Executive Assistant to Managing Partner

Executive Assistant to Managing Partner

Carnall Farrar (CF) is a growing consultancy which works across all aspects of the health sector from supporting the NHS to serving major life science companies. We are passionate about, and experts in, health and healthcare.  

Founded in 2013 we have grown to a core staff base of management consultants, technical consultants, a data operations team and corporate functions. We have a strong reputation with the NHS, and our actively seeking to spread awareness of our brand and offers across the health sector more broadly. We are highly regarded both internally and externally for the level of support and development we give our people. As a professional services business, CF has three primary assets – its people, its knowledge and its data and associated products.   

Our purpose  

To have enduring positive impact on health and healthcare  

Our mission  

To be invaluable to our clients, supporting them to innovate and make lasting improvements and to build an exceptional company that attracts, develops, and retains a trusted and uniquely talented team.  

Our strategic intent  

We are focussed on building the leading consulting company dedicated to the health sector. We serve the entire sector including healthcare systems (providers, payors, regulators), life sciences (pharma, biotech, devices, and diagnostics), health investing, health tech (data, digital and apps) and the wider suppliers to the sector (infrastructure, consumables and supporting services). Our clients include public sector organisations, private sector companies and investors.   

We provide consultancy across a broad spectrum of services, which reflect the expertise of the CF leadership team and their ability to act as trusted advisors to chief executives, directors, and boards on the most important issues they face. We help organisations to improve population health and the effectiveness of life sciences and healthcare through understanding their aspirations, helping them to identify the opportunities to create value, spotting and applying innovation in practice, adopting best-in-class management approaches and providing hands-on support to deliver improvements.    

Our consulting is renowned for its ability to access and use of data to create board-level insights. We have access to more UK healthcare data than any other company and are expert it its safe use for delivering healthcare, improving health, managing services, supporting uptake of innovation, undertaking research, and generating evidence. Our access to data and our engineering and data science capabilities supports our consulting, and they are also available for direct client services including in multidisciplinary teams.   

We are growing a team of expert consultants who want to be at the leading edge of the profession and who have a passion for health. With structured career development from Analyst to Partner in a model of apprenticeship, mentorship, and formal training alongside opportunities to work in industry we are cultivating the leaders of the future. We support future leaders to grow and develop their own unique focus that builds on their expertise, our capabilities and creates value for our clients.   

Role summary 

This role provides comprehensive support to one of the CF Managing Partners. The role is focused on supporting the Managing Partner to meet their professional commitments ensuring they is set up for success. The candidate must be able to strategically manage and organise a large volume of competing deadlines and thrive in a fast-paced environment. You will become a trusted partner to the Managing Partner, and someone they can rely upon to be proactive in managing his professional life and the balance with his personal life.  

The role is responsible for providing high-quality, proactive support to the Managing Partner, ensuring that his time, relationships and priorities are managed and prioritised with precision and foresight. A core element of the job is strategic diary and schedule management: planning well ahead while accommodating the day-to-day flexibility required, coordinating across time zones, and ensuring his time is effectively balanced between corporate, client and business development activities. This includes maintaining accurate records of meetings, using CRM insights to support business development opportunities, and preparing thoroughly for client engagements with clear communication and reliable follow-up. 

Success in this role requires exceptional diary management in a fast-paced consulting environment where priorities shift in line with client demands. You will balance competing demands – making space for urgent business development opportunities, ensuring appropriate time allocation across client projects, and protecting time for corporate responsibilities and team leadership.  

The role also requires confident management of correspondence, including oversight of email and LinkedIn inboxes, drafting responses, and ensuring timely action is taken on urgent matters. Supporting the Managing Partner’s professional profile is key, particularly through thoughtful social media activity and careful nurturing of client relationships. 

In addition, the position plays a central role in organising meetings and events – both internally and externally – working closely with practice management and client delivery teams to ensure that priorities are well coordinated and well supported. This extends to planning seamless travel, coordinating logistics, and building trusted relationships with client EA teams. 

As well as adhering to the CF values and associated behaviors, proactivity and someone who is able to think a few steps ahead is key. With key revenue generating responsibility, the MP sometimes works unsociable hours which allows for flexibility during the day but does mean working the standard 9am-5pm wouldn’t be a fit. With such a busy life, it’s important that the MP has an EA he can partner with to ensure his time is well used and that his calendar is a perfect blend of business development, corporate, client requirements, ensuring sufficient preparation time for all of these. Data is truly important to CF so someone who appreciates this and recognise its importance in our work is key.  

