Senior Executive Assistant

About the Blavatnik School of Government

Our vision is of a world better led, a world better served and a world better governed. We are a global school committed to improving the quality of government and public policymaking worldwide, through three routes: teachingcurrent and future leaders; generatingresearch with impact; and engagingwith governments and practitioners.

What we offer

The School is a collaborative, friendly, and dynamic department based in an award-winning building in Oxford. We host regular events and talks with well-known guest speakers – all of which are open to staff. On the social side, we have regular coffee/cake mornings for staff, a family-friendly Halloween event, and Christmas and summer parties.

As an employer, we genuinely care about our employees’ wellbeing and this is reflected in the range of benefits that we offer including:

• An excellent contributory pension scheme
• 38 days’ annual leave
• Family leave schemes and a comprehensive range of childcare services
• Cycle loan scheme and discounted bus travel and Season Ticket travel loans
• Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs
• Opportunities for hybrid working (typically 60% of working hours on-site and 40% remotely)

More information about working at the School can be found on our

.

About the role

We’re excited to be looking for a Senior Executive Assistant to our Chief Operating Officer (COO) and to the Vice-Dean. 

This is a critical role for the Blavatnik School, sitting at the heart of the School – in the Executive Office – with responsibility for all support to the COO and the Vice-Dean, and for the operations of the School’s governance function. This post comes at an exciting time for School: we are embarking on our second decade with a fantastic community of staff, alumni, and supporters.

We are seeking someone with excellent interpersonal and organisational skills. In your work with the COO and Vice Dean, you will be responsible for managing two busy diaries (and the COO’s inbox) and taking forward a wide range of issues on their behaves. You will be someone with a zest for communicating with people from all walks of life, who will inject equal amounts of enthusiasm and diplomacy into each of their interactions – be they with students, administrative colleagues, or senior academics and practitioners from top institutions across the world. In your work on School governance, you will have operational responsibility for the smooth-running of the School’s governance function – to include scheduling the annual governance meeting cycle, writing and collating agendas and discussion papers, and tracking actions and decisions.

About you

The ideal candidate will have excellent all-round administrative skills and strong track-record of providing outstanding executive support. You will be a senior member of the Executive Office, line managing two to three staff (Executive Assistants) and working with the Head of the Dean’s Office to promote a high-performing team culture in which the people you manage can flourish. You will work quickly yet meticulously, taking a flexible and pragmatic approach to shifting priorities; and you will have impeccable judgement – be it on a confidential project on which the COO is working, an urgent meeting request, a difficult staffing matter, or an innovative interpretation of a policy.

If you believe that you have the energy and experience to make a positive impact on our Executive Office – we would love to hear from you.

Application process

Please upload a

that outlines how you meet the selection criteria

, along with your CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The closing date for applications is at 12 noon (UK time) on Tuesday 6 May 2025.

Interviews will take place during week commencing 12 May with second round interviews taking place during week commencing 19 May and will be face to face at the School.