Project Director at Clever Together Conversations

We are looking for 2-3 exceptional people to join our Conversations team as full or part-time Project Directors.

Our Project Directors hold primary responsibility for working with our clients across public health bodies, educational institutions, city councils, and a growing base of private sector organisations who we feel can be a positive platform for change. They lead a multi-disciplinary team to gain insights about a given subject and then work with senior leaders and organisation Boards to make sure the insights are heard and acted upon.

In recent years, our Conversations unit has, among many other achievements:

• Helped to bring together professional groups at a national level to co-create new profession strategies for the entire NHS.
• Built and activated new communities from hundreds of organisations across entire regions, to co-create new insights and understanding into wicked issues, such as staff wellbeing, digital readiness, and a profound understanding of what it takes to be a great employer.
• Enabled thousands of employees in large organisations to co-create:
• new strategic frameworks to provide clarity of purpose, vision, goals, and behavioural expectations,
• short-term improvement plans and priorities that shift the culture of entire organisations.
• Listened to the public to build insight and steer public spending to:
• help people take charge of their own health,
• change the way public services are designed.

About you: could you be our next new Project Director?

We are seeking applications from experienced business consultants and organisational leaders. You will come from one of two backgrounds:

1. People with proven senior leadership experience within the public sector.
2. People with 8+ years of experience in established consultancy firms or strategy agencies.

You will also bring to the table one or more of the following deep skills:

• Talent for storytelling: a person who loves making data sing, who can synthesise great analyses to influence the Boards, leaders, and communities we work with (this requires great writing skills, great presentation skills, great storytelling skills, and great people skills).
• Passion for executive and organisational development: a person with proven expertise in executive and organisational development, who can help the Boards, leaders, and communities we work with take real action from the insights we co-create with their people.
• Deep insights into the future of work: a person with a longstanding interest and passion for the ever-changing nature of human work, who wants to combine their insights with ours to help people have better work lives.
• Experience as a community deliberation leader: a person with a passion for democratic processes in society, who wants to help citizens and employees have a stronger say in the change around them.
• Building relationships with and earning leaders' trust: a person who has a proven track record of building and nurturing long-term, mutually valuable relationships with senior leaders as clients, becoming a trusted counsel to them and expanding the scope of support provided to them over time.

This is a client-leading role, so your primary allegiance is to our clients’ needs. You will strategically oversee 3-4 projects at the same time, managing resources and assigning clear roles and responsibilities across the Clever Together Conversations team to meet quality standards and client expectations. We will be looking for evidence of alignment with our organisational values and proven experience in as many of the following areas as possible:

• Strategic leadership of large, complex professional services projects, including scoping, delivery, and closure to ensure client expectations are met, budgetary constraints respected, and risks suitably managed.
• Management of client experience during delivery of multiple client projects with competing timelines.
• Prioritisation of highest-impact activities and demonstration of value for money.
• Management of client scope changes, seeking to meet client needs whilst giving due consideration to the intended and unintended consequences of a change, including in financial, resourcing, and expectations terms. 
• Leadership of difficult conversations with senior leaders and executive teams, specifically using your ability to create safe spaces for conversation and reflection, speak truth to power, and facilitate senior stakeholders to take action and for their own development.
• Understanding and taking responsibility for clients’ unspoken/invisible objectives beyond those stated for the project.
• Maintaining close, positive relationships with senior and executive leaders to ensure momentum and legacy from the work done as well as to identify opportunities for further work.
• Business development and sales in a professional services context – you will have worked as part of a team to write proposals, respond to bids and pitch for new work.

Some of the criteria that will help you succeed in this role include:

• You subscribe to the ideal of a humane world where people have a real say in the change that happens around them.
• You are brave – to speak up when needed, to do the right thing even when it’s hard, to challenge convention if necessary, to take initiative, to be honest and willing to try new things.
• You are rigorous – to push beyond initial assumptions, to seek multiple perspectives and to prioritise data, evidence and logic over dogma, politics or ideology.
• You are playful – to stay curious, to change your mind, to experiment and to embrace new challenges and ideas.
• You are embracing of difference – to recognise and accept the human in your colleagues and customers, to disagree respectfully, to honour differences, and seek to maintain a safe space for people to share their views.
• You are collaborative – to work with others towards shared outcomes, to know when to work alone, and when to involve others, to maintain your boundaries and understand your limitations.
• You can act as a partner and a peer to our executive leader clients and champion the voice of the people and communities they serve.
• You are keen to step into an alternative consulting model, using our crowdsourcing and deliberative methodologies and the wisdom of crowds, alongside your professional experiences to design and facilitate change. 
• You can lead a multi-disciplinary team, with people who possess a deep understanding of our methods, to co-create collective insights, build collective solutions, and help ignite collective action. 
• You believe that people are the experts in their own lives and be able to hold a space for people to embrace both the discomfort and huge value that emergence creates. 
• You can lead projects typified by deep relational work, creating space for healing conversations, supporting the inner change required to facilitate outer change, and be able to face into and even transform power dynamics.

Details about the role

Job title: Project Director

Salary range: £65,000 - £85,000, plus good benefits, depending on experience and profile.

Hours of work: We have a need for 2 full-time-equivalent people. We will also consider hiring 1 full-time and 2 part-time people, so let us know if a part-time or job-share position is of interest.

Period of appointment: Permanent position (subject to 6 months’ probation)

Place of work: This is a UK-based role and we are open to applicants based anywhere in the country. You are welcome to work from home, from our office in London, or from a suitable co-working space near you. Reasonable travel to client sites will be required.

Right to work and sponsorship: We are not in a position to sponsor applicants for visas so you must already have a right to work in the UK.