Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, we work with partners to create impactful solutions so that people can take charge of their futures and achieve their full potential. The Senior Program Assistant plays a crucial role in supporting the Africa Director and the office, ensuring high-level executive support, project coordination, and operational excellence, while managing complex logistics and stakeholder engagement vital for the Africa region's strategic priorities.
What You'll Do
Executive and Leadership Support
- Manage complex calendars across multiple time zones and participants, strategically prioritize and schedule a high volume of appointments, meetings, and travel.
- Partner with teams across the foundation to ensure the Africa Director and office is well-prepared for upcoming meetings (meeting agenda, pre-reads, etc.), including the need to "connect dots" and flag vital information, when appropriate.
- Prepare agendas, materials, and follow-ups for leadership meetings and decisions.
Project and Program Delivery Support
- Provide project management support to manage team workloads, coordinate projects, and provide consistent administrative support across the team.
- Work on division-specific special projects as needed.
- Drive execution of pivotal initiatives, ensuring alignment with Africa regional priorities.
- Track project timelines, deliverables, and proactively address risks or delays.
Meeting and Event Management
- Coordinate high-level meetings and events involving internal teams and African leaders.
- Manage team meeting logistics; take and synthesize meeting notes; track and ensure follow-up of action items.
- Provide communications support to ensure timely responses to inquiries, including answering and prioritizing correspondence for the Africa Director and other principals.
- Lead the logistics, planning, and coordination for internal and external events, meetings, conferences, retreats, and presentations, which may include coordinating arrangements for participants, handling logistics, and preparing and disseminating materials and in-the-moment problem solving.
- Maintain meeting cadence and negotiate scheduling with PSTs and other stakeholders.
Communication and Briefing Support
- Interact and communicate clearly and consistently with grantees and partners in the field.
- Develop concise, tailored briefing materials for events and leadership engagements.
- Anticipate information needs and ensure leaders are well-prepared.
Operational Excellence and Planning
- Provide operational support including but not limited to, maintaining organized files and records, developing a system for tracking, monitoring, and prioritizing tasks and projects, and managing the team SharePoint site to ensure knowledge management across the team.
- Perform basic financial duties, including expense, budget, invoice reconciliation, and adherence to organizational policies.
- Maintain oversight of team calendars and ensure seamless coordination of workstreams.
Stakeholder Engagement and Coordination
- Liaise with internal and external stakeholders to support Africa's strategic presence.
- Facilitate clear communication and timely resolution of cross-team issues.
- Partner with team leaders to execute team priorities, establish team processes, and deliver against tight deadlines, while helping develop a strong and cohesive team culture.
Strategy Execution and Problem-Solving
- Support strategy reviews and planning processes with analysis and coordination.
- Identify challenges, recommend solutions, and support effective decision-making.
Your Experience and Qualifications
- A bachelor’s degree is required; an advanced degree is a plus. Equivalent experience may be considered.
- Must have a minimum of 5 years’ experience supporting senior executives in a complex and fast-paced environment.
- Experience in an environment requiring diplomacy and good judgment in managing interactions inside and outside an organization, with individuals at all levels, including senior executives and other high-level officials.
- Sense of initiative, robust organizational and project management skills, ability to work autonomously and cross-functionally while remaining flexible to changing tasks, priorities, and roles and responsibilities.
- Clear and consistent communication skills, both verbal and written; bias for collaboration and partnership.
- Results oriented. Works with a sense of purpose and consistency and is able to reliably set and meet deadlines.
