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Executive Assistant

Basics

Job title: Executive Assistant

Department: Operations

Application deadline: 9 am ET Monday, July 9, 2023

Application materials:

The form will ask you to provide your resume as well as answers to short answer and multiple choice questions regarding your qualifications that replace a cover letter requirement. The short answer question will ask you to demonstrate your critical thinking in how to best support the Executive Director (ED). You are welcome to preview all questions before beginning. We estimate that completing the application form will take you no longer than one hour, but there is no time limit.

Application process timeline:

• Stage 1 – phone screen (mid July 2023)
• Stage 2 – compensated skills assessment (late July 2023)
• Stage 3 – video interviews (early August 2023)
• Target start date – mid to late August 2023

Terms of employment

Location:

• Full-time remote; exempt position.
• United States preferred; applicants in the United Kingdom are also encouraged to apply.
• Note: We are not able to sponsor work visas and are only considering applicants who are eligible to work in the country where they plan to live and work.
• Must be able to meet with colleagues in Eastern Time (US) (GMT-4) and European time zones (GMT+1 & GMT+2) most days of the week and to meet with colleagues in Pacific Time (US) (GMT-7) a few times a week. Due to the global nature of our operations, some meetings may fall outside of local business hours.

COVID-19:

• Public health is a high priority of ours. Proof of up-to-date COVID-19 vaccination is required for employment and service in this role no later than the start date. Your COVID-19 vaccination is “up to date” if you have completed a COVID-19 vaccine primary series and received the most recent booster dose recommended for you by the CDC.
• We will consider requests for reasonable accommodation consistent with our policy and applicable law if you are unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons or sincerely held religious beliefs. No accommodations will be provided if doing so will cause undue hardship to the organization giving due regard to the role and its expected duties.

Expected start date:

• Mid to late August 2023

Expected Salary:

• $50,639-$61,893, depending on the approximate cost of living in your area.

• For a complete description of how we set and raise salaries, see our salary algorithm.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive health and dental insurance. Vision insurance is available.
• Paid time off: Four weeks of vacation, a two-week holiday break in December, and 12 holidays.
• Two weeks of paid sick leave, which may also be used for caring for human or non-human family members.
• A fully remote work environment that allows you to balance work and family requirements.
• A friendly, open work culture that encourages feedback, collaboration, experimentation, and evidence-based innovation.
• Opportunities to increase responsibility as our team and programs continue their growth trajectory.
• Leadership and colleagues dedicated to justice, equity, ersity, and inclusion, including a dedicated internal JEDI committee, annual staff and manager training to combat our biases at work, and support for employees with visible and invisible disabilities.
• Reimbursement for books you buy and read for professional development and a stipend to cover the technology you might need to be effective working from home.
• Note: This benefit structure is what we use for our US staff and is largely similar to what we offer to many non-US staff, but may be different depending on the legal requirements of the country you work in.

Reports to:

• Project and Impact Manager Mark Onley (he/him)

Travel:

• Ability to independently self-book travel to the United States and Europe for staff retreats (one to three per year), conferences, and other in-person events (zero to five per year), including driving or taking flights for extended durations.
• Must be able to obtain legal permission to make such trips (e.g., by having a valid passport and obtaining any necessary visas for travel).

Responsibilities

Position mission statement:

As Executive Assistant, you will work with our Executive Director (ED) and others to enable greater productivity for the ED and, by extension, the rest of our organization. You will own the high-quality completion of administrative tasks such as prioritizing requests for the ED’s time; managing the ED’s calendar, email inbox, to-do list, and travel; and engaging with internal and external stakeholders on the ED’s behalf. You should consider applying for this role if you are a highly organized and detail-oriented person with strong written and verbal communication skills who gets motivation and satisfaction from enabling others to do their best work.

Supervisory responsibilities:

Although you will have no direct reports in the traditional sense, you will be expected to actively manage the ED’s productivity, hold him accountable to goals, and provide critical feedback to him.

Core responsibilities:

Management

• Task intake: You will review the ED’s email inbox, calendar, and Asana to-do list and help the ED to identify priorities and schedule time for completing tasks.
• Prioritization: You will work with the ED to estimate what can reasonably be accomplished in the available time, identify the best uses of that time, anticipate both logistical and emotional challenges to achieving those goals, identify what can be delegated or deprioritized, and hold him accountable to achieving the agreed-upon priorities.
• Liaising: You will communicate with other members of the Wild Animal Initiative team to delegate work to them, clarify what they need from the ED, and escalate their concerns to the ED.
• Feedback: You will provide critical and constructive feedback to the ED to help improve his job performance.

