Executive Assistant Operations Manager

About the Company

Executive Assistant & Operations Manager

Remote | South Africa

Full-time We’re looking for a highly capable Executive Assistant & Operations Manager to work closely with two co-founders of a small international recruitment business.

About the Role

You’ll be responsible for making the founders more effective, keeping the business organised, driving follow-through across projects, and improving the systems and processes that sit behind the company. We’re looking for someone intelligent, proactive and highly organised who enjoys taking ownership, solving problems and building structure where it doesn’t yet exist.

Responsibilities

Executive & Administrative Support

• Manage calendars across both founders
• Manage and prioritise inboxes across Outlook and LinkedIn
• Maintain founder to-do lists and ensure important actions are completed
• Coordinate meetings, travel and logistics
• Support personal administration where required
• Assist with expenses, bookkeeping and basic finance administration
• Make sure commitments don’t get forgotten and deadlines don’t slip

Sales & Recruitment Support

• Prepare founders for client, candidate and business development meetings
• Ensure relevant notes, documents and context are available before meetings
• Support client and candidate communication
• Make sure every candidate, client and prospect receives a timely response
• Track follow-ups and outstanding actions
• Coordinate interviews and meetings
• Maintain accurate CRM and internal records

Project Management

• Own internal project trackers
• Keep projects moving by managing deadlines, owners and next actions
• Identify blockers early and escalate them before they become urgent
• Coordinate operational and administrative projects
• Organise company data, documents, templates and shared folders
• Support operational projects relating to our international business structure

Process, Automation & AI

• Document existing processes and workflows
• Build and maintain SOPs, templates and checklists
• Create a central source of truth for company processes
• Identify repetitive or inefficient work
• Recommend and implement simpler ways of working
• Improve how we use software, automation and AI
• Build workflows that reduce manual administration and founder involvement

Working Hours & Flexibility

This is a full-time role and you should generally expect to work standard 9–5 hours in South Africa. However, the founders travel frequently and often work across different time zones, so some flexibility is required.

From time to time, you may need to:

• Support meetings or requests outside standard working hours
• Adjust your schedule when the founders are travelling
• Handle occasional time-sensitive issues in the early morning or evening

We do not expect you to be permanently online or available 24/7. The expectation is that you are flexible, responsive and comfortable supporting an internationally distributed business when circumstances require it. Where additional flexibility is needed, we aim to manage working hours sensibly rather than treating the role as a rigid 9–5.

What success looks like. Within your first few months:

• The founders spend significantly less time on administration
• Important actions and follow-ups rarely get missed
• Meetings are properly prepared for
• Company information is organised and easy to find
• Internal projects have clear ownership and momentum
• Core processes are documented
• Repetitive work is increasingly automated
• You are proactively solving problems before the founders need to ask

Qualifications

We care more about evidence of ability than a specific background.

Required Skills

You’ll likely be a strong fit if you can demonstrate:

• Exceptional organisation and attention to detail
• High intelligence and strong problem-solving ability
• Ownership and a bias toward action
• Strong written and verbal communication
• The ability to manage multiple stakeholders and competing priorities
• Experience working directly with founders or senior executives
• Experience building processes, systems or operations from scratch
• Strong comfort with technology and learning new tools
• Practical use of AI and automation to improve efficiency
• The ability to work independently in a remote environment
• High levels of integrity and discretion

Preferred Skills

Particularly valuable experience. We’d be especially interested if you have previously:

• Worked in a small, founder-led business
• Built an EA, operations or internal systems function from 0 → 1
• Implemented CRM, project management or workflow systems
• Automated repetitive administrative processes
• Used AI tools to materially improve how a business operates
• Worked in recruitment, professional services, consulting or a similar environment

Pay range and compensation package

Compensation - $2,000-$3,000 USD per month depending on experience.