Lead Consultant - Innovation and Co-Design

Our mission is to ensure that people and organisations have the knowledge, access and power they need to drive positive change in the places they choose and on the issues that affect them. We work with partners in philanthropy, local government and business, who want to connect, collaborate and reimagine solutions to ensure people can thrive in their communities.

In our Consultancy Partnership, we offer participatory, inclusive approaches to research issues, evaluate services, and co-design services that support organisations to learn, develop, challenge power structures, and drive equitable change.

In our Social Innovation Lab, we co-design, support and host funds and grassroots initiatives with local communities and people with lived experience of social issues, providing them with possibilities and opportunities to lead and accelerate their own social change.

Our team brings together technical and community specialists with a shared commitment to inclusive social change. This exciting Lead Consultant role will join our diverse team and work within the Social Innovation Lab to co-design community led initiatives including, strategy, services, funds and new enterprise models. The postholder will also contribute to our Consultancy Partnership, offering specialist co-design inputs to local governments, philanthropists, social investors, and businesses on strategic consultancy projects.

You will offer leadership to our team in your technical area, providing expertise, quality assurance, thought leadership and mentoring/upskilling to our team of consultants. You will bring an entrepreneurial mindset, creativity and ingenuity to contribute to our strategy to reimagine a fair society. You will be comfortable providing technical oversight to a broad portfolio of assignments with an understanding of what it takes to partner with communities, to drive innovation through design, while managing complex stakeholders at all levels.

You will also contribute to business development – prospecting new clients through networking, partnering with clients through the co-design process, promoting TSIP’s work through speaking opportunities and leading on the development of concept papers and pitch decks for new projects.

You will have 7+ years of experience of delivering co-design/ user-led design / co-production initiatives, preferably with a track record of working with philanthropists / social investors / public sector to design funds, services, and strategies. You will be passionate about community-led / user-led design with a deep understanding of how to mitigate risks and maximise opportunities for social innovation and knowledge sharing.

Project delivery (60%):

• Oversee and quality assure the development of design methodology, engagement approaches, workshop plans and external communications.
• Lead the ‘productization’ of TSIP’s co-design tools and trainings.
• Present design outputs and ‘journey roadmaps’ to variety of external audiences.
• Capture learning around co-design and co-production and adjust methods and approaches as needed.
• Provide hands on inputs to complex projects - facilitate workshops, manage difficult situations, support communities and clients and maximise participation.
• Build positive, high trust relationships with clients and communities.
• Identify and maximise social impact through co-design assignments.
• Oversee the identification and mitigation of risks related to participatory co-design.

Business development (30%):

• Embed a blueprint for innovation through design and drive consistency across TSIP’s portfolio, carving out a distinct USP in existing and new markets.
• Bring the team together to develop new ideas to reimagine systems, services and products that make society fairer.
• Identify opportunities for up-selling services to existing clients – turning small projects into bigger ones.
• Respond to invitations to tender – leading on technical design methods and approaches (overtime you should equip your team to deliver this and step back to an oversight role).
• Develop client-facing proposals including reasonable budgets for new work.
• Help to grow and strengthen our reputation in service design across the sector.
• Use network to proactively identify opportunities to represent TSIP externally as a speaker/ panellist

Thought Leadership and Internals (10%):

• Drive and deliver an internal professional development agenda around co-design, and specifically innovative new ideas to engage users / community.
• Offer mentorship and guidance to team members levels wishing to further develop their co-design skills.
• Complete thought pieces in the form of blogs, vlogs, articles to share learnings and reflections and progressive ideas with internal and external audiences.
• Complete timesheets, forecast time and maintain records of your work.
• Contribute to team meetings, lunch and learn sessions and imagination sessions across the business.
• Provide line management support for up to 3 team members.

Requirements

The following points should act as a guideline for applicants. If you can demonstrate most of these competencies or experiences, please consider making an application.

• Design thinking and co-production: Strong track record of leading co-design and co-production projects, technical expertise across a range of creative research, ideation and prototyping methods, interested in formulating creative approaches and facilitating co-design in a way that is collaborative, participatory and enabling, able to translate complex concepts in a way that makes sense to non-experts.
• Advising / Consulting: Experience of working in an advisory role, tactful, able to quickly get to the heart of the matter and understand others’ priorities, committed to helping others to achieve their goals, excellent at building relationships, able to formulate compelling recommendations and negotiate competing concerns.
• High-stakes project delivery: Strong project management skills, committed to delivering excellent work on time and within budget, sense of responsibility and accountability, able to effectively multi-task and work well under pressure.
• Sector Knowledge: Knowledge or experience of working in UK in one of the following sectors: health, education, housing, climate or employment.
• Business development: Track record of leading successful high-value proposals including proactive pitches, consistently secures repeat business, referrals and recommendations from past clients, able to develop realistic budgets for project work, good at networking and building new relationships, able to act as an ambassador for the organisation.
• Team working and people management: Experience as a line manager, able to support and coach others to improve, always willing to lend a hand, able to build effective teams and work well with diverse colleagues and stakeholders.
• Problem-solving: A can-do approach to complex challenges, able to break down issues and consider them from a range of perspectives, identify root causes and develop creative solutions.
• Thought leadership for social change: Passionate about driving inclusive social change, interested in the issues and opportunities facing social purpose organisations. Demonstrate attributes of leadership, motivated by progress and innovation, able to contribute and influence effectively in sector-wide debate, leads by example, great attitude and performance, lives TSIP’s values.
• Facilitation: Innately inclusive, supports others to progress their thinking via thoughtful questioning, active listening and reflection, allows adequate time for discussion and debate, manages group and power dynamics and tensions, supports groups to resolve disagreements, facilitates groups of diverse stakeholders.
• Communication: Able to craft concise and engaging reports and presentations, excellent listener, confident public speaker, experience of developing public-facing materials for a range of audiences.

We know that the consultancy sector is not very diverse, but we’re committed to changing that. Our organisation must reflect the people and communities we work with. We therefore strongly encourage candidates from racial and ethnic minority groups to apply for this position. We are committed to this positive action under the Equality Act 2010.

Benefits

Role: Lead Consultant, Innovation and Co-Design

Organisation: The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP)

Reports to: Head of the Social Innovation Lab

Working hours: We have a full-time position available (37.5 hours per week) but will consider any applicant willing to work upwards of 4 days per week (30 hours per week)

Salary: £50,000 FTE per annum, or pro rata

Additional benefits: 33 days holiday (including bank holidays), flexible wellbeing benefits including personal wellbeing cash pot, employer pension, seasonal holiday office closure.

Location: Home-based, with up to 3 days in London-based offices and occasional travel in the UK

We are a social enterprise that raises income through consultancy while also delivering non-profit community-led innovations.

We are B Corp certified, which means we have a high standard of verified performance, accountability and transparency that centres people, communities and the planet in all our work.

We’ve been ranked in the top 100 organisations to work for by ‘Escape the City’ and are frequently cited by our former and present employees for walking the walk on our values and for our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Find out more about what it’s like to work at TSIP: https://www.tsip.co.uk/join-us

Closing date for applications is January 15th 2024 at 11.59am.