Teach First is a charity that believes education is the most powerful tool to help a child fulfil their potential. We find and train teachers to work in the schools that need them most, we equip school leaders with evidence-led training, we support local teacher training providers, and we plug education leaders into supportive professional networks. We are a community, working within the classroom and beyond, to bring an end to educational inequality. Because a child’s future shouldn’t depend on their postcode.
As an Executive Director, you will focus on driving strategic priorities, collaborating to break down silos, and ensuring efforts and resources
are used effectively. You will demonstrate commercial capability and decision making. Informed by a clear sense of what our impact can be and driven by strong belief in the power of education to change lives, you will inspire our people to deliver on our purpose. As a champion of our culture, you will build an inclusive, transparent place to work, where colleagues can take ownership, deliver at pace and work with integrity. Setting the vision, and leading delivery, you will not only take accountability for our results in your area, but also for creating and sustaining engagement in our mission that changes lives.
The Role
- You’ll report to: Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
- Salary: £100,000. This position is a level 5 role.
The rundown
- As the Executive Director of Finance and Performance you’ll lead delivery of the strategy, by providing clarity on charity-wide performance against targets, and by using informed insight to enable the effective prioritisation, planning, and delivery of all that we do.
- You will devise and lead programmes of improvement and change in response to changes in our financial and operating environments.
- You’ll ensure that the charity’s financial strategy and processes operate robustly and effectively to create the financial freedom to make good strategic choices.
You will confidently support colleagues to embed commerciality in strategic decisions, and ensure that we deliver value and impact through all of our commercial and contractual arrangements.
The detail: day-to-day work
- Provide financial leadership, creating and delivering finance strategies, policies and procedures that deliver strategic goals and operational requirements.
- Lead and manage the finance function, evolving to the charities needs to deliver effective and timely expertise and support.
- Lead the implementation of the strategic plan, coherently planning and prioritising activity and developments across the charity.
- Enable Executive Directors to evaluate strategic choices and make informed decisions, using comprehensive data and financial modelling to bring visibility of benefits, risks and impacts.
- Work with the Executive and trustees to establish a reporting cadence and reporting regime that enables the charity to understand and respond to performance metrics that reflect a holistic picture of performance and compliance.
- Shape the charity’s approach to managing its contractual relationships with stakeholders, including the DfE and other funders, higher education institutions, schools, and other partners.
- Ensure the charity secures and delivers contracts with a reasonable balance of risk and reward, and that we manage in-contract performance to maximise impact and minimise risk for the charity.
- Lead on programmes of transformation work to delivery charity-wide performance improvement, process refresh, and financial efficiencies.
You’ll take ownership for
- Turning the strategy into prioritised, viable, visible and deliverable operational plans.
- Ensuring that the charity is using data and insight to manage and optimise its own performance in order to deliver its maximum strategic impact.
- Development of a financial strategy and detailed budgets and plans that deliver our strategic priorities.
- Improvement of financial metrics through provision of financial insight, partnering, modelling and advice.
- Leading contracting and procurement functions to ensure expert management compliance of cross-charity contracts; providing advice and expertise on contracts management and procurement across the charity.
- Leading charity-wide transformation work to optimise efficiency and respond to opportunities and changes in the funding environment.
We succeed when we work together. Here’s who you’ll be working with regularly
- Executive Leadership Team – You’ll partner with other Executive Directors to align financial strategy with organisational goals and drive commercial decision making across the charity.
- Board of Trustees – You’ll provide insight and analysis on financial performance and strategic priorities, ensuring they have a clear understanding of the charity’s financial health.