Job For Skills and Enterprise Portfolio Lead at British Council

---

The British Council is the world's leading cultural relations organization and creates opportunities for people in the UK and worldwide to understand each other, to work together and learn from one another. We see this as crucial to building secure, more prosperous and sustainable futures for us all. We build trust and understanding between different countries and cultures and develop strong international links that are of benefit to people in Britain and the rest of the world. We are recruiting to fill the below position below:     Job Title: Skills and Enterprise Portfolio Lead Location: Nigeria Pay Band: Senior Management Band (SMB) Reports to: Director, Education and Society (E&S) - SSA Role purpose

• Lead British Council work on developing an impactful and sustainable portfolio relevant to SSA (i.e. recognising the significance of the informal sector) and focused on employability, jobs, enterprise and entrepreneurship.
• Requiring definition of success indicators, timelines, delivery partners and financial targets.
• To harness the collective British Council technical offer (regional SBU staff, UK headquarters and with other regions e.g. Middle East and North Africa [MENA]) to devise cost effective tailor made programmes, which respond to needs of beneficiaries and the drivers of potential funders.
• Take full accountability as senior reporting officer (SRO) for the development and delivery of the portfolio including implementation and financial performance, human resources, line management, continuous professional development (CPD) and mentoring.
• Technical representation of the British Council and relationship management.

Main Accountabilities Strategic direction and Approach:

• Lead the development of the portfolio with:
  • A clear articulation of expected outcomes
  • Defined financial targets and milestones
  • A prioritization of partnership pursuit.

Business Development / Portfolio Management:

• Identify, track and resource forthcoming business opportunities within the sector.
• Develop strategic responses to client needs which enable the British Council in SSA to meet financial sustainability and impact targets, whilst maximising cultural relations impact for the British Council.
• Lead the technical conceptualisation, design and winning of proposals/partnerships.
• Provide sector expertise - either as management time or as consultancy input - to existing and new grant, partnership and client funded contracts within the SSA region.

Implementation:

• As SRO; quality assure delivery of existing and new programme(s) to the highest quality and as efficiently as possible.
• Provide strategic responses to financial / risk management reporting for own portfolio, including the BC’s own Financial Control Compliance Framework (FCCF) and Enterprise Risk Management Framework(ERMF), ensuring the Director SSA E&S SBU has up to date and relevant information which facilitates transparent decision-making and reporting to the Regional Steering Group (RSG) and / or other senior corporate stakeholders, including the British Council Executive Board.

Relationships:

• Develop strong relationships and professional networks with client, customer and corporate contacts, sector experts, partners and delivery teams across the region.
• Use these to maximum effect on behalf of the British Council.

Monitoring, Evaluation and learning:

• Ensure robust monitoring, evaluation and learning is in place for all project and data and learning feed through into the results and evidence framework.

Line Management / HR:

• Provide leadership, mentoring to support staff to develop income-generating partnerships among key partners, providing sector-specific knowledge and expertise, and disseminating key sector news, insights, trends and competitor activity across the partnership development network.

Qualifications

• Qualified to degree level or equivalent by experience.
• Familiarity with client policies and procedures
• Experience of working in Sub Saharan Africa is highly desirable.
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in senior management / sector / team leadership roles
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience of delivering client funded projects or programmes

Desirable:

• Post graduate qualification and experience of being contracted within client funded projects.

Role Specific Knowledge & Experience Business Pursuit:

• A proven track record of identifying business development opportunities and securing significant partnerships (cash, in kind and co-creation) including individual opportunities.

Team Leadership:

• Proven experience of successfully implementing projects and programmes, ensuring standards and meeting client expectations.

Relationship Building and Influencing:

• Experience of influencing and securing buy-in from senior colleagues in a large, complex and multi-cultural organisations and governments.

Programme management:

• Strong programme and client manage mentexperience.

Financial and Risk Management:

• Experience of interpreting complex business and market intelligence to ensure delivery of challenging business targets.

Desirable:

• Significant direct experience of the client / donor funded contract pursuit and delivery process.
• Demonstrable experience of identifying, communicating and mitigating risks (financial, operational political, environmental & organizational) in a similar operational context.
• Significant direct experience and understanding of issues affecting client contract delivery in British Council or similar organisational contexts.
• A track record that includes organisational sector representation on the international stage to build reputation, contribute to strategy development and thought leadership
• Five + years of programme delivery for a non-BC client.

    How to Apply Interested and qualified candidates should: Click here to apply   Application Deadline 24th April, 2018.

---