We’re the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) - the voice of the UK food and drink industry: the largest manufacturing sector in the country. We help our members operate in a highly regulated marketplace to maximise their competitiveness and profitability. Our job is to communicate our industry's values and concerns to Government, regulators, consumers and the media. We also work in partnership with key players in the food supply chain to ensure our food is safe, affordable and nutritious.
The Role
As Team Administrator, you will ensure that the work of the Corporate Affairs Team and the Industry Growth policy team is efficiently co-ordinated; to provide administrative support to the Director of Policy and Communications across their range of activities; to assist in the development and implementation of FDF campaigns and projects, support the work of relevant committees and working within the context of the FDF consultation and approvals procedure. Your responsibilities will include:
Committees
- Secretariat support to the Corporate Affairs Group. Provide support and assistance to colleagues and committee members by identifying issues, setting up meetings (including room bookings, physical set up etc), commissioning briefings from Directors, ensuring the smooth running of each event and taking minutes;
- Accurately produce documents including note of meetings, and upload them onto FDF website in a timely manner;
- Provide administrative support for the Industry Growth Committee, International Trade Committee, Customs Group, Employment and Skills Forum, Technology Forum and FDSC exports and skills working groups e.g. assisting with document uploading for all meetings, preparing meeting arrangements and collating agendas and papers.
Team administration
- Work across the Corporate Affairs and Industry Growth teams to arrange all team meetings, internal meetings with colleagues, review meetings, awaydays and meetings with external stakeholders, as well as organising conference calls, room bookings;
- Support the team with travel and accommodation bookings and other administrative tasks;
- Process all invoices, track and monitor the Corporate Affairs budget. Assist the Corporate Affairs and Industry Growth teams with their company credit card and out of pocket expenditure;
- Manage the purchase and distribution of FDF periodicals and subscriptions;
- Monitor the emails received in to the FDF via the website’s ‘contact us’ function, respond or field to policy officials to take forward;
- Maintain and capture all Corporate Affairs and Industry Growth colleagues contacts and ensure member profiles are kept up to date on AccessThankQ CRM;
- Coordinate the Corporate Affairs and Industry Growth teams’ input for FDF newsletters and staff meetings e.g. ‘FDF huddle’;
- Provide efficient diary management and coordination for the Director of Policy and Corporate Affairs, Head of Corporate Affairs, Head of Media Relations and Heads of the Industry Growth and International Trade.
Events
- Assist with the planning, logistics and delivery of FDF Commercial and other ad hoc events;
- Work closely with the Public Affairs team to arrange the annual Parliamentary Reception. Duties will include database preparation, handling invitations to the event and their responses, providing event collateral and front of house support at the event;
- Provide logistical and administrative support – prior to, on-the-day and post-event for a range of Corporate Affairs-led member oriented and external events.
Political and Media Monitoring
- Assist with the compilation of regular reports and newsletters for FDF colleagues and members, and disseminating intelligence on policy, political and parliamentary developments;
- Support the team in maintaining an accurate stakeholder management database;
- To deal with daily press cuttings as directed by the Media team and provide social media assistance for FDF and FSF Corporate Affairs social media platforms.
General
- Support the general Corporate Affairs team and Industry Growth team functions. Attend and assist at FDF events and receptions as required. Maintain FDF’s achievements log;
- Join the rest of FDF’s support network in assisting other policy team members who do not have dedicated support;
- Assist with any other reasonable duties that may be required by the Media & Campaigns Manager, Head of Corporate Affairs, Heads of Industry Growth and International Trade, or Director of Policy and Corporate Affairs;
- Deal with the post, process internal and external mailings;
- Provide ad hoc cover for other FDF administrators or support staff as required.
The Team
FDF’s Corporate Affairs team ensures we and our members have strong and constructive relationships across the UK Government, Parliament, and the media. This enables us to showcase FDF’s policy work for political and media stakeholders seeking expertise on UK food and drink issues, and ensures our members’ issues are at the forefront of the public policy agenda.
FDF’s Industry Growth team is responsible for policy and market developments that impact UK food and drink manufacturers’ ability to invest, grow and do business. The team covers a range of economic issues including: trade and workforce implications of the UK leaving the European Union; skills and employment; exporting; and working with supply chains.
Requirements
- Educated to A-level standard or relevant working experience;
- Experienced administrator – ideally someone who might have previous experience working in a comms, media or policy environment or trade association. The role would suit someone willing to, or used to working in a fast-paced work place, and be willing to work flexibly as required;
- Excellent communication skills;
- Professional, assertive and approachable with a positive attitude, providing high quality service to stakeholders;
- Proven time management and administrative skills, with the ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines;
- Able to work flexibly and cope with change;
- Ability to work with people at all levels i.e. senior Government officials, heads of the food and drink industry, stakeholders, members and others within the organisation;
- A self-starter with the ability to work alone on own initiative and as part of a team;
- Excellent eye for detail when producing documents, updating spreadsheets and database maintenance and committee minute taking;
- Able to identify potential administrative or logistical problems ahead of time and provide possible solutions;
- Able to make connections across policy and comms issues and support the team in bringing opportunities to fruition;
- Excellent knowledge of IT packages, particularly MS Office.
Our Benefits
FDF is a great place to work where we take wellbeing seriously and have a great benefits package to match, offering a pension scheme, life insurance, 25 days holiday, private healthcare, leisure travel insurance, gym subsidy, interest-free season ticket loan and cycle-to-work scheme.
Our Workplace
We’re based in the heart of central London in a modern, bright open-plan office. We have a friendly work culture with great break-out spaces, quiet booths and opportunities for flexible-working. Our ‘Feel Good for Life’ team regularly organises events and activities to promote positive health and wellbeing.