Senior Partnerships Manager, Government AI Campus

Overview

• Start date: As soon as possible.
• Reporting to: Programme Director, Government AI Campus (incoming)
• Visa sponsorship: Not available. You must have the right to work in the UK
• Background checks: Due to the nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees are required to pass BPSS verification

Role on Apolitical's Government AI Campus 

The Senior Partnerships Manager will join our Partnerships team and play a central role in managing the Government AI Campus. In 2023, Apolitical launched the Government AI Campus, with philanthropic funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Google.org. The Campus aims to equip 1 million public servants to lead in the age of AI, by acting as the go-to place to understand the technology, learn about the latest developments, connect with peer communities, and access world-class training designed for the unique challenges of government. The Campus has several stakeholders including governments, philanthropic bodies, academic institutions, leading experts and network bodies. Your role is to manage and deliver this complex project to world class and exceptional standards.

Role Breakdown

Key aims:

• Ensure world-class and exceptional standards of delivery on our flagship programme, the Government AI Campus
• Add valuable insights to the partnerships and wider Apolitical team

Strategic Responsibilities

Programme management/delivery

• Strategically plan, manage, and execute the Campus: You will determine how best to sequence and deliver a project with multiple components. You will coordinate with various teams to deliver project components for multiple government partners. You will act as a liaison between internal teams and external partners to ensure effective communication and coordination.
• Lead the end-to-end project management lifecycle of the Government AI Campus: You will work with with internal teams to define project scopes, objectives and deliverables and develop comprehensive project plans to reflect these. You will monitor project progress and performance, providing regular updates to stakeholders and leadership.
• Drive the gathering and collating of qualitative and quantitative data from internal and external stakeholders: You will inform the development of robust evaluation reports that meet specific partner needs.
• Manage relationships with government, academic and philanthropic partners to achieve high satisfaction scores: You will need to convey the impact we are achieving for our partners, secure their agreement on how to carry out the work and drive our agendas forward, often with their involvement.

Governance and Compliance:

• Ensure that the training programme adheres to all relevant legal, ethical, and regulatory standards, particularly concerning the use of AI in government, in all modes of delivery.

Operational Responsibilities

Innovation and Research:

• Stay abreast of the latest developments in AI and incorporate innovative practices into the training programme.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement, encouraging the adoption of new AI technologies and methodologies.

Programme Management (cross-functional):

• Work with the Director of Partnerships and Partnership Manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the AI training programme, including scheduling, resource allocation, and budget management
• Work with the Evaluation team to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of training programmes, making adjustments as necessary to improve outcomes
• Work with the Learning, Events, and Research teams to ensure the training materials developed are up-to-date and relevant

About you

This is a senior role, so we expect most candidates would have at least some experience (3+ years) in government partnerships, ed tech partnerships, government relations, or similar roles. You should also show a demonstrated interest in AI, and ideally a level of expertise (whether in AI as a technology, in its applications, or in technology policy).

This is a great fit if you…

• Excel at external stakeholder management as well as ringleading delivery across teams
• Work well in an agile working environment. Our company moves quickly and you will constantly be doing new things. You will also need to reply to external stakeholders’ expectations, needs and communication styles. 

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Apolitical is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Application Process

Apolitical uses Applied in our recruitment. Applied aims to overcome unconscious bias in recruiting. Instead of using your CV alone, we'll be asking you to answer questions to test skills needed for the role. The responses are then anonymised, and reviewed in a random order by members of our team. 

The Applied platform also asks some demographic questions before you start your application. No one at Apolitical sees the responses to these demographic questions with your application. We only see summary statistics to help us check if our candidate pool is balanced and if everyone has an equal chance to get hired irrespective of their background. If you prefer, you can easily opt out of answering these questions.

Stages in our hiring process:

• Culture interview [45m on Google Meet]. We ask you questions on fundamental skills and behaviours for working at Apolitical. This call is about finding candidates who will add to our culture. It’s an opportunity to get to know you and for you to get to know us as an organisation, so we make time at the end for you to ask us questions about how we work.
• Work sample [async]. We use work samples to see how you approach problems and give you a sense of the type of work you would be doing in the role. We use them because they’re reliable in assessing and predicting performance in a role. Our work samples are designed to take less than 2 hours to complete.
• Team interview [45 on Google Meet]. We ask you questions on fundamental skills and behaviours for the role. It’s an opportunity to meet some of the people you might end up working with, so we make time at the end for you to ask us questions about the team and role.
• Chief Executive interview [30m on Google Meet]. We build on conversations you've had with other team members to learn about your motivations and drivers at work and within the Apolitical context.