The Managing Partner has been diagnosed with ADHD and therefore we are looking for an EA that works with a much-needed structure and design a process that allows him to thrive. In light of his recent diagnosis, we are looking for a candidate who is patient, kind, and empathic as this journey progresses, including developing new insights about how best to manage his day and his time. Someone who will work with the MP and his team to ensure smooth and effective communication and that all deadlines are met and review times completed  

You will be joining a very collaborative, friendly and inclusive team, while being managed directly by the MP.   Exceptional teamwork underpins everything – this role requires a fluid and flexible approach to covering colleagues, supporting other PAs, and leaning in where needed. You must be unfazed by changing priorities, recognise that business development opportunities are time-sensitive and not disruptive, and bring a straightforward, solutions-focused approach when engaging with Senior Leadership Team members. Equally important is your ability to demonstrate kindness, diplomacy, and professionalism when working with colleagues, clients, suppliers, and prospective clients – embodying CF's values in every interaction. 

The requirements, responsibilities and duties of the role will include, but are not limited to: 

Proactive diary management and prioritisation 

• Support the Managing Partner in managing his team meetings and priorities, scheduling meetings, booking rooms, contributing to agendas and taking actions/ minutes  

• Manage and maintain the Managing Partner’s schedules and appointments making use of agreed priorities and principles to plan far ahead, also working agility to accommodate any urgent or new priorities  

• Build a deep understanding of MP’s varied commitments to confidently prioritise their time 

• Ensure the Managing Partner’s time is used effectively between corporate, client and business development requirements, taking ownership of ensuring that all priorities are met and capturing correctly the coding of time so can understand each week its use  

• Proactively prepare and plan for the Managing Partner’s client relationship meetings with clear communication and maintaining a “scheduling list” to support transparency and follow up on actions and subsequent commitments/next steps, providing leverage to ensure these happen in a timely manner  

• Meticulous planning of travel arrangements (including international flights, hotels, and visas), making all travel seamless and efficient, ensuring that all aspects of the trip are booked in good time and accurately recorded in work and home diary  

• Work with the EA to our CEO to ensure compatibility in work schedules and personal matters  

• Demonstrate sensitivity to different time zones and working days when scheduling meetings across CF's international operations, maximising the time away for its intended purpose  

• Work closely with client delivery managers to ensure the requirements from the MP are clear, and adequate time is scheduled 

Correspondence and inbox management 

• Manage email and LinkedIn inboxes, ensuring timely responses, seeking to respond to, action, delete or file messages  

• Support the drafting and responding to emails on the MP’s behalf  

• Support inbox management by deleting, filing, pinning and flagging, following an approach shared by the whole team 

• Engage the MP on addressing urgent requests in a timely manner. He appreciates feedback and managing up so it’s key that his EA is someone who is happy to do this  

Corporate responsibilities 

• Work closely with managers for practices that the MP chairs, to enable effective running of each practice 

• Work closely with the business development teams to support core business development opportunities 

• Use CRM logs to spot business development opportunities, with a focus on planning relationship maintenance meeting  

• Organise steering groups for practices, including scheduling, commissioning papers and coordinating content, and owning the action and risk registers   

• Ensure practice risk logs are maintained and communicate any newly escalated or closed risks  

• Maintain a log of business development relationship meetings, update our CRM so that meetings are captured relative to agreed clients and themes, allowing careful tending to relationships and keep the BD team regularly updated on the MP’s progress against his objectives  

• Work closely with the governance coordinator to ensure the MP has adequate time scheduled to prepare and review papers ahead of key governance meetings, including steering groups, Executive Operating Committees and Board meetings   

• Work closely with the People Team to ensure Partners meet regularly with their sponsees, complete development cycle requirements on time, and prepare for training sessions they facilitate. 

Building brand profile 

• Work with the MP and marketing team to guarantee his social media commitments profile and plans are delivered, ensuring he posts on social media channels regularly, showing high attention to detail and appropriately crafting reposts to raise his personal brand and that of CF  

• Make use of LinkedIn to support business development, including cultivating new clients  

• Proactively orchestrate others within the business to create content that can be leveraged for Ben’s social media  

• Seek opportunities and help organising speaking and podcasts engagements, that align with the businesses objectives  

• Tend to your own relationship with client EAs, building your own network  

• Forge trusted relations with the internal administrative team and wider offices of key clients such that CF is seen as a good company to work with 

Personal support 

• Source appropriate venues and make reservations for work and personal requirements 

