CF
Location
Hammersmith, Greater London | United Kingdom
Job description
Head of CEO Office, London (Hybrid)
This role provides comprehensive support to the CEO of an expert management consulting and data services company, dedicated to healthcare. The role is focussed on supporting the CEO to meet her professional commitments, balancing the business development, client and corporate calls on her time. Healthcare knowledge is essential, with consulting experience being desirable additionally. Supporting the CEO to support her business development requirements is a vital part of the role, ranging from sending emails on the CEO’s behalf, to reviewing bids, to attending some meetings with the CEO. Understanding client project demands and building relationships with team managers to ensure the CEO’s time is used efficiently is key, along with supporting with content development where possible. This role will lead the production of the CEO’s corporate communications and materials, quality assure others’ work for the CEO, actioning for the CEO where possible. Whilst this role will focus on the business, this role will line manage the CEO’s PA and work with them to ensure her personal commitments are met, assisting her in the management of requirements across her whole life – as CEO of a growing company, as a mum to 3 young people and 2 step-children and as a woman who also needs to take time for herself.
Carnall Farrar (CF) is a growing company. CF works across all aspects of the healthcare sector from supporting the NHS to serving major life science companies. We are passionate about, and experts in, healthcare.
Hannah Farrar is a co-founder, shareholder and the CEO of CF. Additionally, she also sits on the Board of the Management Consulting Association (the MCA), which is the sector’s trade association and is a non-executive director at Lantum, a health technology company focused on workforce solutions. She is a visiting professor at Imperial College London and each year she teaches on the adoption of innovations to a range of health masters programmes. Her career began as a fast-stream civil servant in the Department of Health, prior to founding CF, she held a senior role in the NHS.
Beyond CF, Hannah is mother to three children aged 18, 15 and 8 and step-mother to two more aged 17 and 14. She values her time with her family and with so many people in the household it needs a significant amount of organisation. Taking care of herself is also critical to enabling Hannah to perform at her best, whether that is healthy eating, adequate rest, exercise, maintaining her beauty regime or making time to socialise.
To operate at her best, a well organised and smooth running schedule, as well as work being managed and under control, is vital. As is taking on as much of her workload as is feasible, including ensuring requirements on others are progressing, such that Hannah can focus on the things that only she can do.
Role summary
The ideal candidate will have a background and knowledge of the healthcare market. The individual will be professional, knowledgeable, organised, flexible and driven. They will also be enthusiastic about taking responsibility for a unique and often complex set of duties. An emotionally mature candidate who can plan and have control over a fluid work/life balance, and foresee and address issues promptly, will be best suited to this position. Clear communication and interpersonal skills are essential for this role, as there will be a lot of direct interaction between the candidate and the senior leadership team as well as team members across CF and with our clients. Acting with kindness even in difficult situations and acting with the utmost discretion will be essential.
The Head of the CEO’s Office will be the CEO’s leverage across the business, working closely on all of her engagements, ensuring the best use of her time. The role will support the CEO with corporate duties, business development opportunities and client commitments. This will include attending meetings, taking minutes, completing the CEO’s actions, responding to the CEO’s emails and reviewing healthcare documents as a quality assurance step. This role will lead the CEO with internal and external communications, writing in the CEO’s style in prose and social media posts. This role will be the gate keeper and be the liaison between the CEO and the company.
This role will be the CEO’s ‘go to’ person, covering the full spectrum of requirements on the CEO. This individual will attend meetings with the CEO and represent the CEO in appropriate settings, being the liaison with the senior CF team on corporate and client matters. The Head of the CEO Office will oversee of the CEO’s workload, inbox, diary and obligations, supporting her to operate at the top of her licence. The PA to the CEO will report to this role and this support team will work closely together to manage the dynamic nature of the management consulting environment.
The Head of CEO Office will always be seeking ways to improve company-wide engagement and internal processes, working towards delivering the company strategy. They will build strong relationships with CF’s client teams to ensure the CEO’s time is used effectively.
