Cluster Business Officer- Black Sea & Wider Europe Cluster

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.

We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK. We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.

Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.

Job Title: Cluster Business Officer

Location: Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine

Requirements: Candidates must have the legal rights to work in country of location at the time of application.

Contract Type: 2 years FTC, possibility of extension

Pay-band: 6/G

An exciting opportunity to join British Council English Teaching team in Black Sea and Wider Europe as a Cluster Business Officer. The Black Sea and Wider Europe Cluster is on a rapid growth and expansion trajectory in English Teaching delivery within both B2C and B2B segments. This position would suit a driven professional, with experience in financial planning and monitoring, marketing insights and trends analysis and a track record of building strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Role Purpose & Context: The role exists to deliver against the cluster Profit&Loss, the role defines and delivers against a plan to achieve business targets. It works closely with operations to ensure costs are controlled. The role monitors and evaluates performance on a monthly/quarterly/annual basis, identifying strategies to address underperformance.

The post holder will work closely with other key cluster and country roles including Operations, Marketing, Sales and Customer Management and Academic Leads to ensure cost efficiency while maintaining highs standards of delivery and customer satisfaction, as well as regularly interact with Cluster Corporate English Solutions team to support B2B growth.

Alongside input into planning and delivering geographical expansion within established markets, Cluster Business Officer will also be supporting Regional Market Development with the new market entry projects.

Main Accountabilities

Commercial and/or financial management

• Provide input into the design and control of commercial-related activities such as commercial planning, projecting levels of demand, identify opportunities to maximize revenue from resources, aligning need to class hours, drawing together data and turning into actionable plan e.g. resourcing and Sales pipeline reporting to meet (daily/weekly/monthly) targets, schedules and deadlines.
• Liaises closely with cluster colleagues to clarify and agree local targets in terms of revenue/margin/volume/impact/time/cost.
• Delivers the geographical growth strategy including expansion and consolidation of centre & branch network, develops business cases for investment and monitors profitability of off-site locations in line with Global Market Development standards and approaches.

Analysis and reporting

• Uses management information, analysis and personal operating experience to identify and make recommendations on improvements to country and cluster-wide ways of working, processes, procedures and/or resources that will enhance efficiency, revenue growth and continuous improvement in the quality of service/product delivery.
• Partners with the relevant cluster and country functional leads to conduct country/cluster income forecasts and optimise the B2C sales pipeline.
• Works with Corporate solutions to maintain visibility on B2B/Sales forecast, pipeline and integrate contract delivery into cluster/country commercial forecasts.
• Leads the negotiation/structuring of local deals to achieve required operational goals, drawing appropriately on the input and expertise of other colleagues/external advisors as required.

Market & customer intelligence

• Contributes market, customer and business performance insights to inform marketing strategy and plans for the cluster, country or market segment/lifestage.
• Develops and maintains relationships with key geographically dispersed stakeholders to build a clear understanding of their needs/experiences, to inform medium-term innovation in the quality of service/programme/product delivery.

Relationship and Stakeholder management

• May be formal account manager for a nominated customer/institution//sponsor, as required by regional/SBU business development and partnership plans.
• Manages a range of relationships with external stakeholders (e.g government, sponsors, customers, partners) to achieve positive outcomes.

Risk and compliance

• Uses standard corporate protocols, combined with previous experience and detailed knowledge of the local social/political/security context, to assess a range of risks in to business delivery. Ensures appropriate contingency plans are in place and implemented promptly to manage delivery safely and effectively in challenging or high-risk circumstances.
• May be responsible for legal representation, supporting tax and status changes, overseeing audits, provides formal representation of the British Council for legal, employee relations cases at a Centre level.

Leadership & management

• Identifies requirements and recommends training and development provision to build improved commercial capability within the country.

Role Specific Skills

• Strong commercial and financial acumen
• Communication and Influencing
• Customer focused
• Analytical and able to derive insight from commercial data
• Business development

Knowledge And Experience

Essential

• Operating in international and multi-cultural organisations.
• Managing legal, commercial, risk and security issues.
• Comfortable operating in a rapidly changing environment.
• Experience of small scale business management including understanding of the drivers of growth and interpretation of financial and resource data to forge business action.
• Understanding of the acquisition funnel through management of data, dashboards, and action on interpretation of customer insights.

Essential

Language Requirements

• English language skills to the CEF C1 level

Additional Requirements

The role would require some travel within the cluster – Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Ukraine.

Closing date: Sunday, 4 February 2024, applications will close at 23:59 EET

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Equality , Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Statement

The British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment. We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.

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We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.

Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.

If you have any problems with your application please email [email protected]

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