Dear Potential Candidate,
Thank you for your interest in becoming our Chief Operating Officer.
Citizens Advice plays a vital role in society. Last year, our services helped over 2.4 million people facing some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable with one-to-one advice, and there were over 31 million page views of our website. Behind those figures sits a unique and complex federated service, uniting the national organisation and 228 independent local Citizens Advice members around a shared purpose.
Over the last few years we have been developing our strategy and have designed and implemented a target operating model for the national charity to enable us to play our role in delivering our missions. As part of this we have created the new role of Chief Operating Officer to bring leadership in systems-change and provide real focus on how we operate effectively across both national and local Citizens Advice, so that we continue to develop as a service that is relevant to the people who come to us for help.
The role spans core functions that enable Citizens Advice to operate well now, and teams shaping strategy and transformation for the future. This is a broad and strategically important portfolio, but the role is about much more than leading a collection of functions. It is about strengthening the effectiveness and resilience of the whole Citizens Advice system, ensuring that our organisation, structures and ways of working support the best possible delivery of advice across our wider service.
We have deliberately created a small top team with big roles that carry real responsibility and are also interdependent. You will be managing a team of high-performing Directors who can each hold their own space; you will add value by providing strategic direction to their work and connecting it to the Client & Member Services and Partnerships & Advocacy directorates.
A central challenge will be helping us continue to develop what it means to operate successfully as a federation. We want to strengthen the relationship between the national organisation and our local members, build greater clarity around our respective roles and responsibilities, and ensure that we are collectively pulling in the same direction while respecting the independence and expertise that sits across our network. You will also play an important role in strengthening leadership alignment across the Executive Team, improving collaboration across organisational boundaries, and continuing to evolve our corporate and enabling functions so they are increasingly effective, joined-up and focused on the needs of the wider service.
We are looking for someone who embodies the values of Citizens Advice, including our social justice approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Creating a positive impact for communities in a way which centres their voice, expertise and experience will be a driving principle for you. You will be a highly strategic and systems-oriented thinker, able to see the bigger picture while making connections across a substantial and varied portfolio. You will also be a highly relational leader, able to build purposeful relationships through personal integrity, clear communication and high emotional intelligence. Experience of leading complex organisations or systems, developing effective operating models and overseeing excellent service delivery will be particularly valuable.
This is a hugely exciting opportunity to help shape the future of one of the UK’s most important social purpose organisations. The decisions we make about how Citizens Advice operates, collaborates and develops over the coming years will have a direct bearing on our ability to support millions of people when they need us most.
If you are motivated by that challenge and believe you can bring the experience, capability and leadership we are looking for, I very much look forward to hearing from you.
Dame Clare Moriarty
Chief Executive