Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Corporate Assistant

🎯 Role Definition

As a Corporate Assistant you will provide proactive, high-touch administrative support to executives and corporate teams, manage complex calendars and travel, prepare and edit corporate communications and presentations, coordinate meetings and board logistics, maintain confidential records, and serve as a reliable point of contact for internal and external stakeholders. The ideal candidate balances operational excellence with diplomacy, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and contributes to process improvements that increase executive productivity and team efficiency.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Administrative Assistant / Office Coordinator
Executive Assistant (junior level) or Receptionist
Customer Service Representative with administrative responsibilities

Advancement To:

Senior Executive Assistant / Executive Assistant to C-level
Office Manager / Corporate Office Manager
Project Coordinator or Operations Coordinator

Lateral Moves:

HR Coordinator
Office Operations Specialist
Facilities Coordinator

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Manage complex, multi-time-zone executive calendars by proactively scheduling, rescheduling, and prioritizing meetings, blocking focus time, and ensuring adequate travel and preparation time for executives.
Coordinate all aspects of domestic and international travel itineraries including flights, ground transportation, visas, accommodation, confirmations, expense pre-approvals, and detailed briefing packs for executives.
Prepare, edit, format, and proofread high-quality internal and external communications such as board materials, executive presentations, reports, memos, and shareholder communications using PowerPoint, Word, and Google Slides.
Serve as the primary liaison between executives and internal/external stakeholders, filtering requests, triaging priorities, and ensuring timely responses while preserving executive time for strategic work.
Plan and manage logistics for meetings, offsites, board meetings, town halls, and corporate events including venue selection, catering, AV setup, agendas, minute-taking, follow-up action trackers, and post-event reporting.
Maintain confidential personnel and corporate records, ensuring secure storage, compliance with company policies, and appropriate dissemination of sensitive information only to authorized parties.
Execute expense management tasks such as collecting receipts, coding expenses, submitting expense reports in the corporate expense system, reconciling corporate cards, and following up on approvals with finance.
Coordinate onboarding logistics for new hires and external consultants including equipment requests, system access coordination with IT, orientation scheduling, and welcome materials.
Manage vendor relationships for office supplies, facilities, and professional services—negotiating basic contracts, tracking renewals, and ensuring timely fulfillment of service-level agreements.
Create and maintain organized digital and physical filing systems for contracts, legal documents, NDAs, and corporate policies, enabling quick retrieval and audit readiness.
Support executive-level project management by tracking deliverables, driving cross-functional follow-up, maintaining project timelines, and escalating blockers to the appropriate stakeholders.
Draft and send professional correspondence on behalf of executives, including meeting notes, follow-up emails, briefing packets, and prioritized to-do lists.
Monitor inboxes and communications channels, triage incoming requests, draft responses for executive review, and maintain clear records of decisions and action items.
Coordinate internal reporting cycles by gathering inputs from functional leads, compiling reports, producing executive dashboards, and ensuring timely distribution to leadership.
Assist with basic bookkeeping tasks such as invoice intake, vendor payment coordination, and simple payroll or contractor reconciliations when required by the finance team.
Facilitate cross-departmental collaboration by scheduling recurring checkpoints, preparing agendas, distributing pre-reads, and documenting decisions and next steps.
Implement office policies and process improvements that streamline administrative workflows, increase transparency, and reduce administrative overhead for executives and teams.
Deliver minute-to-minute meeting support including note-taking, documenting action items with owners and due dates, circulating minutes, and following up on outstanding actions to closure.
Ensure office readiness and supplies management—track inventory levels, place orders, coordinate facility repairs, and act as the point of contact for building management and security.
Maintain and update CRM or contact databases, ensuring stakeholder records are accurate, complete, and segmented appropriately for executive outreach.
Support legal and compliance teams by preparing non-sensitive supporting documentation, coordinating signature gathering, and tracking contract execution timelines.
Drive vendor and subscription renewals for executive tools and services, ensuring continuity and cost-efficiency by preparing renewal summaries and recommendations.
Provide backup support for other administrative team members during peak periods, absences, or major corporate initiatives to ensure uninterrupted support to leadership.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc reporting requests and produce basic data pulls, tables, and summary narratives using Excel, Google Sheets, or internal reporting tools.
Assist with light research and competitive intelligence to prepare executive briefings and talking points ahead of meetings or investor interactions.
Help coordinate corporate social responsibility activities and employee engagement initiatives by managing RSVPs, volunteer logistics, and event communications.
Maintain and update contact lists, distribution groups, and shared team calendars to reflect organizational changes and ensure accurate communications.
Support special projects such as office relocations, technology rollouts, or corporate policy rollouts by coordinating vendors, schedules, and stakeholder communications.
Contribute to the development and maintenance of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for administrative tasks and executive workflows.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Advanced Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) — ability to build executive-ready decks, complex spreadsheets, and polished reports.
Proficiency with Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Sheets, Slides) including collaboration and sharing workflows.
Experience with calendar and travel management tools (Outlook, Concur, TripActions, Egencia) and corporate expense systems.
Familiarity with CRM systems (Salesforce, HubSpot) or contact databases for managing stakeholder relationships.
Basic data literacy: ability to extract, clean, and summarize data in Excel/Sheets, create pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, and build simple charts.
Experience using video conferencing and collaboration tools (Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack) and troubleshooting common issues.
Working knowledge of document management systems and version control, including secure storage for confidential documents.
Experience preparing board materials, governance documentation, or investor-ready reporting is highly desirable.
Basic bookkeeping or invoice processing experience; familiarity with accounting workflows and vendor payment processes.
Strong proofreading and copy-editing skills with experience crafting professional business correspondence.

Soft Skills

Excellent written and verbal communication with impeccable grammar and ability to tailor tone for executives, board members, and external partners.
High degree of discretion, confidentiality, and professional judgment when handling sensitive information and relationships.
Exceptional organizational and time-management skills with the ability to juggle multiple competing priorities and meet tight deadlines.
Proactive problem-solver who anticipates needs, escalates appropriately, and proposes pragmatic solutions to reduce executive overhead.
Strong interpersonal skills and a customer-service mindset; able to build rapport quickly across all levels of the organization.
Attention to detail and quality orientation: produces error-free, polished deliverables consistently.
Adaptability and resilience in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment; comfortable with shifting priorities and last-minute changes.
Collaborative team player who supports peers, contributes to a positive culture, and helps implement shared processes.
Initiative and ownership: follows through on commitments, tracks progress, and brings issues to closure with minimal supervision.
Professional presence and diplomacy when representing executives with clients, partners, and stakeholders.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

High school diploma or equivalent; strong administrative track record.

Preferred Education:

Associate degree or Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Communications, Office Management, or a related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Communications
Office Management
Hospitality Management
Project Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

2–5 years of progressive administrative or executive support experience; some roles may accept 1–2 years for entry-level corporate assistant positions.

Preferred:

3–5+ years supporting senior leaders or C-suite executives in a corporate environment, with demonstrated experience in calendar/travel management, board/meeting coordination, expense reconciliation, and confidential record handling.