This role will travel frequently with the CEO (a few times a week), currently restricted to the UK, and often around London, requiring overnight stays on occasion. This is a new role and will evolve and expand as there is a better understanding of the CEO workflow and other areas of required support.
The Personal Assistant to the CEO is a role which takes responsibility for assisting in the pro-active planning and organisation of the CEO’s time, making arrangements and appointments for life to run as smoothly as possible.
As well as adhering to the CF values and associated behaviours (see Annex 1), particularly behavioural attributes, being unfazed by changing priorities, accepting there is always a to-do list and a straightforward and straight-talking approach when engaging with Hannah are very important. Treating every aspect of the role with strict confidentiality is a necessity. When working with colleagues in CF, clients, suppliers and people seeking to engage CF, kindness, diplomacy and professionalism are essential qualities.
You will be joining a very collaborative, friendly and inclusive team, focused on delivering a professional and efficient corporate set of functions.
Requirements
The requirements, responsibilities and duties of the role will include, but are not limited to:
Management of time and oversight of the CEO diary and priorities
• Manage the balance of the corporate, business development and client requirements, focusing time and energy at the right priorities
• Lead, manage and work closely with the CEO’s PA, to ensure the CEO’s diary is balanced across all of the work requirements, also ensuring that personal commitments are cared for
• Proactively contribute to corporate agendas, guiding and steering actions in the way the CEO would wish
• Manage CEO action items from key meetings for completion and desired outcomes
CF strategy and growth
• Be a strategic sounding board to the CEO to ensure goals and objectives are achieved and priorities are communicated effectively
• Maintain awareness and network across the management consulting industry to understand business context and opportunities for CF
• Take the CEO’s ideas and turn them into plans and follow though to completion
• Support the CEO with the effectiveness of the Board
• Work with the corporate directors to ensure progress and delivery across all corporate areas
Business development
• Directly liaise with the BD team to support the CEO to scale the business as set out in the business and strategic plans
• Support the CEO to meet her personal revenue targets, through management of time on client relationships, sending emails to contacts on her behalf, supporting on the development of proposals
• Engagement with bid teams associated with the CEO’s workload to ensure time is well used and the CEO makes the contribution required of her
• Work with the marketing/communications team to forward plan, draft and publish all social media posts to maximise interactions, following up on all social media interactions
• Identify brand development opportunities and support preparation for these such as speaking events, roundtables, networking events and making best use of conference attendance
Client delivery
• Work with the PA to the CEO to ensure the CEO discharges her project delivery responsibilities from mobilisation to close down
• Review and resolve any project issues ahead of the CEO review time
• Ensure the CEO’s time is used effectively by client projects
• Support the maintenance of trusted relationships with clients through being responsive to their needs and concerns
Internal communications
• Lead on all of the CEO’s communications, drafting, reviewing and responding where appropriate, particularly being abreast of internal communications
• Build strong relationships with the senior leadership team and cultivate a flow of relevant information with the executive team and other stakeholders
• Manage / coordinate the development of the summer and winter away days as well as leadership away days that take place throughout the year
• Oversee the recognition policy implementation in conjunction with the PA to the CEO ensuring work milestones are celebrated as well as team birthdays and major life events
Flexible working
We have a hybrid-working policy, corporate team members need to be physically together with other team members for a minimum of 2 days a week. For this role these days should be with the CEO and PA to the CEO. When the CEO has a busy travel schedule, some of these days should be travelling with her to maintain effective communications and working relations.
In addition, up to four weeks a year each member of staff can work entirely virtually. This should be agreed with the CEO/Director of Operations.
