Executive Assistant

Banyan Software is the best permanent home for software businesses that serve specialized industries, their employees, and their customers. With a buy-grow-and-hold-for-life approach and a permanent capital base, Banyan acquires and grows companies worldwide, honoring founder legacies and helping portfolio companies modernize through shared AI expertise and operational discipline. Founded in 2016, Banyan operates more than 120 portfolio companies across North and South America, Europe, and APAC, and has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list for six consecutive years. The Banyan Software Foundation, endowed with $100 million in Banyan stock, leverages technology to build a greener and more equitable world.
Executive Assistant to the Chief Operating OfficerHybrid - This is a hybrid role based out of our Toronto office three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday.The primary goal of the Executive Assistant is to manage day-to-day business activities and provide high-level support to the Chief Operating Officer (COO). The COO's portfolio spans People, Legal, Corporate IT, Communications, our Technology and Business Operations Centers of Excellence, and the Banyan Software Foundation, each led by its own functional leader. The Executive Assistant works across all of these areas and with the leaders who run them.
This role blends traditional executive support with elements of a chief of staff. Alongside calendar, travel, and meeting management, the Executive Assistant develops a working knowledge of the COO's priorities and the OKRs of her leadership team, and uses that knowledge to help move those priorities forward in a coordinated way. The Executive Assistant must possess a strong understanding of the business and the demands of the COO's stakeholder network, including internal leadership, functional teams, board members, and external partners.
This role serves as a trusted partner who provides proactive and seamless support, brings order to a broad and fast-moving portfolio, and uses modern tools, including AI, to work efficiently at scale.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
Priorities and OKRs.
Develop and maintain a working knowledge of the COO's priorities and the OKRs of her leadership team. Use that context to prioritize inbound requests, sequence the COO's time, and keep attention on the work that matters most in the quarter.
Cross-functional coordination.
Help drive priorities forward across People, Legal, Corporate IT, Communications, the Centers of Excellence, and the Foundation. Identify where workstreams overlap or dependencies are unclear, connect the right leaders, and keep coordinated efforts moving between formal check-ins.
Progress visibility.
Maintain a current view of progress against OKRs and key initiatives for the COO and her leadership team. Prepare that view ahead of monthly and quarterly reviews, and flag where a goal or deliverable is at risk while there is still time to act.
Calendar management.
Provide sophisticated and proactive calendar management for the COO by anticipating needs, resolving conflicts independently wherever possible, and ensuring the COO's time is prioritized for the most strategic matters. Prepare the COO in advance for commitments with relevant context and materials, build in flex time, and support meetings that begin and end on schedule.
Corporate Operating Calendar.
Coordinate logistics, agendas, materials, and communications for key meetings on our Corporate Operating Calendar, including Board of Directors meetings, quarterly business reviews, senior leadership meetings, functional deep dives, and leadership offsites. Partner with functional leaders to keep pre-reads and inputs on schedule.
Operating mechanisms and process improvement.
Maintain and improve the templates, trackers, and cadences that support these operating mechanisms, and recommend changes where a process can run more effectively.
Action tracking and accountability.
Track and follow up on action items owned by the COO and the COO's direct reports to ensure continuity and accountability across cross-functional workstreams. Surface risks and slipped timelines early so they can be addressed before they affect a deliverable.
Deadlines and milestones.
Anticipate and plan for critical deadlines, key deliverables, and high-priority business milestones to ensure the COO is consistently prepared.
Information, materials, and correspondence.
Collect, prepare, and organize information for use in discussions, meetings, and presentations for the COO. Draft, edit, and manage communications on the COO's behalf, including confidential materials, exercising the utmost discretion.
AI-enabled ways of working.
Apply AI tools to the recurring work of the role, including inbox triage, meeting preparation, briefing materials, first drafts, dashboards and trackers, note synthesis and agents. Build and document repeatable workflows so the office of the COO continues to scale, and exercise clear judgment, particularly around confidential information and data.
Stakeholder liaison.
Act as a professional liaison between the COO and employees and external stakeholders. Handle inquiries and issues with sound judgment, escalating or redirecting as needed to the appropriate functional leaders.
Travel.
