Director of People

Join a unique company that combines the excitement of working in a high-growth tech startup with the fulfilment of creating life-changing social impact.

At Beam, you get to do work that really matters. We’re solving the world’s toughest social problems. And we’re growing fast 🚀

About the role

We’re looking for a Director of People to join our leadership team. Reporting directly to our CEO, Alex Stephany, this is a vital role as we look to ramp up and scale the organisation, and it will play a key part in our success.

As Director of People, you’ll be building, developing and retaining the high performing team which delivers on our mission. We’ve just passed the 100 employees mark and continuing to grow rapidly across the UK, with international expansion potentially on the horizon.

A proven leader and operator with an exceptional track record across people, performance management and culture-building, you’re ready for a role which requires strategic planning and vision as well as getting your hands dirty and being immersed in the details.

Please note this role is London based, requiring a minimum two days per week in our office in Shoreditch. We are unable to sponsor visas at this time.

You’ll be

• Building and coaching an enthusiastic, focused People team

• Playing a key role on the Leadership Team alongside our founders (CEO & COO), Chief of Staff and Director of Local Government

  • Ensuring Leadership Team collective buy-in and alignment on People related strategies, decisions, policies and processes

  • Participating in discussions about broader company strategy

  • Coaching and influencing Leadership Team to ensure we are considering decisions through a ‘people lens’

• Leading the People function to build an inclusive, high-performance culture and workplace

  • Leading and delivering on all aspects of People and workplace: everything from pay and benefits to progression, performance management, learning & development employee relations, office management, workplace IT support and day-to-day HR processes

  • Proactively identifying and managing retention and performance risks

  • Partnering with managers to continually raise the bar on the quality of management and leadership (with a particular focus on first time managers)

  • Partnering with the Leadership Team and the wider organisation to evolve our culture as we scale, ensuring our values are effectively embedded into everything we do

  • Partnering with our Marcomms team on internal comms

  • Providing sponsorship and partnership to Beam’s employee resource group (“Be Me”) and working with the Leadership Team and wider organisation to drive our DEI goals

You are

• A natural leader: emotionally intelligent and able to build strong working relationships with anyone

• An inspirational manager who knows how to get the best out of your team

• Excited by the prospect of rolling up your sleeves and building People functions almost from scratch as we scale

• Highly resilient: open to change, challenge and debate

• Data-driven and ready to back up your ideas with quantitative and qualitative evidence

• Target-driven, action-oriented and adaptable - you're a natural problem solver able to break down complex problems into simple solutions

• Passionate about innovation and social impact and committed to promoting equality of opportunity in the UK and beyond

• Exceptionally high integrity and used to handling confidential and sensitive information

 You’ll need

• Considerable experience and demonstrable impact leading the People function in a high-growth startup, ideally with some experience in companies of 100-1000 people

• A track record of building out processes in a rapidly scaling team

• A passion for building a highly engaged, high performance, inclusive team

• Exceptional communication and writing skills - you communicate clearly, concisely and positively

• An understanding of relevant HR legislation and the right priorities for a business of our stage

• Solid project management and strategic planning skills

About Beam

We’re a team of just over 100 working from our beautiful coworking space in Shoreditch and from home. We’ve picked up an armful of awards for our work (including one from our former Queen!) We’re one of the 10 hottest startups in London, according to WIRED magazine and one of LinkedIn’s Top 15 UK Startups for 2022

We’re proud to be rated a top company to work for by Escape the City and The Dots and are committed to hiring diversely and inclusively. You don’t need a degree to work here. We especially want to hear from ethnic minority candidates and/or those who’ve experienced social disadvantage.

63% of people we support come from ethnic minority backgrounds and 17% have disabilities. We believe we can serve these people best when we’re a diverse, inclusive team.

Our benefits

• EMI-qualifying share options

• Unlimited holiday (we recommend ~25 days + Bank Holidays per year)

• A laptop – choose between a MacBook Air or PC

• £500 annual personal development budget

• Annual company retreat 

• Unlimited 1:1 coaching with More Happi

• Hundreds of perks, discounts and freebies from Perkbox

• Free subscription to Calm meditation app

• Discounted bike and accessories with Cyclescheme

• Dedicated desk space in our beautiful Shoreditch office

• Hybrid working from our office or at home (min 2 days in the office)

• Your own financial wellbeing coach, through Bippit

• Regular team talks from leading UK tech entrepreneurs

Full list of benefits at https://beam.org/careers