The role

Our Consultancy Partnership offers participatory, inclusive approaches to research issues, evaluate services, and co-design services that support organisations to learn, develop, challenge power structures, and drive equitable change.

We aim to support clients to understand and deepen their social impact. Whether they focus on people, issues or places, we can help:

• Issues that reinforce or create inequalities and injustice
• Places that unite individuals and topics we prioritise, with established networks to support our work
• People who've encountered social issues first-hand, and groups prone to disproportionate impact.

This is a fantastic opportunity to take an impactful leadership role in a dynamic social enterprise. You’ll be accountable for delivering exceptional client management and quality deliverables, which will consolidate our reputation as a market- and thought-leader for participatory approaches in research, evaluation, learning, strategy and design. At its core, this role provides general management, commercial oversight and strategic direction, and you’ll also be responsible for business development. We will look to you to help with delivering our ambitious growth targets by identifying and creating new opportunities, building strategic partnerships, and overseeing tenders.

Candidates will have at least seven years’ experience of working as a consultant in a social purpose business, at least two years of which must have been in a senior position. You’ll be an adept and inspiring leader of diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, with the knowledge and skills required to manage budgets up to £5m. A high degree of commercial acumen is essential, as is a professional repertoire which includes workshop facilitation, the full range of evaluation techniques, research tools and co-design.

Strong candidates will have sector-specialist knowledge of one or more of our key business areas – health, education, housing, climate or employment – and a track record of successfully delivering social impact outputs. A nuanced understanding of how to increase raise profitability in an organisation rooted in employee wellbeing will also be an advantage. As a Senior Leader in our small, growing organisation, you’ll exemplify and promote our values-led culture, building a safe and inclusive working environment and working collaboratively to realise our huge potential.

We know that the consultancy sector is not very diverse, but we’re committed to changing that. Our organisation must reflect the people and communities we work with. We therefore strongly encourage candidates from racial and ethnic minority groups to apply for this position. We are committed to this positive action under the Equality Act 2010.