Plan and manage travel arrangements (air, hotel, ground transportation) for the COO, prepare itineraries, and proactively identify efficiencies to optimize travel schedules.
Corporate and Foundation events.
Support the planning and execution of corporate and Banyan Software Foundation, ensuring a professional and high-quality experience that reflects our brand and culture.
General administrative support.
Provide both routine and non-routine administrative support, including meeting coordination, conference planning, expense reporting, general onsite office support, and special projects as assigned. Continuously look for opportunities to improve processes and increase efficiency in the COO's office.
Desired Experience and Qualifications
Executive support experience.
5+ years of administrative experience supporting C-level executives in a fast-paced environment (COO or operational leadership support strongly preferred).
Goals and priority management.
Experience tracking progress against company or functional goals (OKRs, KPIs, or similar) and keeping cross-functional commitments moving forward without direct authority.
AI fluency.
Demonstrated use of AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, or similar) in daily work, with specific examples of tasks or workflows you have improved or automated.
Technical skills.
Advanced skills in Microsoft Office with proven ability to create and refine executive-level presentations, ensuring clarity, professionalism, and visual impact;
skilled in building graphs, tables, and charts. Experience with Slack, Google Workspace and Notion is an asset.
Core administrative expertise.
Experience managing complex calendars, coordinating meetings and events, preparing presentations, and administering expense reports.
Operating rhythm experience.
Experience supporting recurring business rhythms such as board meetings, quarterly reviews, and leadership offsites, including materials management and follow-through.
Communication.
Strong written and interpersonal communication skills with excellent judgment, discretion, and diplomacy in all interactions.
Executive presence.
Demonstrated ability to partner with Board members, and executive leaders, ensuring professionalism and trust in all engagements. Exude calm under pressure.
Autonomy and judgment.
Comfort operating with a high degree of autonomy, including making decisions within agreed guardrails and knowing when to escalation.
Organization.
Exceptional organizational and prioritization skills;
thrives under pressure while managing multiple tasks with accuracy and attention to detail.
Collaboration.
Highly collaborative team player with strong relationship-building skills and a service-oriented mindset.
Integrity.
High degree of integrity, accountability, and intellectual honesty in all work.
Problem solving.
Analytical and proactive problem solver, with a passion for anticipating needs and streamlining workflows to make the COO more effective.
WHY THIS ROLE AND WHY BANYANThe Chief Operating Officer's portfolio spans People, Legal, Corporate IT, Communications, our Technology and Business Operations Centers of Excellence, and the Banyan Software Foundation. Each area has its own functional leader, and you will work across all of them. The Corporate Operating Calendar, the OKRs of the COO's leadership team, board materials, and confidential matters all run through this seat.
The exposure is unusually broad: the Senior Leadership Team, the office of the CEO, board members, and external partners. Banyan is a future-forward organization, and it shows up in how we work. Our COO has already built her own AI tooling for the recurring parts of her job, and your role is to extend it and add the judgment layer on top.
Banyan is also a rare place to build a career. We are approaching a decade of operating a permanent-capital, buy-and-hold-for-life model, with more than 130 portfolio companies across North America, the UK, Europe, and APAC, and a corporate team invested in the operating disciplines that hold that together. That scale creates real room to shape how the office of the COO runs, alongside a clear path to work more deeply across People, Legal, Technology, or the Banyan Software Foundation over time.
The expected base salary for this position is: CAD $110,000 to $125,000 plus annual bonus and equity (when applicable). Salary is based on a number of factors including market conditions, location, and may vary depending on job-related skills and experience. This role is based in Toronto and expected to be in office a minimum of three days a week.
Posting is for a current opening.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Equal Employment Opportunity at Banyan: Banyan affirms that inequality is detrimental to our Global Teams, associates, our Operating Companies, and the communities we serve. As a collective, our goal is to impact lasting change through our actions. Together, we unite for equality and equity. Banyan is committed to equal employment opportunities regardless of any protected characteristic, including race, color, genetic information, creed, national origin, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, lawful alien status, ancestry, age, marital status, or protected veteran status and will not discriminate against anyone on the basis of a disability. We support an inclusive workplace where associates excel based on personal merit, qualifications, experience, ability, and job performance.
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