Administrative Assistant

NATO; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 30,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A multinational defense organization is seeking an administrative professional to manage scheduling, travel arrangements, and document management for the leadership team. Candidates should have strong MS Office skills and experience in a diverse team environment. This role offers meaningful work and excellent benefits including tax-free salary and health insurance.

Benefits

Tax-free salary

Excellent private health insurance

Generous annual leave

Flexible working conditions

Qualifications

• Minimum 1 year post relevant experience with higher vocational training, or 3 years post related experience with secondary education.
• Proven experience of taking minutes at meetings and accurately transcribing them.
• Experience organizing conferences, meetings, or social events.

Responsibilities

• Assist in scheduling of the Head of Organizational Unit’s functions.
• Coordinate travel arrangements for the DIANA Senior Leadership Team.
• Monitor the circulation of documents and information for DIANA.

Skills

Excellent knowledge of MS Office suite

Proven experience in a multidisciplinary team environment

Excellent communication skills

Ability to work on own initiative

Experience in organizing meetings

Experience booking travel

Education

Higher vocational training or secondary education with relevant experience

Tools

MS Teams

MS SharePoint

Job description

"This vacancy notice is issued for the purpose of establishing a pool of qualified candidates. Inclusion in the pool does not constitute an offer of employment; candidates may be considered for future positions that align with their qualifications and organizational needs."

1. OVERVIEW OF DIANA

NATO DIANA is the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, a NATO body dedicated to finding and accelerating innovation to provide decisive defence and security effects for the Alliance, while fostering deep-tech innovation.

NATO DIANA is comprised of a Board of Directors, representing all 32 nations, and an operational team referred to as the DIANA Executive ("DX"). Operating from three offices in Europe and North America, the DX leverages a network of military end users, world-leading accelerator sites, test centres, professional mentors and experts, and Allied expertise to accelerate the most innovative technologies from across the NATO Alliance. DIANA is a dynamic, agile workplace, which strives for innovative thinking, diversity, and performance excellence across all teams. To achieve our mission, DIANA is committed to providing our people with an environment that is positive, inclusive and collaborative.

2. OVERVIEW OF THE ROLE

The incumbent will be responsible for the efficient operation of the day-to-day administrative function of their assigned unit, including to, but not limited to booking travel, organizing events and tracking and organizing documents.

Reporting to a member of the Senior Leadership Team.

Duties of this role include:

• Assist in the scheduling of the Head of Organizational Unit’s official functions, including maintaining the DIANA Senior Leadership Team calendars, and initiating follow-up actions
• Coordinate travel arrangements for the DIANA Senior Leadership Team and reconcile travel claims as needed
• Assist in organization, scheduling, and execution of meetings, events and key stakeholder visits, including room booking and arranging, as well as preparing agendas/programmes, taking meeting notes, and on-site hosting of visitors
• Monitor the circulation of documents and information to and from DIANA ensuring proper co-ordination, accuracy, completeness, clarity and conformity with DIANA procedures
• Establishing and maintaining DIANA office environment, including but not limited to the procurement of office supplies, working with facility partners and vendors, as well as coordinating visitor operations
• Serve as panel secretary on recruitment and innovator selection processes
• Assist in the management of divisional information and knowledge management, including preparation, handling and saving documents for action or signature according to appropriate NATO guidelines
• Perform any other related duties as may be required

3. ROLE REQUIREMENTS, QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL

• Minimum of completed higher vocational training in a relevant discipline with at least 1 year post relevant experience OR completed secondary education with 3 years post related experience
• Excellent knowledge of MS Office suite (Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint), as well as MS communication/collaboration tools MS Teams and MS SharePoint
• Proven experience of effectively working in a multidisciplinary, multinational team environment
• Ability to work on own initiative in a reliable and trustworthy manner in a demanding environment
• Proven experience of taking minutes at meetings and accurately transcribing them
• Excellent communication skills - written and oral, in particular, be able to draft quickly, clearly, and concisely in the English language
• Experience organising meetings and acting as the meeting Secretary when required
• Experience in the organisation of conferences, meetings and social events and/or programme administration
• Experience booking travel for multiple personnel, in particular senior level leaders, as well as preparing expense reports
• Possess the following minimum levels of NATO’s official languages (English/French): V ("Advanced") in one; and I ("Beginner") in the other

NOTE: Most of DIANA’s internal work is conducted in the English language.

DESIRABLE

• Experience providing administrative support in an international organisation
• Experience providing administrative support in an incubator or accelerator
• Experience working with project management software (i.e. Smartsheets, Asana, MS Projects or similar)
• Knowledge of NATO institutional framework, policies and procedures

4. WHAT WE OFFER

• Genuinely meaningful work as part of the newest unit within the most successful alliance in history
• Tax-free salary
• Household and children’s allowances and privileges for expatriate staff including expatriation and educational allowances (where applicable) and additional home leave
• Excellent private health insurance scheme
• NATO pension scheme
• Generous annual leave of 30 days plus official holidays
• Flexible working conditions and a smoke-free office in London

The incumbent is required to be a resident in the host nation for the duration of their contract. DIANA has a flexible teleworking policy to permit working in office, at home, and across NATO Allied Nations subject to managerial approval. In accordance with the NATO Civilian Personnel Regulations, the successful candidate will receive a definite duration contract of three years, which may be followed by an extension.

If the successful applicant is seconded from the national administration of one of NATO’s member States, a 3‑year definite duration contract will be offered, which may be renewed for a further period of up to 3 years subject to the agreement of the national authority concerned. The maximum period of service in the post as a seconded staff member is six years.

Appointment will be subject to receipt of a security clearance (provided by the national Authorities of the selected candidate) and approval of the candidate’s medical file by the NATO Medical Adviser.

Applicants who are not successful in this competition may be offered an appointment to another post of a similar nature, albeit at the same or a lower grade, provided they meet the necessary requirements.

NOTE: DIANA will not accept any phase of the recruitment and selection prepared, in whole or in part, by means of generative artificial‑intelligence (AI) tools, including and without limitation to chatbots, such as Chat Generative Pre‑trained Transformer (Chat GPT), or other language generating tools. DIANA reserves the right to screen applications to identify the use of such tools. All applications prepared, in whole or in part, by means of such generative or creative AI applications may be rejected without further consideration at DIANA’s sole discretion, and DIANA reserves the right to take further steps in such cases as appropriate.

For more information on DIANA, please visit our website.