Strategy Director

Description:

This is a critical leadership role in Natural England, and you will work closely with programme and operational directors from across the business, as well as the wider leadership team, Defra group colleagues and external stakeholders.

Responsibilities of the role will include:
 

• Leadership of key areas within the Strategy and Government Advice team
   

You will be accountable for c.120 FTE strong team, a budget of c. £20m and delivery of a significant proportion of Natural England’s annual performance indicators. Leadership of an integrated and outward looking team capable of operating at the high pace demanded of a policy environment will be essential. You will bring strengths in setting vision, motivating people to explore new solutions and deliver transformational change, as well as a strong focus on delivery performance.
 

• Building relationships across policy areas and across government .
   

Our nature recovery strategy is founded on partnerships. We need these increasingly at all levels of our business; in this case, helping to forge relationships with senior officials and ministers across government to manage risks and explore opportunities for collaboration. However, nature can sometimes be presented as being at odds with economic development or social needs; these supposed tensions need early resolution to avoid both damage to nature and missed opportunities for shared endeavours. You will be a visible and active networker across Whitehall, resolving tensions where needed and opening minds to new collaborations.
 

• Conservation strategy development.
  
   

You will help build a strategy for conserving nature that embraces the varied needs of society and helps garner the support of business and infrastructure providers.
 

• Organisational leadership.

You will undertake a significant role working across NE to ensure that we both secure inputs to our policy and strategy development from operational and specialist teams and that our outputs are networked effectively across the business. Working as part of the Strategy group leadership team, you will also take on direct policy leadership of certain cross-cutting areas of work, delivering this working through existing programme governance.
 

• Personal development.

You will actively seek personal growth and development through the role and will instil a culture of continuous professional development and improvement across your team.