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Executive Assistant / Executive Operations Partner

  • On-site
 · Lagos
  • Full-time
  • Closing on October 12, 2026

About the Role

We are looking for an exceptional Executive Assistant / Executive Operations Partner to
support the Executive Director. It is a strategic support role focused on maximizing the Executive Director’s effectiveness, capacity, and impact.

The Executive Director operates across organizational leadership, fundraising, partnerships, public engagements, thought leadership, governance, and a broad stakeholder network. Her time, attention, energy, and preparation are therefore critical organizational resources.

The purpose of this role is to enable the Executive Director to operate at her highest level of
effectiveness by providing the systems, structure, preparation, and follow-through needed to ocus on work that requires her leadership, judgment, relationships, and voice.
The successful candidate will manage the Executive Director’s capacity intentionally
understanding not just what is on her calendar, but why it matters; what needs to happen, but what deserves her attention; and how to create the conditions for sustainable, exceptional performance.

Key Responsibilities

  • Own and manage the Executive Director’s calendar as a strategic management tool, ensuring effective use of time, priorities, and capacity.
  • Develop a strong understanding of the Executive Director’s priorities and translate them into an effective weekly and monthly operating rhythm, with regular planning and review processes to ensure important priorities are not consistently displaced by urgent matters.
  • Ensure the Executive Director is informed and adequately prepared for important engagements by providing relevant context, background information, and timely briefings.
  • Support the Executive Director in maintaining excellent relationships with funders, prospective funders, partners, board members, senior stakeholders, speakers, collaborators, and other important contacts.
  • Coordinate meetings effectively, document key decisions and actions, and ensure timely follow-through to support reliable execution and organizational memory
  • Support the Executive Director in managing a high volume of communication, ensuring correspondence is appropriately prioritized, organized, and followed up on.
  • Conduct fast and reliable research to support executive decisions, meetings, and opportunities, and turn large amounts of information into concise, relevant, and decisionuseful summaries.
  • Use technology and AI-enabled tools to reduce friction, improve information flow, and increase executive productivity. Identify repetitive administrative processes that can be simplified, automated, or eliminated while maintaining appropriate confidentiality, verification, and information-security standards. Demonstrate technological curiosity, a systems-minded approach, and openness to new tools
  • Create and maintain an organized executive information environment with easily accessible and current repositories for important information, ensuring critical information can be retrieved quickly without depending on the Executive Director’s memory.
  • Coordinate domestic and international travel and major engagements end-to-end, considering not only logistical requirements but also the Executive Director’s ability to perform effectively during and after travel.
  • Develop polished presentations, briefing documents, and other executive materials, demonstrating strong visual judgment and the ability to turn ideas and information into clear, professional materials.
  • Support the Executive Director in operating sustainably by identifying patterns that may affect capacity, surface potential challenges, and proposing practical solutions that protect appropriate boundaries while supporting high performance.

What Success Looks Like

A highly effective person in this role will make the Executive Director noticeably more effective. The Executive Director should:

  • know what requires her attention and what does not;
  • arrive at important meetings properly briefed and prepared;
  • have sufficient thinking, preparation and recovery time around demanding engagements;
  • spend more time on her highest-value leadership responsibilities;
  • have fewer commitments, decisions and follow-ups living only in her head;
  • have confidence that important commitments will not be forgotten;
  • maintain strong, thoughtful relationships with funders, partners, board members and her key stakeholders;
  • experience less unnecessary fragmentation and administrative load;
  • have reliable systems for retrieving information, documents and institutional context;
  • be supported by someone who anticipates rather than simply reacts;
  • and have greater capacity to show up well as a leader while maintaining a sustainable life outside work.

Qualifications and Experience

We care more about demonstrated capability than a particular academic background. Strong candidates are likely to have:

  • Approximately 4–8 years of relevant professional experience.
  • Experience directly supporting a founder, CEO, Executive Director, senior executive or similarly demanding principal.
  • Experience managing complex calendars and competing priorities.
  • Strong written English and executive communication skills.
  • Experience coordinating projects and multiple stakeholders.
  • Excellent research and synthesis skills.
  • High proficiency with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
  • Strong PowerPoint/Google Slides, Canva, and presentation skills.
  • Familiarity with modern project-management, knowledge-management or productivity tools.
  • Practical experience using generative AI tools.
  • Experience in philanthropy, development, nonprofit organizations, public policy, consulting, professional services, startups or similarly fast-moving environments would be valuable but is not essential.
  • Commitment to WILAN Global’s mission of advancing women’s leadership and gender equality is essential.

About WILAN

Women in Leadership Advancement Network (WILAN) Global is a Nigerian-based global organization committed to advancing women’s leadership across all levels of political, economic, and public life.
WILAN Global is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive workplace and creating a safe, respectful, and collaborative environment for all employees.

Ready to make an impact?

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Submit yours before October 12, 2026

Apply Now

WILAN is an equal opportunity employer. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

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