Policy and Projects Manager - EY Foundation - Permanent - UK Wide

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The Opportunity

The EY Foundation is a charity and a company, limited by guarantee, established in 2014. We were founded by EY, the professional services firm, which continues to provide funding and donations to the charity under a multi-annual funding agreement. We are governed by a board of trustees, who are supported by a number of committees and leadership and management teams.

The EY Foundation helps young people, disadvantaged in the labour market, to fulfil their work potential. We are unique in our position as the link between employers and young people, having strong relationships with both.

Our work involves designing, developing and running our own services: Smart Futures, Our Future and Accelerate, as well as raising independent funds to support new initiatives and reach more young people across the UK. We work with organisations from across all sectors, including commercial, not-for-profit, education and government.

As an independent charity we have to diversify and raise our own income through traditional fundraising, grants and, increasingly, through the development of our work with corporate partners.

EY Foundation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful applicant will need to undertake an Enhanced DBS check via the Disclosure and Barring service, where appropriate.

Within the Foundation we adopt flexible roles that reflect the dynamic nature of our charity and enable our people to learn, develop and grow their skills and open up career opportunities. This is part of our investment in you.

This role profile provides an outline of what will be involved in your role rather than an exhaustive list of duties. Both you and this role will naturally evolve.

In your role you will be expected to demonstrate or develop leadership competences based on the Foundation’s four key values. They are:

• Growth mindset – increase our impact on more young people through dedication, innovation and hard work
• Empower people – everyone is given the opportunity to develop and to succeed
• Courage – use new learning and diversity of thought to challenge the status quo, embracing lessons learned even if a project misses its targets
• Collaboration – build relationships – internally and externally – to share ideas, embed an inclusive approach, and achieve bigger outcomes.
  
  

The scale of the challenge to tackle racial inequality is huge but we are passionate in our determination to secure change – both for our organisation and the young people we serve.

With over 80% of the young people we work with from Black, Asian or ethnic minority communities, our team and Board need to reflect the young people we support.

In 2019, we made diversity and inclusion a strategic priority, with a focus on race and in 2020 we published eleven race commitments. . This included 50% of our team and leadership team coming from the Black, Asian or ethnic minority communities by 2025. Specifically, it is our objective that 30% of our team and leadership team will come from the Black community. You can find out more here.

Key Responsibilities

Whatever your specific responsibilities and specialisms, your role in management means you will be working strategically in your area of specialism and cognisant of the impact of your work on other teams. You will be leading your team and function, making decisions on delivery of outcomes, planning resource needs and negotiating. You will work under your own autonomy, require little supervision, and will be a proactive supporter in achieving the wider organisational objectives.

This is a new role and will lead on a new strand of work within the Foundation. It reports directly to the Director of Communication. You will have two key responsibilities. Firstly, build relationships within local and national government with politicians and officials in the employment and skills training space. This will also extend to employers and other organisations in this space. Critical to success will be a deep understanding of the policy landscape and how the EY Foundation can build its reputation and influence with key decision-makers. You will have responsibility for end-to-end policy campaign development and delivery, from objective setting and measuring impact through to timely production of all elements as part of an agreed plan to deliver the charity’s priorities to measurable effect. This will include commissioning original research and management of a £100k+ budget.

The second aspect of the role will be to build multi-agency partnerships within different regions of the UK and oversee delivery of pilot delivery projects designed to uncover new ways to support young people in poverty to prepare for work. These projects will be designed to generate insight that can be used to shape the decisions of local government and employers, with a longer-term plan to engage at national government level. You will lead collaborations with other organisations, managing complex stakeholder relationships, to deliver projects in different regions of the UK. The EY Foundation currently has ‘hubs’ in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.

What you will bring to the Foundation is your demonstrable experience and knowledge in the following areas:

• A proven track record in developing and delivering public affairs strategies is essential, along with a deep understanding of the UK political landscape and policy development process – at a national and regional level
• Understanding of employment, social mobility, education sectors, with networks across business, non-profit sector and government.
• Delivering strategic and operational plans. This includes project manging regional focused pilot programmes designed to generate new insight.
• Accountability for performance against agreed financial targets
• Making business critical decisions that have had a positive impact
• Delivering targeted outcomes
• Delivering excellent customer service, to internal or external customers or service users
• Working in a delivery-focused organisation
• Qualitative improvement across one or more service or delivery areas
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English
• Influencing senior stakeholders through establishment of effective relationships,
• Strong and evidenced commitment to diversity
• Strong commitment to improve the working lives and prospects of disadvantaged young people in the UK
  
  

You will be able to demonstrate some of the competences expected of an EY Foundation Manager. Where you need more time to fully develop those competences, we will support you in so doing.

Please note

Prior to finalising your application, you will be asked to provide personal information across several dimensions of diversity and inclusiveness. The information you provide is kept entirely confidential and will not be used to evaluate your candidacy. We collect this data to help us analyse our recruitment process holistically and implement actions that promote diversity and inclusiveness. While optional, we encourage you to provide this information to hold us accountable towards our goal of building a better working world. Read more about our commitment to diversity & inclusiveness here. We ask because it matters!

If you can demonstrate that you meet the criteria above, please contact us as soon as possible.

The Exceptional EY Experience. It’s Yours To Build.

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