Executive Assistant to Chief Operating Officer

What if your organisational skills could help drive the operational excellence behind one of the UK's leading dementia charities, directly supporting the leadership that keeps our vital work running?

About the opportunity

As Executive Assistant to our Chief Operating Officer, you'll be the strategic partner who enables operational leadership that touches every corner of our organisation. This isn't just diary management and administration. It's about being the person who ensures our COO can focus their expertise where it matters most: ensuring we deliver exceptional support, groundbreaking research, and powerful campaigning for everyone affected by dementia.

You'll provide seamless, executive-level support that combines personal assistance with strategic thinking. From coordinating complex schedules and managing high-level correspondence to drafting papers for Board meetings, coordinating senior recruitment, and maintaining crucial relationships with external stakeholders, you'll be at the heart of our operational leadership. You'll need to exercise tact, diplomacy, and sound judgement, think several steps ahead, handle highly confidential information with absolute discretion, and bring the proactive, forward-thinking approach that keeps a COO ahead of what's coming next.

This is a role for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, high-profile environment, operates with confidence when the pressure's on, and understands that every detail matters when you're supporting the leadership that ensures our organisation runs effectively to serve people living with dementia.

About you:

You're an experienced professional who's worked at C-Suite or Executive Director level and knows how to make complex leadership work seamlessly. You're the calm, capable presence who can manage competing priorities, build trusted relationships with everyone from trustees to external partners, draft compelling presentations and reports, and maintain absolute professionalism even when juggling multiple high priority demands.

You'll have:

• Experience of working with C-Suite or Executive Directors.
• Experience of extensive diary and correspondence management, including producing minutes, action lists and meeting summaries.
• Effective presentational and written communication skills, able to produce high-quality speakers notes, presentations, event content, letters, reports and other documentation.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to arrange/co-ordinate meetings, conferences and events, and to plan, prioritise and deliver to tight timescales.
• Experience of external profile raising, relationship/network management and the ability to influence stakeholders, including senior leaders inside and outside the Society.
• Experience of co-ordinating the work of others and influencing at all levels, including 'upwards' and with senior leaders.
• Thorough knowledge of Microsoft Office, particularly Outlook.
• Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information with absolute discretion.

What you'll focus on:

• Managing the COO's diary and time effectively, staying ahead of needs and ensuring optimal use of their schedule.
• Handling all correspondence, using sound judgement to determine what requires independent response, team input, or COO involvement.
• Drafting high-quality reports, papers and presentations for Board meetings, Executive Leadership Team sessions and sector events.
• Building and maintaining exceptional relationships with external stakeholders, donors, corporates and internal colleagues to support the COO's profile.
• Coordinating and delivering Directorate events, development programmes and away days from start to finish.
• Supporting recruitment for senior roles, working with talent acquisition and executive search agencies to manage processes and candidates.
• Prioritising speaking requests, meetings and opportunities to ensure the COO's time is focused on strategic priorities.

Can you see yourself as the trusted right hand to the Chief Operating Officer, ensuring our organisation delivers for people affected by dementia?

Are you ready to bring your executive-level skills to a role where every meeting you coordinate, every paper you draft, and every relationship you nurture contributes to transforming the lives of people affected by dementia?

Please note: this role is a fixed term contract, ending June 30th, 2026. Internal applicants will be employed on a Secondment basis.

Important Dates:
The deadline for applications is Friday 31st October 2025.
Interviews will begin week commencing 10th November 2025.

Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.

At Alzheimer’s Society, we’re the UK’s leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.

Together with our supporters, we’re working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.

Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer's Society.  

We want everyone we work with, as a colleague, volunteer, supporter, or someone we support, to feel included and that they belong at Alzheimer's Society. 

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee forum and Employee Lived Experience network groups help us promote inclusion and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people. 

Our hiring process

During your recruitment process we want to make sure that you bring your whole self and can be at your best. We are working hard to ensure our recruitment process is as inclusive as possible, so please do inform us of your experience and anything you think we could do better by completing our candidate survey when you apply.  Please also contact Alzheimer’s Society Talent Acquisition Team via [email protected] for application support or any adjustments you might need.

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. We recognise the benefits of AI, but if you're considering using it to submit your application, we encourage you to reflect on the value it truly adds. AI tools often lack the personal touch and authenticity that set candidates apart. We want to hear your unique perspective, experiences, and skills, so we encourage you to showcase them in your own voice.

We try to avoid closing roles early where possible, however if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close earlier than the advertised closing date. Should this occur, we will aim to provide you with at least 48 hours' notice.

We are committed to safer recruitment and ensuring the welfare of those we work with, due to the nature of some of our roles, we might need to carry out a DBS check at the relevant level.

Giving back to you

Our employees work hard every day to make a true difference in people's lives. We are proud to support them with a range of benefits, recognition and many options for working agilely, all contributing to a strong work life balance. We also have various learning programmes to support you in your development and help you grow to realise your potential and shape a career with Alzheimer's Society. 

You can also visit our Working for Us pages, which give you more information about what it’s like to be an employee at the Society.