Senior Innovation Lead – Enterprise Development – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Closing date: 7th January 2024

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity to join us as our newly created Senior Innovation Lead – Enterprise Development.

We are looking for an experienced leader in Enterprise Development to lead this function within the Innovation Team at Save the Children. You will be instrumental in the delivery and support of both new and existing Enterprise Development programs, ensuring they reach successful exit points in regions such as Ukraine, Turkey, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.

As a catalyst for system change, you’ll engage with stakeholders, from donors to investors, driving discussions that create strategic partnerships that build a world-class team and innovation approach at Save the Children

About Us

Save the Children UK (SCUK) believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

SCUK has a history steeped in innovative thinking and creative solutions, ambitious innovations which strive to change lives. From the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, to building ‘model villages’ for refugees in the 1930’s, throughout the last 100 years, our organisation has continually looked for new ways to bring impact and relief to children across the world. From these pioneering programmatic innovations to new ways to generate income, SCUK has an established record of creating ground-breaking change – right back to our founders, Dorothy Buxton and Eglantyne Jebb. Now, perhaps more than any other time in our last century, innovation has never been more important.

Team: Innovation Hive

We are a team focussed on achieving transformative, systemic, change for children, for our organisation, for our sector and beyond. To do this we run a corporate venturing function at SCUK backing innovation projects that will help us maximise the impact potential of existing and new resources, and increase funding directed towards Save the Children’s mission. Our purpose is clear: to transform, build and champion new growth opportunities and business models, moving at pace and collaborating inside and outside of or organisation to do this.

About the role

As the Senior Innovation Lead (Enterprise Development) you will lead on the delivery and/or support of existing Enterprise Development programmes to exit point (eg Ukraine, Turkey, Nigeria, Ethiopia, KumweHub), as well as providing leadership for scoping and development of new programmes within the strategic priorities of the Innovation Team, in particular in our Enterprise Development strand, leading these projects from inception through to delivery.

You will continue and complete work on the development of a “best-practice” advisory service for SCUK to support Enterprise Development programmes for local contexts.

You’ll lead on the Innovation Hive’s goal of supporting over 1000 enterprises, with at least 100,000 children impacted.

You will instigate and lead discussions with stakeholders, including donors, investors, and beneficiaries, to drive the adoption of enterprise development and innovative finance mechanisms.

You will help to build a world class team and innovation approach at Save the Children, acting as a champion for our corporate venturing approach and working to deliver a strategic priority

In this role, your key accountabilities will be:

Technical

• Lead the development of key innovation projects, particularly in the enterprise development strand, working collaboratively across SCUK, Save the Children International, LIFT Lab, Save the Children Global Ventures, Kumwe Hub and Country Offices and others to design and support the implementation of those projects. This expertise is crucial to developing a successful approach to enterprise development for Save the Children.
• Lead all aspects of an end-to-end opportunity, including origination, due diligence, design, committee approval, go-to-market strategy and oversight of delivery.
• Contribute commercial acumen to project design, delivery and evaluation.
• Provide strategic and analytical insight through the generation of accurate and compelling reports and presentations, including for internal and external stakeholders.

Thought Leadership

• Influence and engage senior leaders with gravitas to build high-level buy-in for and understanding of, your work
• Lead and build essential partnerships with organisations and industry experts to ensure the delivery of strategic projects. Including specifically in the impact finance and social enterprise space, confidently representing Save the Children at key external events and building our presence.

Learning and Organisational Development

• Responsible for bringing best practice into Save the Children – and embedding your technical knowledge and learning across the organisation, specifically regarding innovative finance, to build organisational capacity.
• Draft and preparation of proposals, pitch decks, and associated materials to engage diverse client groups (e.g. the Innovation Hive’s Investment Committee and relevant board steering committees) to ensure the Hive’s activities are communicated highly effectively and strategically

About you

To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Knowledge and proven experience on delivering Enterprise Development programmes.
• Deep technical expertise in innovative finance, access finance for development, impact investment and/or commercial ventures
• Experience in senior roles within a development, management consulting environment or equivalent
• Significant experience with impact measurement, and management frameworks.
• An excellent stakeholder manager with demonstrated networking and influencing skills at all levels.
• Ability to adapt financial mechanisms to humanitarian and/or development contexts
• Capable of handling complexity and uncertainty with a clear and organized thought process.
• Creative and strategic in problem-solving, effectively involving multiple stakeholders with empathy and open-mindedness.
• Organized self-starter with an entrepreneurial mindset, eager to challenge the status quo.
• Skilled in explaining complex or technical issues to a diverse audience, with exceptional written and verbal communication abilities.
• Enthusiastic about engaging with teams, founders, and experts, with excellent networking skills and the ability to quickly establish rapport and trust.
• Quick at understanding new markets/products and passionate about impact, technology, and entrepreneurship, with a strong drive for personal and organizational growth.
• Focused on achieving targets aligned with organizational strategies and appreciative of the complexities in a global international organization.

To learn more about the position, please review the Job Description in the attached Documents.

Please Note: We will be holding a Webinar to answer any questions around the SCUK, the department and this exciting new role that you might have. This will be held on 3rd January at 1pm (UK Time). The link to the webinar can be found here.

Closing Date: 7th January 2024

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.

We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.

Please note:

To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Ways of Working:

Remote First – The majority of our roles can be performed remotely, however you may work from the office as often as you wish. Whilst you will be predominantly working from home, we may at times require you to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). Note: This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team. This is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.

On-site – There are certain roles that cannot be performed remotely and so your role will be based in an office location and you may occasionally be able to work from home.

Flexible Working – We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview**.**

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be “Free to Be Me”. We are not looking for just one type of person – we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences – of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability – help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.