Requirements
Mandatory:
• Educated to degree level or equivalent
• Extensive experience within the healthcare profession
• Management consulting experience
• Excellent communication skills – in both written and spoken
• Able to travel regularly with the CEO
• A team player, confident to interact with senior stakeholders
• Very agile, adaptable and proactive
• Highly flexible and dynamic
• Polite, direct and a positive ‘can-do’ attitude
• Hands-on and hardworking
• Honest, forthcoming and responsible
• Highly organised
• Emotionally intelligent, empathetic and understanding of workload pressures and able to distinguish between personal and professional
• Must have discretion and a deep understanding of the confidentiality of the role
• Forward thinking with a structure-based approach
• Robust administrative and operational process experience
• Ability to build and lead teams
Desirable:
• Management consulting experience
Values and behaviours
Be passionate about healthcare
What this means
We are driven by a deep commitment to improve and transform health and care systems.
Key Behaviours
· Demonstrates a genuine interest in health and care and the impact it has on people and society.
· Continually takes steps to develop their knowledge and understanding of different client organisations, health and care systems and how these work.
· Is inspired by the opportunity to be part of health and care improvement and transformation and what could be achieved through this.
· Goes the extra mile to get the right solution for our clients and the people they serve – does the right thing, not the easy thing.
· Takes pride in their work, and genuinely cares about the impact this has on people and society.
· Is able to articulate the impact that our work has on people and society.
Build trusted relationships
What this means
We develop lasting relationships and are seen as trusted advisers to our clients.
Key Behaviours
· Puts energy into developing long-term client relationships over time.
· Shows genuine interest in the person behind the role and is supportive and empathetic towards clients, across a full range of issues.
· Is respectful – seeks out others’ views, listens well and is able to see things from the client’s perspective.
· Is authentic and open in the way they engage with clients, whilst also maintaining appropriate boundaries and confidentiality.
· Is reliable and credible – does what they say they will; follows through on commitments and delivers on promises .
· Seeks to engage directly with clients, in person or by phone.
Create possibilities
What this means
We create energy for change by bringing fresh and pragmatic perspectives and approaches.
Key Behaviours
· Is forward looking – thinks beyond the immediate for our people, clients and health and care.
· Thinks creatively – sees the potential in a situation to challenge the status quo and do things differently.
· Comes up with pragmatic solutions , grounded in realism.
· Has a positive and optimistic mindset , always looking for what is possible and can be done.
· Identifies and acts on business opportunities.
· Mobilises action around an idea to create forward momentum and deliver results.
Act with agility
What this means
We move at pace to accommodate complex and evolving needs.
Key Behaviours
· Adapts well to change . Is flexible, resilient and willing to adjust course to changing needs, when required, whilst also knowing when to hold course.
· Thrives on the challenge of working in a fast-paced environment and can deliver at pace across different types of clients.
· Is proactive – anticipates business needs andpotential outcomes and plans for contingencies.
· Can effectively manage multiple priorities and demands .
· Strike an effective balance between working at pace, whilst managing capacity, priorities and team well-being.
Be courageous
What this means
We have the courage to do something different and stand up for what we believe in AND the humility to listen and learn.
Key Behaviours
· Actively engages in debate and discussion, clearly putting across their views and making a stand for what they believe in.
· Is willing to tackle issues and challenge others, regardless of their seniority. Speaks up when they feel something is not right.
· Is prepared to make courageous decisions and push back when appropriate.
· Allows themselves and others to take considered risks and learn from both successes and failures.
· Pushes themselves to step outside their comfort zone and operate at the top of their ability.
· Actively invites others at all levels to give them challenge and feedback, listens to this non-defensively and uses this to learn and grow. Has the humility to admit when wrong.
Support and develop ourselves and each other
What this means
We collaborate and bring out the best in ourselves and each other.
Key Behaviours
· Develops authentic, respectful and trusting relationships with colleagues.
· Is willing to ask for help and involve others to collaboratively solve the problem, drawing on the broad range of expertise and ways of working from across the business.
· Understands, builds and make use of own strengths, and proactively offers support and help to others.
· Builds on strengths through constructive feedback, mentorship and coaching - encouraging development of new skills.
· Actively seeks new learning opportunities , perseveres through challenges, and embraces failure.
Benefits
Job tags
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