HEAD OF STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES – WFH - £59K + EXCELLENT BENEFITS

About the Role

This role is to lead the Strategic Opportunities team (working in partnership with the existing team leader). The team provides a highly regarded internal consultancy service to ensure that our strategic planning is informed by the best possible understanding of external trends and emerging opportunities. It is an exciting time for the organisation: the market is changing rapidly; new private competitors are entering our market; technology is disrupting traditional models and we are in the process of developing a new Strategy for the next five years.

The role of the Head of Strategic Opportunities is shared across two staff members so it will involve close working with the other team Head. In regards to this role, flexible working (e.g. working 4 longer days rather than 5 shorter days, working remotely 1 day per week, etc.) can be considered.

Key Responsibilities

To identify opportunities and challenges for the organisation and how best to respond to them by:

• Delivering robust and actionable strategic intelligence insights aimed at broadening the exposure and understanding of the external environment and throughout the organisation. Ensuring the external perspective is not lost during a time of internal change
• Supporting the development of the organisations objectives with respect to government in a fast changing policy environment
• Continuing to develop and deliver the organisations process for assessing Strategic Opportunities
• Scoping, leading and executing bespoke strategic projects to enable the organisation to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented at home and overseas
• Presenting findings to senior members of the organisation

To co-lead a small team (c. 5) of Strategy professionals and to support the professional development of the team in strategic analysis and the appropriate use of consulting frameworks, methods and tools

To manage relationships with key stakeholder groups across the organisation

Skills and Experience

Experience leading strategic analysis and strategy development, probably in a commercial environment:

• Record of achievements in at least one of the following areas:
  • strategy development
  • in-depth competitor/market analysis at corporate level,
  • assessing partnerships or commercial due diligence
• Record of providing intellectual direction on unstructured strategic questions
• Experience of turning unstructured questions into a well-planned and managed strategy projects, by leadership of Strategy Managers, Analysts or other team members
• Experience of undertaking research and analysis, identifying the best methods to gather any information required
• Experience of developing outputs and presenting to senior executive level audiences
• Experience of strategic consulting to senior clients in the commercial or public sector
• Knowledge or experience of the higher education or public sector is desirable but not essential

Strong analytical skills:

• Ability to identify strategic questions and form hypotheses based on limited information
• Understanding of analytical frameworks used in strategy development
• Experience of quantitative modelling and analysis, including the ability to confidently manipulate and analyse data in Microsoft Excel to an advanced level
• Understanding of qualitative research and analysis
• Experience of financial modelling and forecasting is desirable but not essential
• An understanding of statistics and experience of statistical software packages such as Tableau is desirable but not essential

Excellent interpersonal and leadership skills:

• Ability to manage and communicate clearly with a wide range of stakeholders in a large and complex organisation
• Experience leading diverse individuals to solve complex business problems