Personal Assistant to VP Global Business Services (12 month Secondment / FTC)

Personal Assistant to VP Global Business Services (12 months Secondment / FTC)

Location: Eastbrook House, Cambridge UK

Competitive salary and benefits apply

At AstraZeneca, we pride ourselves on crafting a collaborative culture that champions knowledge-sharing, ambitious thinking and innovation – ultimately providing employees with the opportunity to work across teams, functions and even the globe. 

Recognizing the importance of individualized flexibility, our ways of working allow employees to balance personal and work commitments while ensuring we continue to create a strong culture of collaboration and teamwork by engaging face-to-face in our offices 3 days a week. Our offices are purposely designed with collaboration in mind, providing space where teams can come together to strategize, brainstorm and connect on key projects.     

About Global Business Services:
In Global Business Services (GBS) we dare to change the way we work – we are brave, resilient and take smart risks with a focus on simplifying the way we work.  Through our global scale and diverse services, we look to drive value through our innovation and expertise.  This requires a team who see no boundaries, can collaborate, challenges the norm, feels empowered, and stays motivated and engaged.  

In our role as a global business services group, we are passionate about working smarter, to free up time, free up money, protect value and provide new capabilities to the enterprise – all to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines. 

Do you have a passion for PA support at a senior level?  Do you have proven experience as a Personal Assistant and the ability to work collaboratively? Are you someone who loves taking on responsibility with a flexible approach? Do you have a curious, proactive and versatile mindset? Are you ready for your next challenge of leading your own team and being a team player?

Reporting into the Vice President (VP) of GBS, Jackie Crockford, your focus will be on providing high level quality and professional support to the VP, along with managing the team of PAs within GBS. This is an exciting 12-month secondment opportunity to cover a challenging, proactive and varied role to enable the team to deliver a groundbreaking service, freeing up time and saving money for the organisation.

As a key member of GBS, you will use your excellent organisational skills to enable the GBS team to provide integration of governance, locations and business practices to all shared services and outsourcing activities across the business. Using your skills gained from experience in roles in complex and/or global teams, you will be comfortable with managing multiple priorities, conflicting demands and have the drive and enthusiasm to deliver to high standards in a fast-paced environment.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Being a confident individual, you will enjoy working with collaborators across all levels of our organisation, across different time zones and with people from many cultures, building networks and supporting colleagues. 

The role involves extensive diary management and planning to ensure that diaries align to key business activities and deliverables for the VP and leadership team.  This involves proactively driving a diary schedule that balances the different needs of the group including coordinating UK and international internal and external meetings, including with members of the Senior Executive Team and some of our largest global transformation programs.

As the Line manager of 4 other PA’s, you will be accountable for setting out the expectations of the team. This includes ensuring that work is distributed across the team, and cascading any updates from the LT meetings.  The team is accountable for managing logistics of the leadership team as well as ensuring that the entire organization delivers on our target to reduce our carbon impact on the environment through sustainable travel.

As a visible member of the AstraZeneca organization, there are opportunities to get involved in leading on local initiatives involving office vibrancy, volunteering, Health and Safety, Inclusion and Diversity etc.

As a critical member of the team, you must demonstrate the ability for confidentiality, discretion, strong people management, high EQ and a drive for excellence.

Key duties include:

• Working closely with VP, GBS to establish annual and quarterly priorities and proactively ensure diary management aligns to priorities and balances time for delivery alongside meetings. 
• Working closely with SET area EAs to plan annual meeting cycles and alignment with SET schedules as necessary.
• Extensive diary planning and ongoing management
• Attending GBS leadership team meetings to actively participate in relevant topics – supporting action planning, diary management and priority delivery; including logistics planning
• Line management for the GBS PA team, including monthly team meetings, cascade of information from LTs and giving direction to the team where required
• Travel planning and management for critical trips including liaising with local teams, setting schedules and ensuring smooth running of work travel and associated events.
• Understanding of Concur for travel bookings and expenses, ensuing completion within approved timeframe and within policy as well as visa arrangements where required
• Budget and carbon tracking, ensuring department falls within given budgets
• Working closely with the Comms team to provide advice and logistical support for quarterly Town Halls, including watch party co-ordination
• Raise purchase requisitions/orders and occasional vendor creation
• Expert user of key information tools i.e. Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Teams and other virtual tools, i.e. Service Now articles, Box, SharePoint and Slido.

Essential Skills:

• Proven experience of providing full PA/administrative support at a senior level
• Discretion and privacy are key given access to sensitive and highly confidential information.
• Excellent team working, networking and influencing skills
• Good business awareness across AZ, to understand key partners and challenges. 
• Experience of managing requests and priorities from an array of collaborators, in a changing environment
• Demonstrated experience in leading, managing, and developing direct reports with accountability for team performance and resource allocation
• Strong organisational, forward-planning and collaborator management skills with ability to prioritise multiple demands in a fast-paced environment and to think beyond boundaries of own job, challenge status quo and seek opportunities for continuous improvement
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills along with administrative, interpersonal, time management and organisational skills
• Goals and solution oriented, demonstrating initiative and proactivity in the provision of support to the team
• Assertiveness and strong personal resilience
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office. 
• Proven history of personal learning and development – a self starter open to taking on new opportunities for development and open to learning new ways of working.

AstraZeneca is an equal opportunity employer. AstraZeneca will consider all qualified applicants for employment without discrimination on grounds of disability, sex or sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental leave status, race or national or ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, gender identity or re-assignment, marital or civil partnership status, protected veteran status (if applicable) or any other characteristic protected by law. 

Where can I find out more?

Our Social Media, Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/1603/

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Date Posted

09-Jan-2026

Closing Date

23-Jan-2026

Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.