Executive Assistant to the CEO (Nairobi)

Full Job Description

NAIROBI, KENYA

Contract-to-hire

Ello is on a mission to maximize the learning potential of all children, regardless of resources, starting with eradicating childhood illiteracy. Its first product is the world’s most advanced reading coach, powered by proprietary speech recognition and generative AI. It listens, understands, and engages with children to teach them critical reading skills. 

We’re now building on the success of Read with Ello and putting together the pieces of the world’s first complete AI teacher for children. We’re a highly technical team building delightful, learner-centered experiences which leverage the massive recent advances in AI. Our products put children on a path of lifelong learning, creating the foundation for their future and ours. Together, we believe we can close literacy and educational gaps around the world. 

We are backed by world-class investors, just closed a Series A, and we’re ready to bring on new talent to help achieve our vision.

We are looking for a hard-working, detail-oriented, and organized executive assistant to support our Co-Founder and CEO, Tom Sayer. The role will require significant initiative and problem-solving, solving the myriad of challenges that a thriving young startup might face.

The ideal candidate for this role will already have several years of experience managing the administrative needs of an executive or team. We’re looking for someone who is familiar with business practices and processes, has extensive experience using office software and modern administrative tools (e.g., Google Suite, Notion, Slack, etc.), loves creating order out of chaos, and is comfortable wearing many hats to support other business functions as needed given our small team.

This role requires you to work evenings to facilitate overlap with our US-based team on the East Coast (10 am - 7 pm ET / 5 pm - 2 am EAT). It also requires you to be flexible; you may on a rare occasion be asked to stay later to complete an important task, work a couple of hours on a weekend, or shift your hours for a short period.   

• An owner’s mindset: You’re a results-oriented self-starter who knows how to get stuff done. You’re highly organized and can multitask and manage multiple projects simultaneously. You pursue opportunities with a relentless enthusiasm to over-deliver on expectations. 

• Startup hustle: You thrive working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, and you’re comfortable with change and ambiguity. You balance exceptional attention to detail with the courage to move fast. If you get stuck, you demonstrate a bias towards action – you pick up the phone (so to speak) and figure out how to get unstuck.   

• Speed of learning: You like to learn and you learn quickly. The idea of being asked to learn new software tools or to dive into a new functional area in which you have no previous experience excites you.

• Strong communication: You can draft concise emails, and you won’t hesitate to make or answer calls on Ello’s behalf. You’re comfortable representing Ello outwardly. We can expect you to respond to top executives and Ello’s customers alike with eloquence and empathy. 

• Teamwork: You have a low ego, give and receive feedback well, and prefer open and honest communication that is grounded in empathy. Other people describe you as enthusiastic, kind, and extremely trustworthy. You love collaborating with cross-functional, multicultural teams.

• 2+ years of experience managing the administrative needs of an executive or team

• Extensive experience using office software and modern administrative tools such as Notion, Google Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, Slack, and a task management tool (we use Height).

• Nice to have: Bachelor’s degree; experience supporting other business functions, including marketing, operations, accounting, recruiting, HR, customer support, or quality assurance

• Be compensated well in U.S. dollars (USD), which protects you from some of the impacts of inflation. We have high expectations but reward that with market-leading compensation.

• Work directly with the Co-Founder and CEO of a cutting-edge startup at the intersection of AI and learning design.

• Do work that matters and make a true impact on child development and literacy at scale.

• Be part of a rapidly growing yet tight-knit global team (including an office in Nairobi!) working at the forefront of technological change.

Before Ello, Tom was the head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, where his team was responsible for ensuring that Google tools were used effectively in classrooms worldwide. He is on the board of GO Public Schools, an organization dedicated to giving voice to families in the most underserved communities, and on the advisory board of Education Reimagined, the movement builder of learner-centered education. He has also worked as an intelligence officer, a product manager, founded an EdTech company (with Catalin), and has built a mini-golf course in Cambodia. Tom graduated from Cambridge University with first-class honors in maths and psychology and has an MBA and MA (Education) from Stanford. He has won the Lamor Prize at Cambridge, the Queen’s Medal at Sandhurst, the Intelligence top student award, and was a Siebel Scholar at the GSB. He loves running, rugby, and lives with his wife and son in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Our team has deep expertise in artificial intelligence, K-12 education, and child development across institutions such as Stanford, Berkeley, Google, Apple, and more. We were part of Y Combinator’s W20 batch and have recently closed a $15M series A led by Goodwater Capital, with major participation from Homebrew (returning investors), Reed Hastings, Common Sense Growth, and Ravensburger. This adds to existing funding led by Project A Ventures with additional investors including Reach Capital, Khosla Ventures, WndrCo, Visible Ventures, and K9 Ventures.

We’re a small, collaborative team that takes each other’s voices very seriously. Because our mission is to support all children, it is critical that our team is representative of the wider community; we place significant emphasis on ensuring diversity in our team and inclusion in our culture.

We want to create an environment in which we can all be our best selves, use our strengths to take Ello forward, and develop our own skills. We want to have fun while working hard to do impactful things that we’re proud of – we believe it’s possible to do both.

At Ello, we view diversity as a moral imperative and a competitive advantage. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, skin color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We plan and structure our interviews to directly assess skills and experience. If you need any accommodations throughout the interview process, reach out to your recruiter.