Senior PA in Finance

Personal Assistant to Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Performance

Location: London

This is an excellent and rare opportunity for a Personal Assistant to experience life at the heart of the Bank in the Chief Financial Officer's private office, and to get exposure to a wide range of people and business areas right across the organisation. The CFO is also the Bank's co-executive sponsor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and co-executive sponsor for the Bank's Climate Change disclosure.

This role will need to support the CFO by working with other PAs in the Finance private office, Finance Leadership Team (FLT), other Private Offices and business areas across the Bank, a diverse range of external stakeholders including HMT, EY, National Audit Office, IMF, Central Banks, Government, and industry.

The CFO is a high energy and dynamic person, who works at pace. Our office is a dynamic and fast-paced working environment, which requires a self-starter with a positive, can-do attitude. The person will need strong emotional intelligence to build good relationship with the CFO and FLT, and will need to work collaboratively, independently, efficiently and with accuracy. Empathetic communication skills with prompt response times to close off open queries are key to maintain the CFO's relationships in good standing. This requires building good relationships with the CFO's internal and external stakeholders.

The jobholder will need to be pro-active and to work autonomously, with a high degree of responsibility for the organising of key functions and helping the Bank and the Finance team to run smoothly.

Directorate Overview

The Finance & Performance Directorate plays a critical role in developing the Bank's corporate strategy and protecting the Bank's financial position and reputation. The overall purpose of the Directorate is to contribute to the successful execution of the Bank's aims and objectives by ensuring it has an appropriate financial platform for its broader responsibilities and for the challenges facing an organisation of more than 5,500 staff, with annual expenditure of just under £1bn. This is a critical time for the Bank, with significant uncertainties in the external outlook and major change programmes internally. More than ever, the Bank's actions will be subject to close external scrutiny.

The Finance Directorate has three main operating divisions: Finance Business Partnering, Financial Control and Reporting and Financial Planning & Analytics

Job Description

This is a unique and rare opportunity for an experienced and well-organised PA, with considerable experience as a senior executive PA to undertake challenging work to support the CFO. This role will work in the office supported by a team. We are looking for someone who is available to work on a full time basis and ideally start work before the CFO starts meetings e.g. 7.30am or 8am

Job requirements

Primary responsibilities include directly supporting the CFO on activities relating to the Executive leadership of the Bank and Finance, and external engagement. Liaising closely and effectively with the office team and the Finance Leadership team (FLT), these responsibilities will include:

• Directly supporting the CFO via excellent diary management, drawing on experience to make sound decisions when coordinating complex scheduling of senior-level meetings both internally and externally in accordance with CFO Office guidelines (to maximise CFO efficiency).
• Paying close attention to detail throughout the day to ensure that diary changes, incoming correspondence and papers are handled appropriately and without delay.
• Developing a strong understanding of how to prioritise different stakeholder requests for meetings including relative urgency, and importance, whilst proactively anticipating and solving scheduling problems and ensuring effective flow of information
• Working with the office team to prioritise daily actions and reading lists, to ensure that the CFO is fully briefed and prepared for her meeting schedule with agendas, and that approvals and pressing developments are prioritised and highlighted through structured daily communication.
• Driving engagement with the Private Office and FLT to understand the interdependencies between meetings so that CFO time can be managed most efficiently.
• Ensuring that Finance meets its deadlines for paper submissions and comments on minutes through strategically planning diary management with the wider Private Office.
• Supporting senior Finance recruitment periods.
• Engagement within Finance, greeting external visitors, taking minutes and circulating follow up documentation as appropriate.
• Providing cover for office members.
• File-site maintenance and managing confidential data in a professional and secure manner.
• Arranging domestic and overseas travel, preparing itineraries, and claiming expenses.
• Leading on the logistics for external events, including supporting the CFO with arranging speaking engagements and liaising with press office

Essential Criteria

• Professional, strong and empathetic interpersonal skills and positive communication style recognising that you are the face of the CFO, with a need to project the Finance well internally and externally
• Ability to build a strong rapport with the CFO, FLT, and stakeholders so that you act as a trusted partner.
• Being thoughtful and sensitive about how you communicate to stakeholders in order to build and support the CFO's working relationships, ensuring all open queries are resolved swiftly
• Above all, you should be a reliable, professional, and a flexible team player, who can work calmly and consistently under pressure and with high levels of ambiguity in an environment where things often change the schedule quickly
• Considerable experience as a PA to a senior Executive Director or similar Board level member.
• Effective and efficient with strong organisational, prioritisation and time management skills; working to high levels of accuracy in a fast paced environment.
• Ability to work under high pressure and deliver consistently against tight deadlines.
• Independently able to work effectively, applying sound judgement on priorities and urgency and an ability to apply this to new and unfamiliar tasks.
• Excellent communication skills with ability to confidently engage with all levels of staff across the Bank and externally.
• Display the highest ethical standards for protecting and maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive information.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to build strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders
• Excellent secretarial skills with a sound knowledge of all Microsoft Office programmes, in particular Outlook, Word, MS Teams and OneNote.
• A positive attitude with an ability to push forward change and offer suggestions to improve efficiency and effectiveness when running the Directorate.
• The CFO requires in-person PA cover on days when she is in the office for key meetings, so the PA's in-person working days should closely mirror the PAs in-person working days
• Where a role can be carried out at home, the Bank's policy expects colleagues to spend at least half of their time in the office

Desirable Criteria

A good knowledge of how to organise travel and expenses would be useful but is not essential.

Our Approach to Inclusion

The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve.

At the Bank of England, we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it's by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we'll continue to make the best decisions for the public.

We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the 'Candidate Personal Information' under the 'Disability Confident Scheme' section of the application.

Salary and Benefits Information
We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements. Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

Salary - £32,000 to £36,000

In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• A 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.
• 26 days' annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process

Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy. Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice.

The Bank of England welcomes applications from all candidates, but as a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) approved sponsor, we have a responsibility to comply with the Immigration Rules and guidance. As such, our ability to employ individuals who require sponsorship for immigration purposes is limited. The Bank cannot guarantee that you and / or the role you are applying for will be eligible for sponsorship and that any application made to UKVI will be successful. Eligibility will therefore be considered on a case by case basis.

The Application Process
Important: Please ensure that you complete the 'work history' section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It's therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.

The assessment process will comprise of two interview stages.

This role closes on 17th January 2025

Please apply online, ensuring that you complete your work history and answer ALL the application questions fully and in detail as your application will not be considered if all mandatory questions are not fully completed.