Senior Lead Executive Assistant, Office of the President

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Position Purpose

The position provides comprehensive executive administrative and operational support to the Office of the President ensuring the effective functioning of executive leadership at the university. Acting as a point of coordination the role enables the President and senior leadership to focus on institutional priorities by anticipating needs managing complex workflows and ensuring seamless communication with internal and external stakeholders at the highest levels.

This position combines high-level executive support with communications governance coordination and digital systems management ensuring the Office of the President operates with precision professionalism and impact. The incumbent plays a key role in strengthening institutional reputation supporting decision-making processes and fostering alignment across the university community through effective communication event management and stakeholder engagement. The incumbent serves as a key representative of the university in interactions with senior-level visitors dignitaries and VIPs ensuring a welcoming and professional experience that reflects the institutions values and reputation.

Beyond direct support the role contributes to the professional development and coordination of the broader executive assistant community promoting consistent standards of excellence collaboration and innovation in administrative practices across the institution.

Specific Accountabilities

• Manage complex and confidential calendars to optimizing time of the President and its Chief of Staff for strategic priorities. Exercise sound judgment and discretion in managing the Presidents calendar autonomously making timely decisions regarding scheduling changes. Recognize the potential downstream impact of canceling or rescheduling meetings with stakeholders at the highest levels and ensure that accommodation for high-priority individuals is handled with strategic consideration minimal disruption and with productive outcomes in mind. Manage dynamic calendars and adapt to unanticipated adjustments in meetings or events.
• Coordinate complex travel itineraries for senior leaders including international arrangements ensuring that any visa documentation for the President is obtained and is compliant with destination country requirements. Liaise with relevant authorities and travel providers to facilitate smooth cross-border travel. Prepare reimbursement packages and ensure compliance with institutional policies. Input and validate data in systems such as Workday ensuring accuracy and relevance to ensure proper and timely processing.
• Ensure the President is fully prepared for all high-impact meetings without exception by anticipating needs and coordinating briefing materials. Prepare and coordinate executive-level reports presentations and meeting briefs that synthesize key insights for decision-making and coordinate the Presidents participation in governance meetings (e.g. Administrative Committee Board Senate) ensuring timely and accurate documentation pre-readings and follow-ups.
• Lead the design and layout of executive presentations and reports integrating branding and accessibility standards. Draft correspondence for senior leadership including presentations and speeches and coordinate translation and ensure consistency across bilingual documents.
• Facilitate agenda development minute-taking and action tracking for executive committees. Provide advance contextual political and biographical information to support executives ahead of meetings ensuring they are well-prepared and informed.
• Oversee scheduling and logistics for high-impact meetings and events by acting as liaison with high-level external and internal stakeholders including government officials at the highest levels members of the diplomatic corps transformational donors and senior academic partners to ensure the proper use of the Office to the Presidents agenda. Ensure all security clearance applications are submitted accurately and completely for the President and entourage to fulfill their role without delays or disruption.
• Establish and manage structured digital filing systemsusing platforms such as SharePoint and Microsoft Teams to support governance compliance and organizational knowledge management. Apply secure archiving and access control protocolsin accordance with institutional standards ensuring proper permissions retention policies and confidentiality across all supported platforms.
• Lead the triage on incoming and intake requests to the Office of the President ensuring the proper and effective routing to relevant stakeholders. Triage incoming requests in their different forms (in person email phone mail).
• Oversee correspondence workflows and ensure timely responses and serve as a trusted point of contact for internal and external stakeholders by managing sensitive inquiries with professionalism and confidentiality.
• Maintain and curate internal communication channels including internal website and Teams hubs to facilitate communication between staff and leadershipby gathering synthesizing and relaying organizational feedback sentiment and emerging concerns to support executive awareness and responsiveness. Develop and update directories and contact resources to streamline internal navigation.
• Advance the professional development of the executive assistant community by implementing initiatives that strengthen skills knowledge-sharing and mentorship. Act as an informal leader among executive support professionals encouraging knowledge-sharing continuous improvement and the adoption of forward-thinking practices. Lead group initiatives to address common challenges and generate creative solutions that benefit the broader administrative network.
• Establish and uphold consistent administrative standards across the institution driving collaboration and innovation in executive support practices.

Knowledge Experience Competencies and Skills

• Postsecondary education in administration office technology or an equivalent combination of education and work experience
• Proven experience providing executive-level support in a complex organization ideally within higher education government or a large institution. (Equivalent to a minimum of seven (7) years demonstrated pertinent experience in a similar role)
• Exceptional organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities anticipate needs and deliver under pressure.
• Experience in a university (an asset)
• Superior written and verbal communication skills; ability to draft edit and synthesize materials for executive and governance audiences.
• Strong relationship management skills with the ability to work effectively with senior leaders government representatives and external stakeholders.
• Demonstrated discretion judgment and ability to handle highly sensitive and confidential information.
• Political and organizational savvy; ability to navigate complex governance structures and institutional dynamics.
• Strong proficiency with office productivity tools and digital collaboration platforms (e.g. MS Office 365 Teams Zoom Workday databases etc.)
• Ability to work with minimal supervision in a team environment under pressure with firm deadlines.
• Ability to show adaptability resilience and professionalism in managing shifting priorities and urgent demands.
• Strong organizational and project management skills
• Bilingualism - French and English (spoken and written)

Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa:

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect teamwork and inclusion where collaboration innovation and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons racialized persons persons with disabilities women and LGBTQIA2S persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1 2022 the University required all students faculty staff and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.