Head of External Affairs

UKIB is a small, agile and professional organisation managing a portfolio which will reach £22 billion in five years’ time.

As a Head of External Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement you will promote and protect the Bank’s reputation, and build our profile and influence with our stakeholders, through creative and strategic engagement activities covering government and fellow public institutions, private investors and project sponsors, local authorities, alumni and lobby groups, in order to tell our story and drive our mission to support net zero transition and local and regional economic growth.

**Specific responsibilities include**:

- Develop and articulate the Bank’s brand and positioning, ensuring it is well understood by our external and internal stakeholders, and is thereby supporting strategic and tactical objectives.
- Develop and deliver stakeholder engagement strategies and campaigns in partnership with key stakeholders, to enhance the Bank’s reputation, and to highlight our impact and results.
- Offer expert engagement advice to senior leaders to enable them to develop and maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders and partners, including preparing briefings for senior leadership on handling of stakeholder engagement opportunities.
- Harness external intelligence and context to inform stakeholder engagement plans and activity in order to exploit opportunities, mitigate potential risks, and generate opportunities for third party advocacy/partnership. As part of this, developing and maintaining an effective GDPR-compliant mapping system of the Bank’s key stakeholders, in order to inform ongoing planning and activity.
- Identify and exploit the most effective channel mix for engagement with stakeholder audiences. As part of this, devising and co-ordinating a programme of events that promote the Bank’s strengths, priorities and activities to targeted external and internal audiences.
- Develop and maintain effective methods of planning, monitoring and evaluating stakeholder engagement activity, feeding this into continuous improvement of the service and communicating results back to others in the Bank.
- Creating communications materials for political, policy and other stakeholder audiences to ensure they understand the Bank’s strengths, its priorities and its overall ‘offer’. At times, working with key internal and external stakeholders on handling of potentially sensitive issues, aligning activity with that of the wider Communications and External Affairs function.
- Work with colleagues across the Communications and External Affairs team to engage target audiences across a range of channels; ensuring stakeholder engagement is aligned with other communications and engagement activity, and is complementary and fully exploits synergies.
- Build out the internal communications function of the Bank. This will involve working closely with the Chief of Communications and External Affairs and members of the Executive Committee, including the CEO, to develop a service that reflects the developing culture and ethos of the Bank.
- Manage the relevant areas of the budget to ensure activity is cost effective and that financial procedures are correctly followed. Ensuring resources are effectively deployed within budget, and commission external support where appropriate/feasible.
- Participating in an out-of-hours rota to effectively manage reputational issues across news media and social media.
- Lead, coach and support own team and direct report(s) - identifying individual priorities and personal development plans to ensure full potential is reached to create a high performing team to deliver the function’s strategic objectives.

**Required Experience and Skills**:

- Experience developing, executing and evaluating stakeholder engagement strategies, preferably in a public body, relevant private sector organisation or start up, although sector specific experience is not essential. This will include experience of integrating stakeholder activity with other communications activity to create coherent strategies
- Experience working with a broad range of external and internal stakeholders, with the ability to build strong and enduring relationships, alongside confidence communicating and evidencing your ideas and advice verbally and in writing
- Experience running a stakeholder engagement function within an organisation of significant profile
- The ability to gather intelligence and horizon-scan to offer valuable insights into political, policy and sectoral developments in order to inform effective engagement plans. This will be supported by first-rate judgement
- Proven track record of developing, leading and motivating high performing teams

**Job Types**: Full-time, Permanent

**Salary**: £90,000.00-£105,000.00 per year

Schedule:

- Monday to Friday

Supplemental pay types:

- Bonus scheme

Ability to commute/relocate:

- LEEDS: reliably commute or plan to relocate before startin