Head of Stakeholder Relations

London & Partners is the business growth and destination agency for London. Our mission is to create economic growth that is resilient, sustainable and inclusive.

We are a social enterprise, combining purpose with commercial rigour. We are funded by grants, partners and our portfolio of commercial ventures.

We support high-growth businesses to scale - both international businesses expanding into the UK and London-based businesses growing internationally. We develop London as a destination and attract visitors and events. We grow London’s global reputation to support economic growth. We create partnerships and profit-making ventures that enable us to scale our impact.

London & Partners operates brands including VisitLondon and the top-level-domain DotLondon. It is the founder of London Tech Week and runs two award-winning programmes for start-up and scale-up companies. In a typical year, we support thousands of scaling businesses, win hundreds of events for London, book over a quarter of a million hotel beds and engage millions of visitors on our digital channels.

Our key performance indicators are the economic growth (gross value added) and jobs that we create, the satisfaction of our clients and partners, and our commercial performance.

**Purpose of role**

The Head of Stakeholder Relations is responsible for London & Partners’ relationships with political, policy and civil society groups, including managing the corporate relationship with the GLA and our vital links to London’s borough councils. The role also manages important aspects of the CEO’s office, including ensuring the CEO is appropriately briefed, effectively deployed towards high impact opportunities, and correspondence managed.

The role manages a Corporate Affairs Manager and three Borough Relationship Managers to deliver this work.

**Key Tasks**
- Lead London & Partners’ Stakeholder Relations team: inspire the team, set clear direction and accountability, ensure high performance, create a culture of continuous personal development.
- With Managing Director, Strategy & Operations and the Management Committee, develop a Stakeholder Relations strategy for London & Partners. Lead the department to implement the strategy successfully.
- With the Managing Director, Strategy & Corporate Affairs and the Management Committee, agree the role and aims of Stakeholder activity. This includes agreeing clear guidance on L&P’s involvement in influencing policymaking at local and national levels.
- Managing the Stakeholder Relations Manager, lead on all aspects of stakeholder relations including policy and political engagement, trade associations, and civil society to create the optimum environment for L&P to operate. In this work, coordinate with colleagues across the organisation to ensure coherent and broad approach.
- Lead on all aspects of daily public affairs, including analysing relevant policy developments and updating L&P on what they mean for the organisation, managing relationships with all relevant public affairs audiences.
- Lead on all aspects of daily stakeholder management work, leading on the relationship with the GLA.
- Managing the three Borough Relationship Managers, lead a deep, broad stakeholder relationship with London’s borough councils, ensuring that they understand the London & Partners strategy, and support borough teams in navigating our services.
- Work closely with MD Strategy & Operations on L&P’s corporate reporting and publications, including leading the drafting of the annual report, business plan, reviews etc.
- Managing team resources, lead on providing appropriate and timely briefing to the CEO, Chairman, and when appropriate members of the Management Committee and Senior Leadership Team, to support them to represent L&P externally.
- Lead work to Coordinate responses to Mayor’s questions and information requests in a timely manner.
- With Managing Director, Strategy & Operations, agree a set of metrics and KPIs
- With Managing Director, Strategy & Operations and Director, Finance set the budget for the team, ensure budget responsibility and accountability.
- Create a culture of continuous innovation in the department, ensuring that L&P’s stakeholder activity evolves with industry best practice.

**You’ll have/bring**
- **Leadership**: Able to motivate, coach and encourage others to maximise their own and their team’s potential. Creates an inclusive, supportive culture which is ambitious for L&P and for London. Builds strong, trusted working relationships with peers.
- **Corporate communications and public affairs**: Able to lead a high performing team including corporate/press office, internal communications, crisis communications, public affairs and stakeholder relations in a public-private, politically sensitive international setting. Demonstrates outstanding judgement under pressure and deep understanding of relevant policy issues.
- **Local Government understanding**: Able to demonstrate