Executive Assistant

Role: Executive Assistant

Contract: Permanent, Full Time

Location: Hybrid working. Cornwall or London office three days per week, home working two days per week.

Job Purpose
The Executive Assistant will provide administrative and internal and external stakeholder management support to the Executive Director. The role will also provide some support to the Director of Finance and Administration, and the wider team.

Eligible candidates should be extremely organised, have excellent communication and the confidence to independently manage a wide variety of tasks and stakeholders. They must have relevant experience in supporting executive roles and be enthusiastic and proactive in completing a wide variety of vital tasks independently.

The position will be hybrid, with 3 days per week (Tues-Thurs) based in Oceana’s UK offices in Newquay, Cornwall or Paddington, London. Regular national, and occasional international, travel will be required to meet team members and stakeholders in geographically diverse locations, including Washington, DC.

About Oceana UK
Oceana UK is focused on some of the biggest threats facing UK seas, including protecting seabed habitats, ending overfishing, and preventing new offshore oil and gas developments. We fight for UK seas to get the protections they deserve through highly visible campaigns and detailed policy interventions to secure measurable changes to rebuild and maintain ocean abundance and health. We act as a vital public-policy interface – raising the profile of our issues through campaigns, science, communications, and expeditions, and directly influencing policymakers and politicians.

We are now at a pivotal moment of growth, impact, and development. We have delivered meaningful progress in our first full three years of operations, helping secure major victories to protect and restore UK seas, including protecting huge areas of our seas from industrial fishing and stopping new offshore oil and gas expansion. Working closely with our international team, we are now evolving our organisation and campaigns to deliver even greater impact in the next 3-5 years, underpinned by strengthened funder relationships.

Our small, experienced, and highly motivated team are based in London and Cornwall, coming together both digitally and in person as part of developing and delivering our ambitious campaign strategy to restore ocean biodiversity and abundance. We’re proud of the team we’re creating here in the UK, and we’d love for you to join us.

Responsibilities

• Support the ED to align time, attention and decision-making with organisational priorities, ensuring focus on high-impact work.
• Provide diary support to the Executive Director, including coordination of meetings, focus-time, effective travel planning, and other cross-team calendar management.
• Provide inbox management support to the Executive Director, assisting with task and diary prioritisation.
• Provide administrative support to the Executive Director, including travel bookings, expense reporting, and credit card statement reconciliations.
• Act as the first point of contact for the organization, including monitoring and responding to email inbox.
• Provide a liaison point between the ED and senior leaders, staff, and external stakeholders, ensuring timely follow-up, actions, and clear communication.
• Proatively coordinate and manage correspondence, briefings, meeting memos, departmental reports, and presentations on behalf of the Executive Director, ensuring timeliness, accuracy, and alignment with the ED’s voice.
• Attend meetings to capture notes and follow up actions, ensuring these are circulated and completed.
• Use a high degree of tact, judgment, and strong interpersonal skills to address timely correspondence, minimizing handling by the Executive Director.
• Manage occasional internal and external events (in-person and virtual), including planning and managing vendors, venues, online platforms, guestlists and invites, run of shows.
• Organise and manage external, departmental and international meetings, including scheduling, drafting agendas, taking notes, reviewing action items, and maintaining relevant documents.
• Follow up on assignments given by the Executive Director to direct reports and provide the Executive Director with periodic updates.
• Support the coordination of campaign and fundraising tasks including mailouts, guestlists, reports…