Corporate & Public Affairs Assistant

Kennedys is looking for a Corporate & Public Affairs Assistant to join our Corporate Affairs team based in London. The successful candidate will support Kennedys' global corporate affairs strategy. This is a proactive and hands on role which encompasses the planning, co-ordination and delivery of the firm's thought leadership content, client communications and stakeholder engagement activities.

The role will help the team showcase Kennedys' profile in local markets in business-critical subjects. It supports lawyers and the Corporate Affairs team in helping clients find more certainty in an increasingly uncertain world, by exploring an issue (including through research-based data) and delivering insights that the technical expertise of our colleagues can support. Doing so ensures Kennedys has a distinctive voice in the market place.

The position is part of a global Corporate Affairs function that helps deliver on Kennedys' vision and strategy to "set the standard for insurance defence and coverage, and for complementary dispute resolution and commercial law services".

Team

Kennedys Corporate Affairs team is an advisory team drawn from law, business, academia and government. It partners with our lawyers and our clients to demonstrate leadership and ownership of business critical issues, in order to facilitate business growth and resilience, and protect reputation.

The team examines emerging business risks, as well as the impact of legal and political shifts on the international business environment, providing valuable insights into the risk landscape for insurance clients, as well as a broader range of stakeholders.

Key features of the team include the creation of market reports for clients, which involves turning insights into strong and compelling content for multiple formats and across all marketing channels. Implicit in that function is curating and managing a pipeline of content-led activity.

Promoting our clients' interests in the public policy space is at the core of the team's activity. We monitor regulatory and legislative developments and regularly engage with the government, regulators and industry bodies, often by way of responding to consultations on topics including sustainability, diversity & inclusion, dispute resolution, disruptive technologies, data privacy and legislative change more broadly.

The Corporate Affairs team is based in London and is set to grow to include the US.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist with the production of high quality content that supports the firm's international growth ambition and its clients and markets, including thought-leadership, e-marketing, client facing reports and publications. This will involve liaising with external agencies and stakeholders.
• Provide oversight of various projects and initiatives at any one time, having the ability to coordinate activities from across the firm to related client critical issues. This will involve managing various ongoing tasks within the team to include reminders, diarising hard deadlines and keeping each stakeholder updated.
• Assist with the coordination of large-scale distribution of hard copy marketing materials, publications and guides to clients.
• Support in the planning and execution of targeted integrated marketing campaigns. With the emphasis being on content and project management, this will require an understanding of the full marketing mix (events, sponsorship, web, press, social media, and marketing collateral) to ensure marketing activities are not executed in isolation and are approached as campaigns wherever possible. This will involve working closely with external partners and the Business Development team.
• Act as the conduit between the various internal teams, ensuring actions are completed and avoid teams operating in silos.
• Keep the Corporate Affairs team abreast of key industry developments. This includes monitoring current trends, making suitable content suggestions and conducting initial research or scoping exercises on different topics.
• Keep relevant intranet pages up to date, uploading new content, assisting in promotional spotlights and developing meaningful tools for the team and wider business. To manage and develop the site so it offers a valuable resource and dynamic content, and reflects the capabilities and output of the Corporate Affairs team. This includes bringing fresh ideas and suggestions as to continual improvement and presentation.
• Assist with preparation and presentation of reports and presentations. Be familiar with brand and house style guides as well as different types of software used for content production. Liaise with Business Development team to ensure coordination and efficiency.
• Capture and report on the activity of the team for both an internal and external audience, and in order to showcase the work and capabilities of the team. To include for the purpose of reporting to the Firm's Primary Board, clients and for the on boarding of new joiners to the Firm.
• Support with financial administration. To include processing invoices from suppliers, assisting with the annual budget and planning cycle, and the processing of expenses.
• Support with diary management and general office administration.

Required experience

• Ability to work confidently with people at all levels across a business
• Flexible and adaptable, comfortable with change
• Good persuader and confident presentation skills, including with regard to the production of presentations for others
• Excellent business writing and communication styles, adaptable to various situations
• Strong networking skills
• Business benefit and results focused
• Service delivery focused
• Proactive, pragmatic; committed to 'trusted adviser' status
• Highly organised and able to prioritise workloads, manage multiple projects and negotiate deadlines
• Self-starter, comfortable working in a non-directive environment
• Comfortable working often to short deadlines
• Enthusiastic and optimistic attitude; commitment to profitable growth by Kennedys
• Good understanding of the insurance industry would be advantageous
• Strong interest in current affairs
• Experience of using Excel, PowerPoint and Sharepoint (intranet). Experience of e-marketing platforms, ideally InterAction and Vuture would be beneficial.

About Kennedys

Kennedys is a global law firm with expertise in dispute resolution and advisory services. With over 2,400 people worldwide across 44 offices in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and America we have some of the most respected legal minds in their field.

Our lawyers handle both contentious and non-contentious matters, and provide a range of specialist legal services, for many industry sectors but we have particular expertise in litigation and dispute resolution, especially in defending insurance and liability claims.

We're a fresh-thinking firm, and we're not afraid to bring challenging new perspectives to the table way beyond the traditional realm of legal services. We empower our clients with a diverse range of ideas, tools and technology to make their lives easier, as well as delivering exceptional results, every time.

What do we have to offer?

We welcome high-performing lawyers, business services professionals, secretaries, graduates and apprentices to join our rapidly expanding global firm. Whatever your role at Kennedys, you'll be involved in exciting and stimulating work, where your input will make a difference.

Our culture and values form a big part of who we are and we take them seriously. We make a difference by being approachable,straightforward, supportive and distinctive. Our values are at the core of who we are and what make us a great firm to work with and for.

We develop careers in an innovative and collaborative global environment, with our values at the core. We believe that supporting individual growth and development puts us in the best position to attract and retain talented individuals. Regardless of role or level, everyone has access to virtual learning to help you develop your skills, wherever you are in the world. A variety of other exciting opportunities are available including secondments to clients and our global offices as well as a comprehensive benefits package (details are available upon request).

We've created a culture based on client service, professional excellence, hard work and trust. We deeply value the relationships we build with our clients and we know that they value our warm, friendly human approach. We are here to provide answers, recommendations, strategy and tactics.

Kennedys is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. We expect all employees to be aware of and comply with all relevant policies and procedures within their jurisdiction, including those relating to Information Security, Data Protection and Quality Management, refer any breach promptly to Risk & Compliance and to complete all mandatory training when requested.