written/verbal), interpersonal skills and EI
• Results/action-orientation; project management skills
• Organizational and political agility; developed negotiation skills
• Unquestionable personal code of ethics, integrity, loyalty and trust
• Able to successfully navigate within varying degrees of ambiguity in a fast-paced environment
• Strong strategic/financial analysis skills.

About the Company

Michael Page is one of the world's leading professional recruitment consultancies, specializing in the placement of candidates in permanent, contract, temporary and interim positions with clients around the world.

The Group has operations in the UK, Continental Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. In the Middle East we focus on the areas of:

Finance & Accounting Banking & Financial Services Procurement Property & Construction Engineering & Supply Chain Oil & Gas Technical and Engineering Human Resources Sales Marketing Technology Secretarial Executive Search Legal

The Group operates through 161 offices in 33 countries and employs over 5,000 employees worldwide.