Executive Assistant & Office Manager

Job Description

Executive Assistant and Office Manager

IRIS Audio Technologies | London, office based, five days per week | Full time, permanent

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer. Supports: Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer.

We are looking for someone who is genuinely organised rather than busy, who takes ownership of an outcome rather than a task list, and who is comfortable telling two senior executives that they are wrong about their own calendar.

ABOUT IRIS

IRIS Audio Technologies builds audio AI that separates the human voice from everything else. Our technology runs across two markets: enterprise contact centres and customer experience, where we remove noise and distraction from millions of conversations, and defence and secure communications, where intelligibility in the worst possible acoustic conditions is a mission requirement rather than a nice to have.

We are venture backed, with four products in market and customers among the largest names in telecoms, technology and motorsport. The pace is high, the problems are unusual, and the work is visible.

THE ROLE

This is the operational centre of the company. You will run the working lives of the CEO and the COO, and you will run the London office. The two are connected: if the executive team is well organised, well briefed and in the right room at the right time, the company moves faster.

This is not a junior support role. You will be trusted with confidential commercial, investor and personnel information from your first week. You will be the person suppliers, investors, customers and candidates deal with before they deal with anyone else, and the impression you create is the impression they form of IRIS.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• Full ownership of the CEO and COO diaries and inboxes, including conflicting priorities, time zones and last minute changes. Protecting focus time as deliberately as you book meetings.
• Meeting effectiveness: purpose, agenda, right attendees, right materials in advance, actions captured and chased to completion, briefing notes ahead of external meetings.
• End to end travel across the UK, Europe, the US and the Middle East, including flights, hotels, ground transport, visas and itineraries. Building trips that make commercial sense rather than trips that merely exist.
• Board and investor support: scheduling, papers, logistics, minutes and follow up, plus document and data room preparation during fundraising activity.
• Document production: preparation, formatting and version control of presentations, memos, agendas and contracts to IRIS brand standards.
• Running the London office day to day: supplies, equipment, access, health and safety, landlord liaison, and making the space one that people want to work in.
• Events and hospitality: team lunches, offsites, board dinners, customer hospitality and our presence at industry events.
• Supplier and spend management: supplier relationships, travel, office and event spend tracked against budget, expenses processed, variances flagged early.
• People operations support: interview coordination, new starter onboarding and equipment, people records, and HR administration alongside the COO.
• Anticipating what the executive team needs before they ask. Spotting the thing that has gone quiet, the deadline that is approaching and the relationship that needs attention.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

By 90 days, the executive team is measurably better organised, meetings run to agenda with actions tracked, travel is booked earlier and cheaper, and the board cycle runs to a predictable rhythm without prompting. By 12 months, you are the operational backbone of the company: processes exist where there were none, the office runs itself because you built it that way, and the CEO and COO have materially more time on the things only they can do.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Three or more years supporting senior executives as an Executive Assistant, Personal Assistant, or in a combined EA and office management role
• Complete confidence managing complex diaries across multiple time zones and competing priorities
• Demonstrable discretion with confidential commercial, financial and personnel information
• Excellent written English, with the judgement to draft on behalf of a senior executive
• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office and Google Workspace, including presentation and spreadsheet work
• Experience booking and managing international travel
• Genuine self direction: comfortable operating from an objective rather than an instruction
• Calm under pressure, with the confidence to push back on senior people when the diary or the plan does not work

Useful but not essential: startup or scaleup experience, particularly through a funding round or rapid headcount growth; exposure to board level or investor facing processes; familiarity with tools such as HubSpot, Notion or Asana; experience in a regulated, defence or security sensitive environment; an interest in audio, AI or deep technology.

SECURITY

Elements of our work sit in the defence and secure communications sector. Candidates must be eligible to undergo UK security clearance and willing to do so if the role requires it.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Highly competitive salary, dependent on experience
• Share options under the company scheme
• Pension, 25 day holiday allowance, private healthcare and other benefits
• A central London office and a small, senior, high trust team
• Direct exposure to the running of a venture backed technology company at the point where the decisions are still being made

HOW TO APPLY

Apply via Linkedin, or send a CV (maximum 2 pages) and a short covering note to tom@iris.audio & martha@iris.audio setting out one example of a time you made a senior person materially more effective, and how you knew it worked. We review applications on a rolling basis.