Business Support Manager

Location: London (with travel to Stevenage)

Job Type: Permanent and full time

Please note that the closing date for this role is 20/02/206.

Are you passionate about making life science life changing and delivering impact for patients? We want to hear from you.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity to have significant impact in a new role at LifeArc, working for our Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). The Business Support Manager, together with the CSO’s Executive/Personal Assistant, will provide a complete professional, administrative, and logistical support service to enable the CSO to perform their role as efficiently and effectively as possible. This involves proactive management of day-to-day business including drafting of all types of written communication; meeting and event organisation; complex diary management and travel arrangements; project coordination and delivery.

Acting as a senior administrative aide to the CSO, the Business Support Manager will manage and coordinate the CSO’s agenda across the full range of their work, providing support for their time management, preparation, and planning. The role will take forward projects on the CSO’s behalf as well as overseeing communications, execution of key plans and decisions, and management of stakeholder liaison, including with the CSO's direct reports and other senior colleagues and stakeholders, whilst ensuring a high level of responsiveness to evolving priorities and demands.

The CSO office communicates and liaises often at the highest levels with external and internal stakeholders, including government departments, funding bodies, major donors and foundations, and sector bodies, both nationally and internationally. The role demands a high level of integrity and discretion, and a strong commitment to the mission and values of LifeArc.

About you:

• Provide structured and proactive management of all ongoing and upcoming CSO commitments, ensuring that they are organised effectively, that they are realistic and achievable and that the CSO is adequately prepared.
• Cultivate strong working relationships with the CSO’s direct reports and senior stakeholders, both internally and externally, to champion the CSO’s priorities. Provide trusted guidance on approach and process, while ensuring critical matters are surfaced and presented in a clear, informed manner.
• Manage and oversee email communications, including reviewing, triaging, and prioritising messages on behalf of the CSO, drafting responses where appropriate, and ensuring critical issues are addressed with urgency and discretion.
• Compose professional and impactful communications on behalf of the CSO spanning emails, briefings, speeches, and formal committee documents.
• Act as a delegate for the CSO at meetings as required and provide timely feedback and diligent follow-up on outcomes and action points as appropriate.
• Lead the design, planning, and execution of business planning processes, CSO Team meetings and other strategic initiatives driven by the CSO.
• Deliver strategic support to the CSO through expert advice and research, preparing concise briefings for key meetings and events, and ensuring timely and effective follow-through on action items.
• Join the CSO in meetings where required, proactively managing post-meeting deliverables and follow-up responsibilities.
• Coordinate recurring one-to-one meetings between the CSO and their direct reports, supporting the scheduling and preparation of materials, tracking follow-up actions, and assisting with documentation related to progress reviews, workload planning, and appraisal processes.
• Build relationships with senior leadership team and other senior managers, collaborating directly with them on CSO requirements.
• Engage in regular reviews with the CSO to evaluate joint initiatives, incorporating feedback and outcomes to drive continuous improvement and effectiveness.

Essential experience required:

• Significant executive level support experience, ideally including supporting C-level in a life sciences or similar environment.
• Strong verbal and first class written communication skills for interaction with stakeholders and writing of correspondence, reports, briefing materials, and presentations for a wide range of audiences, including senior management.
• Strong analytical capabilities with a proven ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable insights tailored for diverse audiences.
• Demonstrates confident decision-making and leadership in identifying inefficiencies, challenging existing processes, and implementing innovative solutions.
• Exceptional organisational and time management skills to support efficient productivity.
• Impeccable attention to detail to ensure accuracy and efficiency to minimise the need for rework, and aid the production of high-quality work.
• Strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence to support navigating professional relationships effectively, and enabling positive collaboration and conflict resolution for improved teamwork.
• Robust problem-solving skills to navigate challenges and support making informed decisions using good judgement.
• Sound numeracy skills with the ability to understand and work with numbers and apply them effectively.
• Proficient project coordination skills with the ability to manage tasks, people, and resource to track that projects run smoothly, meets objectives, and within deadlines.
• Strong decision-making ability – able to identify the most suitable solution having considered all relevant perspectives.
• Adaptable and effective in both autonomous roles and team-oriented environments.
• Advanced Microsoft Office suite expertise and proficient including tools such as SharePoint and AI.

Education:

Educated to degree level or equivalent experience.

Skills & abilities:

• Resilient and able to adapt to change and find ways through evolving situations, maintaining calm when under pressure.
• Resourceful and able to work on own initiative with minimal direction, be adaptable and creative to effectively overcome challenges and achieve the right outcomes.
• Proactive and achieves effective outcomes by planning, anticipating needs, identifying opportunities, and actively working towards solutions and taking the initiative before potential challenges arise.
• Discreet and operates with a high level of integrity across the duties of the role from confidentiality of information, and being mindful of how words and actions might affect others, to not participating in hearsay.
• Positive and professional with exemplary standards always, particularly when interacting with a diverse array of stakeholders.
• Ability to respond swiftly, appropriately, and efficiently to situations and events that demand immediate attention or quick turnaround.

About us:

LifeArc is a not-for-profit life science organisation, leading the way for change in rare diseases in the UK and supporting promising initiatives in global health. We seek out research in areas of unmet need that has great potential, providing support to help it become breakthroughs that change lives.

What we can offer you:

Focused on finding life changing solutions for underserved patients, our people thrive in an inclusive, and supportive environment that prioritises their health and wellbeing. Our multidisciplinary approach guarantees our people growth opportunities, while our culture of innovation and collaboration drives the impact we make delivering on our purpose of ‘putting patients at the centre of everything we do’.

LifeArc is committed to making our recruitment practices as inclusive as possible and developing a culture that values differences. As a Disability Confident Employer, we guarantee an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term health condition who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Please note that in certain situations, such as high volumes of applications, it may not be practical to interview all eligible candidates. In these cases, we may need to select those who best meet the essential criteria.

Salary will be determined by qualifications and experience along with other exceptional benefits. Because we understand everyone has different requirements, our flexible benefits allow you to choose those which are important to you. Our pension scheme offers employer contributions of up to 12%, private health insurance, and annual leave of 31 days PLUS bank holidays.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds, for example, are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At LifeArc we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so whatever your background or lived experience, if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. Our top priority is finding the best candidate, and you may be just right for this or other roles.

We all have potential. At LifeArc, you’ll discover what you can really do with it.