Job description
 
The Executive Dean of the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care is seeking a highly proficient Executive Assistant, with excellent communication and organisational skills, strong accuracy and a proactive and flexible approach, and experience of supporting research and/or education. This is an excellent development opportunity for a motivated and skilled individual who wishes to excel at a high level in a varied and interesting role, with considerable outreach and communication.   
 
The Executive Dean is responsible for the Faculty’s overall strategic and operational leadership, including successful delivery of its internationally renowned education and research activities. The Executive Dean has a very wide range of responsibilities, both within the Faculty and university and externally; this includes strategic direction and analysis, people management, reporting, and working closely with multiple individuals and students. Leading by example, she maintains a high quality research, teaching and clinical academic profile; and is one of the top 1% highly cited researchers. She leads high quality international and national projects in palliative care and manages researchers and projects, involving complex organisation and active dissemination and engagement. Her prioritisation and diary management are complex. The Executive Assistant will help to maximise her effectiveness in the role. The Executive Dean works closely with the Faculty’s academic and professional services leads, including the Faculty Director of Operations, who is the Faculty’s professional services lead with responsibility for the operations and support of the education and research activities, and the Business Manager of the Cicely Saunders Institute, where the Executive Dean’s research and education activities are undertaken.  
 
The role involves efficient communication and liaison with a wide range of individuals, from students to senior colleagues, public and patients, and in different formats, written, email, presentations, prioritisation of own work and that of requests to Executive Dean, attention to detail and checking, project management, use of initiative, and excellent organisation. The overall objective of the role is to help the Faculty, and the Executive Dean, excel in education, research, knowledge transfer and impact activities. The post holder will need to efficiently prioritise their workload and juggle a varied range of responsibilities. They will be the primary point of contact for the Executive Dean and work closely with them to enable her to meet their objectives. Key requirements and responsibilities are outlined in relevant sections below.   
 
This post is offered on an open ended contract  
This is offered as full-time post – 100% full time equivalent, job share applicants will be considered.

Key responsibilities
The post holder provides high quality proactive executive assistant support to the Faculty’s Executive Dean, along with support to specific initiatives and activities agreed with the Executive Dean. Key responsibilities include:  
 

• act as the first point of contact for the Executive Dean for staff, students, and stakeholders across and outside King’s College London, triaging and/or dealing with actions, preparing and sharing materials and reports, meeting papers etc as appropriate 
• deal efficiently with all communications, correspondence and other enquiries, using clear language and prioritising as needed, and able to adapt communication for a wide range of individuals, from senior academics and funders, peers, students and patients and the public, producing a variety of documents including letters, emails, reports, public facing summaries and information for committee papers, handling as much of it as possible on behalf of the Executive Dean and/or as directed by the Executive Dean,  
• help the Executive Dean’s leadership of her research, knowledge transfer and education activities, being aware of her research teams and programmes, liaising with funders where she is PI, helping with outreach and communication, conference organisers and presentations, dissemination, patient and public and collaborator liaison, supporting reports and publications, grant submissions, publication submissions, proof reading, accuracy checking, coordinating co-applicants and collaborators  
• help the Faculty excel in education, research, knowledge transfer and impact activities through their activities with a focus on high quality and accurate materials and efficient responses 
• be responsible for the delivery and day-to-day management of executive assistant support for the Executive Dean including diary prioritisation and management, purchasing resources, processing expense claims, supporting specific initiatives, including outreach, promotions, performance reviews and work to find the most environmentally sustainable and financially prudent use of funds and time  
• keep abreast of Faculty and Executive Dean activities, and aiding signposting to relevant activities or publications or individuals or teaching programmes, and outreach communication, and establish and update contact/address records and clear, well-documented processes and maintaining records to facilitate information retrieval and manipulation 
• organise all aspects of relevant meetings and appointments including room / online booking/appointments, refreshments, greeting key visitors, donors and contacts, producing itineraries as necessary, preparing and distributing papers and taking minutes for relevant meetings, for Faculty or research, as directed by the Executive Dean; this will include to organise Dean’s or key visitors travel arrangements and online speaking engagements,  
• assist the Executive Dean in producing presentation material, reports and public facing documents, including expert use of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Use initiative and creativity to resolve frequently occurring issues, without guidance/supervision 
• monitor relevant budgets, e.g. of Dean’s Exec, assist in Worktribe grant submissions, monitoring and preparation of project reports and dissemination materials, HR systems and appointments  
• use well-developed analytical skills to identify trends and patterns, in order to inform decisions, solve problems and assist in work prioritisation and planning and provide advice/ guidance and, where appropriate, training to colleagues, helping them to make decisions and providing feedback  
• manage own workload, pattern of work and resources based on an agreed work plan, to deliver the required support, responding to changing priorities and an evolving environment/context, maximising the efficiency of the support being provided  
• forge relationships and work collaboratively with colleagues in the university and externally to build relationships, disseminate and get information, coordinate, and deliver the required support 
• support and encourage an inclusive, collaborative, enabling culture and ethos, sharing of best practice, working with students, academic staff and professional services colleagues, patients and public and external contacts and building consistency of practice and process,  
• comply with relevant regulations, guidance and legislation governing the area of work and responsibility, including General Data Protection Regulation, ethical committee and data management approvals, supporting the monitoring safe and ethical practices, completing risk assessments where required and adapting the working environment to reduce the level of hazard   
• other duties relevant to the role, including supporting specific projects.  

 
The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.  
 
Skills, knowledge, and experience 
 
Essential criteria  
 
1.       Degree or equivalent level of qualification  
2.       Considerable knowledge and skills gained through work experience in a relevant post, demonstrating development through progressively more demanding work and/or completion of relevant professional training and administrative/operations experience with an in-depth knowledge of a range of practices, methods, and procedures 
3.       Excellent communication skills, written, verbal, electronic, with proven ability to adapt to different audiences / contexts, with accurate spoken and written English, with high level of confidentiality and respect for individuals 
4.       Excellent ability to understand issues quickly and to prioritise, using initiative and judgement to address and solve problems and setting own short-term priorities and being agile when circumstances / needs change 
5.       Proficient computer use, and ability to learn new programmes/systems quickly with knowledge of the full Microsoft package – MS Outlook 365, MS Teams, PowerPoint, Word (including large complex documents) and Excel, along with the use of a web-publishing software package, reference management systems (such as Endnote), online grant application systems along with the use of in-house systems such as Worktribe 
6.       Good understanding of academic research and education, including co-ordinating relevant teams, supporting teaching and/or research, such as research referencing requirements, paper or grant preparation and submission deadlines and processes 
7.       Excellent attention to detail and accuracy and well organised 
8.       Strong interpersonal and influencing/behavioural skills, able to build relationships quickly, proactive and responsive to contacts in immediate area, across the organisation and externally, building relationships and a network 
9.       Solutions-focused self-starter, with excellent planning and organisational skills,  able to manage competing priorities and work with minimal supervision 
10.   Interest in, and commitment to, high quality research and education in palliative care, nursing and/or midwifery  
 
Desirable criteria
 
1.       Have a good working knowledge of GDPR regulations and experience of complying with complex regulations/procedures, ethical committee requirements or submissions for research  
2.       Experience of supporting high performing research teams within the higher education and/or health care sector 
3.       Experience of working in the higher education and/or health care sector  
4.       Evidence of an active commitment to career development for self and others, with experience of supervising colleagues, providing training/coaching where necessary