Junior Administrator

About Westhafen Consulting
Westhafen Consulting is a private advisory practice with offices in Berlin and New York. The firm advises chairs, chief executives and board committees on decisions that are hard to reverse, often during a change in governance, a reconstitution of the board or a succession. Its counsel takes three forms: a commissioned memorandum answering one defined question with a fixed scope, a review before commitment on a decision close to signature, and standing counsel running for six to twelve months.
The firm works in writing. Advice is delivered as signed documents, kept as short as the question allows, and material shared by a client stays between the author and the client. The role sits in the Office of the Author, the small administrative centre that keeps that written record in order.

The work
You will support one author and the office around them. The tasks are concrete, and most of them end in a document that goes on file.

1. Prepare first drafts from an author's notes, using the firm's templates for memoranda, reviews and letters.
2. Check figures, dates, names and cross-references in a draft before it goes for sign-off.
3. Keep the file in order: versions, signed copies, correspondence and the record of what was sent when.
4. Handle correspondence with the office of a client, confirming meetings and circulating papers ahead of them.
5. Organise review meetings, including the agenda, the papers and the note that follows.
6. Maintain the office's registers and records, so that any question about a past matter can be answered from the file.

A typical week
A memorandum usually arrives as a page of notes early in the week. You turn it into a first draft, check the figures against the underlying papers, and pass it to the author. Comments come back over the following days, often in the margins, and you work through them one by one. By the end of the week the document is signed, dated and filed, with the correspondence around it in the same place. Some weeks carry a review meeting instead, and then the rhythm shifts to papers, confirmations and a note written afterwards.

What you bring

• Careful writing in English, with sentences that say one thing at a time.
• Attention to detail in figures, names and dates, and the habit of checking your own work before it leaves your desk.
• Reliable timekeeping: drafts and papers arrive when they were promised.
• Discretion with client material, since much of what passes through the office is confidential.
• Comfort working from written instructions and asking a precise question when something is unclear.
• German at a working level for correspondence with Berlin offices, or a willingness to build it.

What the role offers
This is a permanent, full-time position, hybrid, based at the firm's Berlin office. You will work directly with a named author and see how a signed document is built from a first note to a filed record. The office protects time for focused work, so drafts can be read properly before they are passed on. Studies in law, economics or a related field are useful but not required, and familiarity with document tools is helpful. Training happens on live matters, with the author reviewing what you produce.
Success in this role looks quiet from the outside. The file is complete when someone asks for it, drafts reach the author in a state that can be read in one sitting, and clients hear back when they were told they would. If you work well in writing and like keeping a record straight, the office will give you steady material to learn on and an author who reads what you write.