“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

Blackbird is looking for an Executive Assistant to amplify the output of Blackbird partners  Samantha Wong, Nick Crocker, and Alex Apoifis. 

The most precious resource is time and your mission is to ensure our time is focussed on the most impactful projects. We are looking for someone who is hyper-efficient, detail-obsessed and proactive. You will be a super organiser but also someone with a hospitality mindset and an appreciation for creating an exceptional customer experience for the founders and community we serve. 

“Hospitality is the foundation of my business philosophy. Virtually nothing else is as important as how one is made to feel in any business transaction. Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all”

- Danny Meyer, Setting the Table

About the Role

This Executive Assistant will support Sam, Nick, and Alex to reach new heights of productivity and efficiency.  

Some examples of work you will do:

• Productivity: Work with each partner on optimising their systems for prioritisation and goal-tracking, ensuring they are consistently allocating their time and energy to the highest-leverage areas. You should be familiar with different productivity approaches and the software tools or systems to implement them.

• Inbox Zero: Help Partners get to Inbox Zero every day by prioritising what’s important, what isn’t and pre-drafting responses for review/sending as appropriate.

• Calendar control: Leverage Partner’s time to ensure a focus on achieving key goals and managing their calendars to see where time can be better spent on higher-impact tasks. 

• Being the Manager’s Shadow: Help each Partner be a great manager by helping maintain good team meeting hygiene such as coordinating agenda setting, drafting minutes and following up on action items; helping with expense management, budget and leave approvals. 

• Office management: As Nick is in the Melbourne office and Sam is in the Auckland office, you will be responsible for as much management of these two offices as is possible without physically being in both places at the same time. This could include ensuring common spaces are maintained and fully stocked, and managing the relationships with external contractors, vendors and other key stakeholders. Note: We already have this covered for the Blackbird office in Sydney.

• Travel: At some point in the future (we hope), coordinating the Partners’ international and domestic flights and accommodation.

• Events: Assist with internal Blackbird events, team celebrations, and organising company offsites.

This role is full-time, based in our Ponsonby, Auckland or Fitzroy, Melbourne offices.

Position Requirements

Your background is less important than your specific superpowers:

• Customer Experience. Creating memorable moments and delighting everyone who interacts with Blackbird.

• Words. Beyond dotting i's and crossing t's, you'll master email to the highest of standards, always striking the right tone when addressing our founders, investors and stakeholders. 

• Hyper-efficient. At Blackbird, we call this ‘Batko-like behaviour’, named after Startmate CEO Michael Batko, our shining beacon of efficiency. You can read more about Michael’s systems of efficiency and processes here.  

• Multi-tasking. You will work across three partners based in three different locations. Being supremely organised yourself is necessary but insufficient. You are a productivity nerd who loves creating systems, discovering, implementing and optimising tools for staying on top of it all. 

• Ownership Mentality. No job is too small. Like all of us at Blackbird, you're happy to roll up your sleeves and do the task at hand.

Working at Blackbird

We believe that building a diverse and inclusive team is critical to Blackbird’s success. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. We use Applied to ensure every applicant gets an equal chance of success.

Our June 2020 Culture Amp Engagement score was 95. Our September 2020 Culture Amp Wellbeing score was 94.

We offer:

• Flexible working: Whether it’s working from home or leaving early to pick up the kids from daycare or school.

• Generous parental leave: We know family comes first and we are proud to offer generous parental leave — 16 weeks for primary carer and 6 weeks for a secondary carer, subject to a 12 month minimum tenure. This includes a continuation of super payments while on unpaid parental leave and a supportive return-to-work policy.

• Learning & Development : Our team is hungry to continuously learn and you’ll receive a budget to spend on whatever you’d like to learn — from coding courses to meditation.

• Unplugged weekends: We work hard without letting work get in the way of life. We’ve implemented no Slack or emails on weekends, so you can switch off.

• Sharing in Blackbird’s success: We think it is important to share successes with the whole team. All Blackbird employees receive carry or in our funds and are the equivalent of owners in the management company.

Blackbird is a Pledge 1% member — we pledge 1% of our time, equity and profits to help not-for-profit causes in our community. 

The Blackbird Foundation has been set up explicitly to partner with organisations that believe in the potential of young people, and the importance of creativity.

About Blackbird

Blackbird is a venture capital firm whose mission is to supercharge Australia and New Zealand’s most ambitious founders. We do this by raising venture capital funds, investing into the best startup companies and helping them succeed. We have more than a billion dollars under management and a portfolio of 68 companies including some of the most successful Australian startups such as Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture and Culture Amp.

Like the companies we back, we want to build a business that lasts for decades and produces excellent returns for our investors.

We’ve written a lot about what we love at Blackbird, so check out our blog if you want some more information about us. In particular, you should read about our mission and values, our master plan, and what we look for in founders.