Interim (Senior) Strategy Manager Job at Nesta (London)

Job Description

Working in close collaboration with colleagues in the Strategy Unit and beyond, the Strategy Manager / Senior Strategy Manager’s responsibilities may include: Driving future strategic reviews: Playing a central role in shaping Nesta’s long-term strategic direction, including by leading preparatory research and supporting the delivery of future strategic reviews. Project leadership: Scoping and leading discrete strategic projects (ranging from a few weeks to several months) to accelerate progress towards our mission goals or address challenges, for example by helping to drive forward mission ‘big bet’ opportunities or optimise organisational performance. This will involve taking ownership of the project, defining and structuring complex questions, driving forward high-quality analysis with a level of depth and rigour commensurate with the size and importance of the problem, synthesising the key insights, making clear and actionable recommendations, and effectively managing stakeholders. Delivering corporate routines: Leading corporate routines to measure our impact, assess progress towards our mission goals, identify opportunities and challenges, and ensure alignment on forward priorities. Stakeholder management and influence: Building trusted relationships across Nesta’s mission teams and other parts of the organisation. Team capability building: Supporting the Head of Strategy to maximise the impact of the Strategy Unit, including by coaching and mentoring other members of the Strategy Unit in structured, hypothesis-driven problem-solving, prioritisation, and effective stakeholder management.

Job Responsibility

Driving future strategic reviews: Playing a central role in shaping Nesta's long-term strategic direction, including by leading preparatory research and supporting the delivery of future strategic reviews.
Project leadership: Scoping and leading discrete strategic projects (ranging from a few weeks to several months) to accelerate progress towards our mission goals or address challenges, for example by helping to drive forward mission 'big bet' opportunities or optimise organisational performance. This will involve taking ownership of the project, defining and structuring complex questions, driving forward high-quality analysis with a level of depth and rigour commensurate with the size and importance of the problem, synthesising the key insights, making clear and actionable recommendations, and effectively managing stakeholders.
Delivering corporate routines: Leading corporate routines to measure our impact, assess progress towards our mission goals, identify opportunities and challenges, and ensure alignment on forward priorities.
Stakeholder management and influence: Building trusted relationships across Nesta's mission teams and other parts of the organisation.
Team capability building: Supporting the Head of Strategy to maximise the impact of the Strategy Unit, including by coaching and mentoring other members of the Strategy Unit in structured, hypothesis-driven problem-solving, prioritisation, and effective stakeholder management.

Requirements

Strategy experience: You have several years or more of strategy experience, gained either through management consultancy or through an internal strategy role. You are able to effectively apply your experience and knowledge of strategy to Nesta's specific context.
Problem-solving and insight: You have experience leading projects to resolve complex, multifaceted problems with multiple senior stakeholders and no obvious answer. You are able to scope an ambiguous problem, break it down into logically distinct pieces and work in a hypothesis driven way to resolve it. You are able to bring together research, analysis, stakeholder input and judgement to produce clear insights and recommendations.
Analytical skills: You have strong analytical skills, both qualitative and quantitative. This includes competence with spreadsheets and financial analysis. You are able to draw relevant and accurate conclusions based on this analysis.
Project management and ownership: You default to taking ownership and are able to drive projects forward proactively and reliably to reach answers. You have a demonstrated ability to effectively balance that with bringing others along and seeking the input / guidance required to reach a quality conclusion.
Efficiency: You are able to work in an '80/20' way, identifying the 20% of work that will generate 80% of the answer, and you can quickly and accurately right-size a piece of work, neither over- nor under-investing in proportion to its relative significance. You make abstract ideas concrete quickly and love to prototype and test before committing significant effort.
Stakeholder engagement: You are a natural relationship-builder and see engaging others in your work as a core part of your skillset. You are able to engage a variety of stakeholders, anticipating their needs and concerns, facilitating efficient and value-adding inputs, and proactively bringing them along with your emerging findings. You can 'manage up' effectively, keeping senior stakeholders informed and bringing them in at the right time.
Communication skills: You are an exceptionally clear communicator with experience delivering high-quality written and verbal outputs and a demonstrated ability to synthesise complex issues into clear and concise messages for a senior audience. You can articulate clear and compelling arguments both through slides and longer-form written documents.
Creativity: You are open to new ways of working and thinking and bring open mindedness and intellectual curiosity to your work and to the team. You are able to switch modes effectively and sensitively, knowing when to open up a conversation with bold and unusual ideas and when to narrow down to generate focus and momentum.

Nice to have

A grounding in one or more of the following: Nesta's mission areas (early years, health, sustainability)
Nesta's roles / methods (behavioural science, data science, venture building, policy etc.)
emerging technology (e.g. generative AI, quantum computing)
the (social) innovation sector
Experience working in a purpose-driven organisation
Experience in leading and facilitating strategic discussions at Executive or Board level

What we offer

health cash plans
dental insurance
the ability to buy and sell annual leave
eyecare vouchers

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