Administration

• Data management: You will enter data into Salesforce, Asana, Airtable, and other systems accurately and efficiently to ensure proper recordkeeping of critical information related to the ED’s activities (e.g., recording contact information and conversation notes from new professional contacts).
• Meeting support: You will assist with agenda preparation and take notes in meetings between the ED and our Board of Directors, leadership team, and other internal and external audiences.
• Travel logistics: You will make travel arrangements on the ED’s behalf, including scheduling flights, arranging accommodations, submitting expense reports, and coordinating his meeting schedule.
• Systems: You will identify ways to improve systems and processes to better serve you, the ED, the organization, and our mission.

Execution

• Correspondence: You will correspond with external stakeholders on the ED’s behalf to answer queries, organize meetings, and otherwise facilitate the flow of information while representing the organization well.
• Editing: You will edit the content, style, and formatting of documents and presentations for the ED to ensure they meet our high standards for clarity and consistency.
• Side quests: You will take on a wide variety of miscellaneous tasks as needed (and as suitable to your skills and interests), such as researching peer organizations, testing new software, or summarizing scientific papers.
• Other: You will complete other duties and activities assigned as the organization’s needs evolve.

Qualifications

Note that we do not require any specific academic credentials or prior work experience for you to be considered for this position, as research shows that such requirements can diminish the quality of candidate pools by deterring folks from applying who would otherwise be a great fit for a role.

This role will require you to have the following qualifications:

• Written and verbal communication: Ability to communicate authentically, effectively, and professionally, both as oneself and in the voice of another writer.
• Dependability: Ability to reliably fulfill obligations to others by appropriately managing one’s own time and the time of others, showing initiative while being realistic in taking on new tasks and challenges, making effective adjustments to plans as challenges arise, and taking a thorough and detail-oriented approach to completing work tasks.
• Critical thinking: Ability to use logic and reasoning to accurately assess alternative approaches to problems, efficiently organize information in a way that makes sense to others, anticipate the likelihood of future possible outcomes in planning, and appropriately balance the needs of competing priorities.
• Integrity: Ability to conduct work honestly and ethically, including safeguarding confidential and sensitive information
• Service orientation: Motivated to anticipate and meet the needs of teammates.
• Active listening: Ability to give full attention to what other people are communicating, asking appropriate questions to understand their intended message, and recognizing implications presented by new information.
• Adaptability: Ability to accommodate change and stress in the workplace, make productive adjustments in response to valid criticism, and work cooperatively with others despite differences in working styles.

This role might also benefit from you having some of the following qualifications. You should still apply even if you don’t have any of these qualifications.

• Performance assessment: Ability to monitor and evaluate the performance of others to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
• Social perceptiveness: Ability to recognize others’ reactions and understand why they react as they do.
• Mission alignment: Commitment to the mission and values of Wild Animal Initiative, including ersity, equity, inclusion, and justice, and a passion for putting these concepts into practice.
• Technical skills: Thorough knowledge of or willingness to learn how to use Google Workplace (including Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive), Asana, Airtable, and other programs.

About our mission

Wild Animal Initiative is an entirely remote 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit working to understand and improve the lives of wild animals. Read more about us here.

We are looking to work with people who approach our mission as an inherently inclusive endeavor and celebrate the differences of others. We strongly encourage Black, Brown, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of the global majority to apply. We welcome applicants of any religion, age, origin, class, citizenship, parental status, disability status, genetics, sexual orientation, and gender.

Note: We are unfortunately not able to sponsor work visas at this time and require candidates to already be eligible to work in the jurisdictions where they live or will live by the start of their employment.

Thank you for considering Wild Animal Initiative as the next part of your vocational journey. We hope to hear from you! Please feel free to reach out to Hiring Manager Emily Sharp at: if you have questions about our hiring process or open positions, or if you would like to help us find excellent candidates to join our team.

Requests for accommodation: If you are a qualified inidual with a disability, we welcome requests for reasonable accommodations if you are unable or limited in your ability to apply for this job as a result of your disability. You can request reasonable accommodations by contacting Hiring Manager Emily Sharp at: