Senior Administrative Associate

Senior Administrative Associate Organization: J-PAL Global Location: Remote work from home Start Date (Earliest): ASAP Length of Commitment: More than two years Education: Bachelor's degree Position Overview: The Senior Administrative Associate works at MIT in The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) globally headquartered within the Economics Department at MIT. World-renowned for both its education and cutting-edge research, MIT welcomes people from all walks of life to bring their talent, ideas, and experience to our community. If you want to be part of our exceptional, multicultural, collaborative, and inclusive community, then take a look at this opportunity. This position location is remote work from home, from anywhere in the world, with work hours aligned to the U.S. Eastern time zone. Typical work hours are Mon-Fri 8am to 5pm (ET) and follow most of the US holiday calendar with some exceptions. The MIT holiday schedule can be found here. The Senior Administrative Associate provides complex and diverse administrative support to the Executive Director (ED) of J-PAL and the Executive Committee. Responsibilities include calendaring and scheduling, prioritizing conflicting appointments, organizing, attending and notetaking for high level meetings, proofreading and copyediting, responding to inquiries addressed to the Executive Director, contact management maintenance, event planning, drafting correspondence, organizing quarterly Executive Committee meetings, including reaching out to faculty and staff for agenda topics, preparing agendas for approval, drafting decision points, finalizing decisions with the Executive Director, and communicating decisions to J-PAL staff worldwide and responding to questions, and leading regular presentations on Executive Committee decisions/discussions for J-PAL staff while respecting confidentiality as appropriate. Principal Duties and Responsibilities: Executive Assistance to the Executive Director (50%) • Manages the schedule of Executive Director, working iteratively with numerous staff andexternal contacts, including government officials, donors, academic leadership, leadershipwithin MIT and partner universities around the world. • Schedules diverse and complex appointments and meetings, accommodating multiple calendarsand competing priorities; proactively prioritizes conflicting meeting requests independently,checking with ED as needed. • Prepares itineraries for multiple constituents and prepares briefing documents for meetings andagendas for high-level meetings with regional offices and meetings with Faculty Directors. • Coordinate the preparation for external speaking events with organizers (headshot, bio,questions, tech runs) and J-PAL faculty and/or staff involved in such events. • Schedules travel arrangements, including international travel, coordinating with travel agendaand booking hotels and transportation as needed; keeping all interested parties informed ofchanges to schedules during travel. Senior Administrative Associate • Organizes internal and external meetings, including managing the booking of space, catering, and provision of A/V and IT services. • Process and submits reimbursements for travel and other expenses, maintain travel records and archive receipts. • Working with the HR team, assists with recruitment for high-level positions worldwide, including coordinating schedules and directing support staff on travel arrangements for candidates as necessary. • Manages address book for the Executive Director. • Manage contact records, track meetings and calls, and enters relationship histories into Salesforce; coordinates with staff to ensure meetings attended with Executive Director are entered into Salesforce; work with IT staff to streamline and improve the use of Salesforce for contact management. • Organize and update high-level documents and presentations for the Executive Director on google drive. • Manage donor mailings, such as annual holiday cards and annual reports for stewardship purposes. • Coordinate with design team for J-PAL communication materials. • Manage the Executive Director's web page and manage requests to the web team to update changes on website (articles, videos, new affiliates). • Anticipate various support needs that may arise. • Other duties as assigned by the Executive Director. Administrative Management for J-PAL Executive Committee (40%) • Manage the scheduling of the meetings, sending out requests for agenda items, clarifying agenda suggestions as needed, and drafting agendas for approval by ED. • Prepare EC meeting packets including final agendas, discussion materials for review, and, independently, pull together backup materials (CVs, publication lists, academic records) of faculty proposed for affiliate or invited researcher status. • Record meeting minutes and finalize for approval with the ED. • Pre and post meeting logistics and support, including data entry in Salesforce and J-PAL listservs, updating handbook, summarizing EC decisions while respecting confidentiality, sharing decisions across J-PAL and making regular presentations on key EC decisions to J-PAL staff in Cambridge. • Coordinate with appropriate stakeholders for inquiries and record keeping. Event Coordination (10% time) • Plan and coordinate visits by high-level MIT donors to J-PAL. • Plan and coordinate domestic and international meetings and events at J-PAL. • Manage development of invitation lists in coordination with others, supervise sending of invitations and tracking of responses, arrange speakers, supervise catering arrangements and other logistics supported by J-PAL support staff. • Assist with F&O meetings and Board meetings as needed. Supervision Received: The Senior Administrative Associate reports directly to the Executive Director. He/she takes ownership of tasks and exercises good judgement in knowing when to ask for more direction from the supervisor and shows initiative in adding value to processes. Senior Administrative Associate Supervision Exercised: None. Qualifications & Skills: • Education: This position requires a minimum bachelor's degree. • Experience: 5 years experience in a professional work environment and relevant administrative support experience required. • Language: Ability to write and speak fluently in English. • Work style: Attention to detail, ability to work on projects independently yet accept supervision, and total reliability is required. Strong copy editing/proof reading skills and experience required. Enthusiasm for work, willingness to pitch in as needed, and a flexible approach to the working environment are essential. • Time Management: Proven ability to handle several different projects/tasks at one time, successfully complete tasks assigned, and meet deadlines. Strong ability to anticipate, plan, prioritize and meet deadlines is essential. • Software proficiency: Experience with computer applications and comfort learning new applications is required. Senior Administrative