Let us introduce ourselves…
It is the people at Shakespeare Martineau that make us so special. By understanding what our people want, giving them the support they need, recognising everyone’s contribution and realising the unique power of teams; together we win. As a firm we are focused on proactively building and developing diverse teams, bringing different backgrounds, personalities and perspectives together. We play to our strengths, pushing ourselves to be consistently better than yesterday and deliver amazing solutions for our clients. We empower our teams with a high degree of individual responsibility; we self-manage and encourage everyone to be responsible for their own learning, knowing it makes us even better at what we do!
We believe in trusting our people to make the right decisions for themselves from how you dress, to how, when and where you work – we focus on outputs.
The team:
To provide truly outstanding client service we work as one team. Our Business Operations Group is made up of business professionals who work with our legal professionals to provide market-leading expertise to our clients. The group includes; Finance & Risk, Buildings & Infrastructure, Marketing & People and C-Suite teams.
Our Executive Leadership team play a crucial role on a full range of executive matters across the firm. Working closely with our Heads of Operations, Main Board as well as a wide range of stakeholders and individuals in the business, the team help execute the firm’s strategic plan as well as building and shaping our culture.
The role:
We have an exciting opportunity for an Executive Governance PA to join our C-Suite team. This is a pivotal role that holds the responsibility of supporting a dynamic Chief Executive in the next exciting phase of growth into a group structure.
Good governance is at the heart of any successful business, to help achieve its objectives and drive improvement. This role requires a fantastic organiser, with top-level, proven, administration skills, that must include experience of minute taking. You will co-ordinate all governance activity and be proficient in arranging board meetings, preparation of meeting papers, arranging events, document and process management, monitoring timescale agendas, monitoring framework compliance and summarising reports.
This role with grow with the business, and offers plenty of opportunity, variety and responsibility. The governance focus will remain at the heart of the role as it develops and therefore we are looking for someone who has a passion and enthusiasm for this aspect of the role and who will want to champion this moving forward.
We are looking for someone who is flexible, excited by the prospect of growth and doing things differently and who will appreciate the open and fun style of the Chief Executive and Board.
Your key duties will be:
- providing high level administrative support to board meetings including co-ordinating board meetings, collating papers, taking minutes, monitoring and advising on actions within relevant timescales
- managing the governance timetable, ensuring that meetings across the leadership group are booked in sensible timeframes and taking into account the wider view of events and timings
- monitoring regulation, legislation and / or best practice that may be relevant to the project and to ensure the Chief Executive is fully up to date
- providing administrative support, including diary management, expense filing and ad hoc tasks for the Chief Executive, and sometimes other members of the C-Suite in support of the wider PA support team
- dealing with Board Members’ enquiries and directing enquiries to relevant parties
- co-ordinating regular communications to support the Board
- facilitating in house and external training in liaison with the Chief Executive, Compliance Officer for Legal Practice and Learning & Development team
- contributing to the engagement and support of Board Members through the provision of timely information on operations, events and other matters as required by the Chief Executive or Senior Partner
- maintaining policies and procedures and code of conduct records
- ensuring comprehensive records are maintained
- liaising with the departments who regularly interact with the Board or C-Suite to maintain relationships and ensure ease of information flow
- working with the internal communications and external PR teams to ensure the Chief Executive is supporting in terms of both internal and external communications
- working with the Senior Partner and the Chief Executive to ensure the communication flow to the wider Membership is maintained and that the governance of their information portal is tight. This includes timely uploading of relevant information to the portal (including minutes from various Boards) and working with Member Services to ensure the correct Members have access
- ensuring all policies, structure diagrams and role scope descriptions are up to date and, where they need to be reviewed, make necessary amendments
Skills and experience:
- a minimum of 2 years’ previous experience in a Governance Officer / Personal or Executive Assistant support role is essential
- whilst previous experience in a law firm may be advantageous, it is by no means a pre-requisite. The understanding of working within a larger organisation may be more beneficial, particularly if that includes knowledge of group structures
- strong stakeholder engagement and interpersonal skills with an ethical and transparent approach to work
- experience of supporting and co-ordinating board meetings with the ability to take and produce high quality minutes
Key competencies:
- to have the highest level of discretion and confidentiality
- to be able to work flexibly to meet the evolving needs of the business
- to be highly articulate, with excellent IT and communication skills
- excellent attention to detail and be able to work effectively at pace
- to be a pro-active thinker and able to use your initiative to keep things moving
- to be forward thinking and aligned to our strategy
- to have a solution focused approach
- to be positive and approachable with a good sense of humour and able to remain calm under pressure
- to have a proactive, planned and consistent approach
How we work:
We embrace agile working and offer a blended approach to where and how we work.
We appreciate that people have different needs and preferences and we’re keen to be flexible, after all, we value what you do, not where you do it.
We have hubs in Birmingham, Leicester, London, Milton Keynes, Nottingham and Stratford-upon-Avon. This role will offer a blend of home working with travel as required to our office hubs.
Flexibility with hours is required; due to the nature of the team’s work some weekend or evening work may be necessary. |
