Acumen West Africa is looking for a detail-oriented, supremely organized administrative professional to support our growing operations in Lagos. This is an outstanding opportunity for someone with exceptional interpersonal skills, an ability to juggle multiple workstreams, highest integrity and a passion to create positive change.
Acumen
Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services are enabling the poor to transform their lives. To date, Acumen has positively impacted 309 million lives by investing $137M in 139 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment isn’t only about capital, we’ve been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.
About Acumen West Africa
Acumen has been active in West Africa since 2012, managing investments in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. In 2019, Acumen West Africa moved its regional base to Lagos, and launched the inaugural cohort of the West Africa Fellows program. As our team and operations are growing, we are looking for someone to support a wide variety of needs, including travel coordination, fundraising research, office management, and administrative support to the Regional Director.
About the role
The West Africa Business Associate will play two important roles: providing executive support to the West Africa Managing Director and championing the operational needs of the West Africa team. The Business Associate will maintain primary responsibility for strategic relationship management, communications and logistical support, as well as serve as a key liaison for communication with the global staff, Board of Directors, Acumen Partners, and other members of the Acumen community.
Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:
Executive Support:
- Arrange and ensure seamless run of the WA Director’s daily schedule, juggling multiple, simultaneous requests across multiple time zones
- Prepare and socialize all essential logistics for the WA Director’s meetings
- Prepare, submit and track WA Director’s time sheets; along with those of direct reports for approval
- Prepare and track expense reports in timely manner following travel; review and advise on expense reports for WA Director’s direct reports, following Travel & Expense Policy
- Maintain presence-at-desk in order to efficiently and expediently respond to the needs of WA Director
- Support on research and preparation for external meetings, including liaising with other teams to create meeting briefings and submitting meeting notes
- Schedule and proactively plan recurring internal communications touch points including WA Team weekly meetings
Administrative Tasks:
- Act as internal resource and liaison for various operational needs (technology, insurance, security, general office administration, etc.) and lead vendor relationships
- Coordinating logistics for local Acumen events, planning and coordinating with the host, managing guest lists, caterers and other vendors
- Preparation of materials for external meetings, primarily in service of advancing fundraising goals
- Manage office petty cash and support accountants in processing of payments
- Maintain a presence at desk in order to efficiently and expediently respond to the immediate needs of the team and visitors
Travel and Logistics:
- Support global staff in making travel and lodging arrangements when visiting West Africa
- Work with relevant team members to ensure on-ground logistics are arranged and communicated; oversee all details for entire travel process from planning to on-the-ground to debriefs
- Provide clear, comprehensive travel packs including: detailed travel itinerary, logistical confirmations, diplomatic and/or medical clearance, meeting and investment context, etc.
- Forecast and obtain appropriate medical documentation, passport pages, and travel visas in advance of international trips as necessary
- Maintain accurate details for meetings in advance of travel, add to necessary calendars
- Understand travel preferences when booking flights, hotels, etc. and check to make sure these preferences are followed when possible, or communicated in advance when not possible
Qualifications & Skills
- 4-5 years of experience in professional environment. Experience as an Executive Assistant is preferred.
- Strong project management skills: demonstrated ability to take primary responsibility for execution of diverse number of projects in timely manner with limited supervision
- Proactive, demonstrated ability to anticipate needs and identify gaps before they arise, and jump in without being asked
- Exemplary interpersonal skills and ability to collaborate effectively with culturally diverse staff across geographies, functions and levels of the organization
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Complete discretion with sensitive information, both within the company and externally
- Proven mastery of tech apps including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Gmail, and Zoom
- Experience with Salesforce or other major CRM program preferred
- Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
- Permanent authorization to work in Nigeria required
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