Operations Team: Executive Assistant

The Operations team at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is looking for an Executive Assistant to help its property team grow.

As an Executive Assistant, you’ll help the property team manage its increasing workload, as it strives to create world-class working environments. CEA’s office is a place that boosts productivity, enables new ideas and collaborations to arise, and supports people’s long-term wellbeing.

The role can be entry-level but previous work experience is preferred. This role may be a good fit for you if you’re motivated, altruistic, and optimistic.

The Operations team at CEA — or “Ops” — provides world-class operational support to organisations that are expected to have an outsized positive impact. We do this by providing the financial, legal, administrative, grantmaking, logistical, and fundraising support that enables many high-impact organisations to grow, including: CEA, 80,000 Hours, the Forethought Foundation, EA Funds, Giving What We Can, the Centre for the Governance of AI, Longview Philanthropy, Asterisk, Wytham Abbey, and Non-trivial.

The project and the role

Our first office, Trajan House, has been a great success, and we’re struggling to accommodate the growing demand.

We currently work on five different office projects in the UK and the US, and will likely add more in the coming months.

The Property team is creating and running offices for highly impactful organisations such as CEA, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Global Priorities Institute, the Forethought Foundation, the Centre for the Governance of AI, Rethink Priorities, SecureDNA, and Our World in Data.

You’ll work closely with our Head of Property, Jonathan Michel. The role will grow as you develop, but you’ll start out by focusing on the following key responsibilities:

• Identify and manage tasks, including internal and external requests for input/consultation, and keeping a task management system up to date
• Coordinate and prepare meetings with staff and external stakeholders
• Manage Jon’s inboxes: read and send emails and triage Slack messages
• Project management for ad-hoc responsibilities that come up
• Coordinate travel: arrange flights and accommodation, help with visas and regulations
• Be a thought partner for Jonathan, alongside helping him with their management responsibilities
• Support with any ad hoc tasks that might come up

Depending on your experience and fit, the role might expand in a variety of directions, including into optimising systems, project management, supporting staff, or interacting more with stakeholders.

The ideal candidate

Some operations experience is ideal for this role, but we will also consider entry-level candidates.

The ideal candidate will be:

• An effective, adaptable communicator: You can manage frequent back-and-forth with staff and external stakeholders.
• Enthusiastic to take on a support role: You are energized by acting as a force multiplier, and are willing to take on some repetitive and unglamorous tasks to make that happen.
• Excellent with attention to detail: Excellent at spotting typos and errors of all kinds. Can consistently execute neatly and in an error-free fashion.
• An organised executor: You’re diligent, conscientious, and have excellent organisational skills. You can juggle multiple projects with competing deadlines and priorities.
• A systems ninja: You have an eye for systems and a desire to create them. You notice ways in which parts of Jon’s role could be automated and set this up.
• Proactive: You look for improvements to make and tasks to take on without being asked.
• Flexible: You have a flexible workstyle, are able to adapt to different preferences, and are willing to try out new things.
• Discreet: You’ll have access to a lot of confidential data about the EA community, so being able to handle sensitive information with discretion is key.

Salary and benefits

This is a full-time role, reporting to Jonathan Michel, Head of Property. We slightly prefer applicants who are able to work from our headquarters in Oxford (UK) or are willing to travel there occasionally, but we’ll consider fully remote work, too.

We plan to offer a starting salary between £50,000 to £65,000 for an applicant hired into the Oxford office, depending on experience. We would also consider hiring for a more senior version of this position for a compelling candidate, with alteration to salary commensurate with experience. For applicants who wish to work remotely, salary will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Our benefits reflect our belief in investing in our people to build the strongest possible team. We want everyone to be able to perform at their best as we provide world-class support and maximise our positive impact.

• Prioritised health & wellbeing: We provide private medical, vision and dental insurance, up to 3 weeks’ paid sick leave, and a mental health allowance of £5,000 each year.

• Flexible working: You’re generally free to set your own schedule (with some overlapping hours with colleagues), plus you can choose to work remotely or from our well-equipped office at Trajan House in Oxford, UK.

• World-class work environment: Our Oxford office, Trajan House, comes with free vegan food, high-quality vegan caterers, a gym and supplements, showers, monitors and other ergonomic equipment to boost your productivity, along with the opportunity to network with people working there.

• Generous vacation: We provide all team members with 25 days' holiday each year, plus bank (public) holidays.

• Professional development opportunities: We offer a £5,000 allowance each year and build in opportunities for career growth through on-the-job learning, increasing responsibility, and role progression pathways.

• Parental leave and support: New parents have up to 14 weeks fully-paid leave and up to 52 weeks leave in total. We also provide financial support for child care to help parents balance child care needs.

• Pension and income protection plans: We offer a 10% employer / 0% employee pension or retirement contribution, and income protection insurance.

• Equipment to help your productivity: We will pay for high-quality and ergonomic equipment (laptop, monitors, chair, etc.), in the office or at home if you work remotely.

• Global team retreats: As we are a remote team, we hold in-person staff retreats twice a year to work on our plans and build strong working relationships.

Equivalent benefits are offered in different locations.

Our values

Our work is shaped by our core values:

We’re focused on excellent customer service

• We solve problems for our customers before they’re aware of them
• We proactively seek, and take action on, feedback
• We respond to requests politely, quickly, and helpfully

We’re protective of our attention

• We prioritise effectively, focusing on highest expected value
• We design systems to prevent recurring problems
• We take on new organisations and projects deliberately, and we’re comfortable saying no

We’re ambitious with our impact

• We adapt our systems when the expected value is high
• We carefully consider tradeoffs such as opportunity costs, benefits, and risks
• We take on organisations and projects that will change the world

Apply

We’ll consider applications on a rolling basis. We’re looking for someone to start as soon as possible.

After considering your written application, we may invite you to complete a short trial task followed by further interviews. We’ll invite finalists to provide references and participate in a multi-day paid work trial.

We’re happy to consider applicants from overseas and may consider sponsorship if needed. CEA serves a global community, and our team works with people and organisations all over the world. We’re committed to fostering a culture of inclusion, and we encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from women, gender minorities, and people of colour who are excited about contributing to our mission. We’re an equal opportunity employer.

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact callum@effectivealtruism.org.