Associate Business Manager, USSIM Executive Office

Business Area: Operations

Place of Work: London

Contract Type: Permanent

When you join USS, the size and scale of our pension scheme means you will have numerous opportunities to learn and develop your career. Given our size you'll have real autonomy and influence as you collaborate closely with a wide-ranging team of experts.

About the role

In your role as Associate Business Manager, USSIM Executive Office you will make a meaningful and valued contribution from the outset. This role will provide a great opportunity to provide coordination, planning, governance and delivery support across CEO and COO business management activities. Working closely with the Senior Business Manager, the role helps to bring structure to priorities, maintain momentum on key actions and support timely follow-up on decisions, deliverables and stakeholder requirements.

The role also makes an important contribution to strengthening ways of working across executive and senior business support activity, with a focus on consistency, knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.

What you will be doing

As a trusted part of the Operations team you will be responsible for:

Delivering Results

1. Supports an effective operating rhythm for the Executive Office, including planning cycles, meeting cadence, governance submissions, action tracking and communications.
2. Coordinates delivery of USSIM Executive Office priorities, ensuring plans, actions, owners, dependencies and deadlines are clear, tracked and progressed.
3. Supports the Senior Business Manager in preparing for meetings with members of the executive team and other colleagues, for example by creating proposed agendas or liaising with colleagues to prepare briefing materials.
4. Owns or supports selected workstreams, projects and initiatives, coordinating inputs across teams and escalating risks, decisions and dependencies as required.
5. Prepares, reviews and refines materials, including agendas, briefing packs, presentation content, meeting notes, action logs, management information, reports and papers for senior executive and governance audiences.
6. Working with the Executive Office EA, provides support to the CEO, COO and Senior Business Manager in relation to the organisation of offsites and the programme of Senior Management Team events including townhalls and other communications.

Delivering Strategic Initiatives

1. Assisting the Senior Business Manager in delivering initiatives on behalf of the CEO and COO. The exact requirements will vary on a project-by-project basis but may include drafting papers and agendas, tracking delivery of actions, communicating with the wider project team, creating collateral (e.g. PowerPoint presentations and timetables) and assisting with the tracking of budgets and arranging meetings.

Strengthening Ways of Working

1. Supports consistent ways of working across the Executive Office and related business support activity, working with relevant colleagues across USSIM and USSL.
2. Facilitates communication, knowledge sharing and working-practice reviews to strengthen consistency, continuous improvement and effectiveness.
3. Identifies opportunities to simplify processes through clearer guidance, standard templates and more consistent ways of working.

Managing Relationships

1. Acts as a key link between the USSIM Executive Office, senior business support, HR, Governance, Finance, Risk, Technology and other relevant business areas.
2. Builds effective working relationships with senior leaders and their support teams, ensuring expectations, service requirements and escalation routes are clear.
3. Supports senior leaders and Business Managers with team planning, offsites, communications, actions, deliverables and external stakeholder engagement where Executive Office involvement is required.
4. Maintains confidentiality and discretion when handling sensitive executive, people-related and governance information.
5. Liaises with members of the Executive team and their support teams to ensure prompt follow up of actions and help resolve outstanding issues.

About you

We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they don't tick every box, if you're excited about working for us and have most of the skills or experience we're looking for, then please apply, regardless of whether you meet all the requirements outlined in this profile.

To be successful in the role you will have:

1. Experience supporting senior leaders, executive offices, governance forums, business management activity or complex cross-functional programmes.
2. Strong planning, prioritisation and delivery discipline, with the ability to work flexibly and manage multiple workstreams, deadlines and stakeholders concurrently.
3. Excellent written communication skills, including the ability to draft, edit and structure executive-level materials, reports, MI and governance content with clarity, accuracy and judgement.
4. Strong stakeholder management capability, including confidence engaging across seniority levels, functions and external stakeholder groups in a professional manner.
5. Good understanding of governance, risk, controls and confidentiality expectations in a regulated or complex corporate environment.
6. Ability to create structure from ambiguity, identify dependencies, track actions and support timely decision-making.
7. Proficiency in Microsoft 365 tools, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and Teams; experience with planning, workflow, AI and other collaboration tools would be beneficial.
8. Understanding of Executive Office, business management and senior business support operating models, including how ways of working, governance, technology and coordination can improve consistency, resilience and value for money. This should include an understanding of the distinct but complementary responsibilities of business management and Executive Assistant roles.
9. Continuous improvement mindset, with the ability to simplify processes and improve ways of working to strength Executive Office delivery.

Why join us?

At USS, every individual contributes to building a secure financial future for our members and their families. We strive to create a work environment where everyone can thrive professionally while making a meaningful impact on the lives of others. We're also committed to helping you build your career by providing opportunities for development. We put a focus on recognising and supporting each individual's unique career path, driving this forward with the support of an engaged and proactive management team. Here at USS, we want you to thrive in and out of work with a friendly team, flexible culture and excellent range of benefits!

How we will reward you

1. Great starting salary
2. Generous annual leave package
3. Access to a high quality pension scheme provided through Universities Superannuation Scheme
4. Supportive people policies (including enhanced occupational sickness pay and family friendly pay)
5. Financial contributions towards your personal development to help you maintain your physical and mental wellbeing
6. Access to a range of health and wellbeing services i.e., private healthcare, discounted gym membership
7. Learning and development opportunities to develop your skills, knowledge and talent
8. Employee Volunteer Day’s to support the communities where you work and live
9. Cycle to Work Scheme

Our culture and values

Our people are what makes us different. We work together to create a diverse and inclusive culture that embraces individuality, where people are welcomed and feel comfortable in the knowledge that they can be themselves. Our purpose firmly states the importance of members, putting them ‘front and centre’ of what we do. This is embedded through our values:

1. Integrity
2. Collaboration
3. Excellence

About us

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) was established in 1974 as the principal pension scheme for universities and other higher education institutions in the UK. We work with around 330 employers to help build a secure financial future for almost 599,000 members and their families. We are one of the largest private defined benefit pension schemes in the UK, with total assets of around £84 billion (at March 2026). To find out more, please visit

https://www.uss.co.uk/

USSIM is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We strive to ensure our recruitment process is as flexible and inclusive as possible so we can attract diverse candidates and recruit the best talent. We want all candidates to perform at their best during the recruitment process, so if you need any reasonable adjustments or if there is anything we can do to help support you through your recruitment journey please let us know by contacting resourcing@uss.co.uk.