• Meet guests and take care of their needs including providing refreshments 

• Provide lunch and refreshments for the Managing Partner and the senior team when required 

• Run any ad-hoc errands and make purchases on the Managing Partner’s behalf 

• Build an understanding and awareness of Ben’s family calendar and commitments  

Budget and expense management  

• Support the Managing Partner to manage his budget through careful planning and attention to detail 

• Manage purchases, invoices and expenses ensuring they are coded to the appropriate budget 

To be successful in this role we are looking for a combination of the following skills and experiences:

Mandatory:  

• Educated to degree level or with equivalent experience 

• Previous experience in professional services environment within an executive assistant capacity 

• Experience supporting at c-suite level with personal work  

• Exceptional diary management and organisational skills   

• A passion for data and interpreting data to make a Partner successful  

• Ability to work in a fast paced and quickly changing environment 

• Ability to prioritise workload and work quickly to tight deadlines 

• Proactive, flexible, organised and able to problem solve 

• Polite, direct and a positive ‘can-do’ attitude 

• Empathetic and understanding of workload pressures and able to distinguish between personal and professional  

• Thriving in teamwork environment, prepared to support others and take a ‘lean in’ approach 

• Interest in healthcare and making a social impact  

• Strong verbal and written communication skills  

• Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Suite including Outlook and LinkedIn 

Desired:  

• Previous experience of supporting leaders at Partner or CEO level  

• Previous experience or shown knowledge of working with an individual with ADHD or other neurodiversity 

Responsibilities are enacted through our values 

Upholding our four values and their associated behaviours is critical:  

Be connected: we are known, we are trusted  

What we do  

• We meet our clients on their terms, in their environment  

• We develop first-hand understanding  

• We are reliable  

• We socialise with colleagues and clients  

• We recognise individual strengths and talents  

• We get to know people inside out  

• We cultivate a network   

Uphold standards: committed to our clients, professional in our approach  

What we do  

• We know what consulting excellence looks like  

• We adopt and adhere to best-in-class approaches  

• We seek diversity and understand its value  

• We leverage the talent of the CF team and our clients  

• We act with integrity and preserve confidentiality  

• We manage client and company resources cost-effectively   

• We hold each other to account for the standards we agree  

Inspire change: respected experts, sparking conviction  

What we do  

• We are knowledge seekers  

• We hunt for innovation and translate it into practice   

• We deal in solutions  

• We collaborate and expect to contribute our point of view  

• We understand conflict is essential and we face it  

• We are passionate about our impact and the value we create  

• We build a positive reputation for ourselves and for CF  

Create the future: embrace fear, aspire to be better  

What we do  

• We believe we all grow with effort, learning and persistence  

• We celebrate success with pride   

• We learn and adapt when we lose  

• We spot and create opportunities  

• We act fast and mobilise others  

• We take responsibility for ourselves  

• We develop each other through apprenticeship and mentoring. 

• Holiday entitlement: 25 days/year for staff and 30 days/ year for leadership, increasing by 1 day for every year of service up to a maximum of 35 days of holiday per year  

• We contribute 7% of your salary into your pension, while you contribute 3% (or more if you like) 

• Access to a flexible benefits programme giving you the chance to increase pension contributions, gain access to a health cash plan or benefit from a ClassPass subscription 

• Annual leave purchase: employees with less than 35 days annual leave entitlement are able to purchase additional annual leave days 

• Income protection: in the event of long-term incapacity and a qualifying claim, 75% of salary will be paid 

• Enhanced sick pay benefit beyond Statutory Sick Pay for up to a total 12 weeks in any 12-month period 

• Life insurance covering four times your basic salary in a tax-free lump sum payable to your beneficiaries in the event of your death whilst in service 

• Enhanced family leave policies: additional pay for parents who have a baby or adopt 

• Access to an interest free loan of up to £10,000  

• Access to an interest-free season ticket loan, repayable by 12 monthly instalments 

• Workplace nursery scheme: access to a scheme to help working parents save tax and NI on the cost of the nursery care 

•  Flexible working policy: including 44 remote working days to utilise in a way that suits your needs 

•  An Employee Assistance and Wellness Program: including access to telephone counselling, life coaching, interactive tools online and digital content downloadable from Lifeworks 

•  Seasonal flu jabs: provided by Boots annually 

•  Eye care tests: vouchers and discounts at Vision Express 

•  Ride to work scheme, saving up to 42% on bikes and cycling accessories at Evans Cycles 

• Membership to the Health Service Journal (HSJ)