Our client is looking for an individual with a breadth of business experience, a proven track record in delivery and an ability to understand and lead marketing, operations, HR, and business planning activities across the organisation.  The existing leadership team have extensive local authority and social work experience, and are now looking for a commercially minded and experienced operations specialist, with a breadth of business experience, to support the journey to independence.

We require a Strategic Operations and Business Planning Director to:

Join our leadership team and provide operational ownership for the business, supporting the existing social work practitioner leadership to build out the back office infrastructure, lead marketing and related functions to drive the commercial success of the organisation Support the company through the ownership and promotion of commercial insights and the development of business plans to drive the strategic growth of the organisation Lead the development of the business operations on its journey to independence, leveraging central services in a cost-effective manner, whilst providing independent commercial and revenue generating activities to drive growth

The role has accountability for:

Marketing and lead generation

Lead and oversee the development of the marketing team and activities to drive brand recognition and lead generation Provide marketing qualified leads to the wider leadership team to enable new business opportunities to be developed Work with the wider leadership team and Non-Exec Director to develop plans, forums, events, etc to build the brand recognition in the market and new business opportunities Develop and establish key metrics to demonstrate the success of marketing activities and enable clarity on effectiveness of marketing channels and spend

Operations

Own all business functions activities across the organisation, outside of social work practice delivery to local authorities; liaising with centrally sourced group services where appropriate. These activities include, but are not limited to Tenders, HR, IT, business planning, reporting and MI, business admin support to local authority projects, and governance and risk Own the identification of new tender opportunities and drafting of new tender submissions  Leverage centralised/ outsourced HR and IT expertise, to ensure business practices and services remain compliant, stable and available In conjunction with the Group CFO, leverage the available financial information, develop and own the reporting of performance and KPIs for the business, and develop enhanced insights and commentary Ensure adherence to group governance requirements and documentation and escalation of risks Establish independent services and infrastructure where cost effective to do so, to support the development of the business towards independence

Business plans and commercial opportunities

In conjunction with the CEO, own the development and documentation of the organisation’s business plans.  As part of this process, and in conjunction with the group finance team, develop the financial analysis required to complete the business plan and annual budgets Own the objectives for the business that form part of the business plan, and provide clear and consistent monitoring of performance and progress against outcomes and objectives Develop plans and proposals for new business development and service offerings, after detailed and extensive market research and analysis

MI and reporting

Own the dashboards for the business to enable reporting of performance across the whole organisation, from marketing to operations, to finance, to people, to risks Develop and enhance MI and reporting to improve visibility of performance and ensure key metrics are tracked and monitored to deliver clarity of outcomes.