Head of CRM Implementation

The Advancement Division of 80+ staff is responsible for securing support for the College, through building and managing strong, mutually beneficial relationships, with our alumni, friends, and other key stakeholders. Imperial has more than 250k alumni forming an international community of outstanding scientists, engineers, medical professionals, and business leaders. Advancement raises funds for scholarships, academic positions, research centres and capital projects, securing private financial support from those who are committed to our academic mission and building Imperial’s global reputation. The College currently raises £50m-£60m annually.

The Advancement Division of Imperial College has ambitious plans for our next major fundraising campaign.  The campaign will be a multiyear, Global campaign spanning the breadth of our faculties and will see a substantial increase in our annual fundraising and alumni engagement figures. A key aspect to support our Campaign is the replacement of our ageing CRM platform with a new best in class CRM to support the Advancement Division now and into the future.

The Head of CRM Implementation will take the lead in ensuring the successful adoption of a new comprehensive CRM product within Advancement. Leading a diverse group of staff across Data & Insight, Imperial College ICT, external suppliers and the wider Advancement Division, the Head of CRM Implementation will be responsible for managing all activities required to deliver this major operational change for the Division.  They will lead on strategic planning across the project including work allocation, governance and risk management, and milestone reporting of the CRM implementation project. They will be responsible for leading the engagement of colleagues across Advancement and wider College stakeholders in the project, as well as communications within the Division to ensure buy in. The post holder will be the senior board representative for Advancement on Imperial College’s comprehensive digital transformation programme. 

The post holder will work closely with Data & Insight colleagues and other stakeholders on providing oversight and direction to ensure data flows, migration, and cleaning, user acceptance testing, system requirements gathering, and system integrations are rolled out effectively to agreed timelines and quality.

The current intended go live date is 2025 for minimum viable product.

Duties and responsibilities

•             Defining the scope of the project through discovery, establishing the project schedule and milestones, creating a detailed project plan, taking into consideration the squad-based agile development model used by Imperial College ICT.

•             Manage the project against the agreed plan, driving progress against agreed objectives and deliverables.

•             Acting as principal contact point between multiple stakeholders including ICT, external suppliers, and Advancement.

•             Ensure continuity of the project through resilience and leadership.

•             Define governance and project documentation controls.

•             Responsible for risk management and ensuring mitigations are taken as appropriate.

•             Responsible for reporting progress to internal stakeholders, including clear and accurate project management reporting to the Project Board and regular progress updates to senior leaders in Advancement Operations and the wider Division.

•             Responsible for ensuring the delivery of the migration of data from the legacy Raiser’s Edge system to the new CRM platform.

•             Oversee the delivery of a system architecture that delivers security, functionality, integration, reporting and performance and integrates into the wider Imperial information and technical architecture, Imperial 360 and the College’s Unified Data Platform.

•             Oversight of both the development of a training programme that will drive adoption of the new system and the redevelopment of current training programmes to align with new system usage and functionality to support ongoing learning.

Essential requirements

•             Significant experience working with a fundraising relational database.

•             Experience of working in an agile project management environment

•             Experience of managing large-scale, complex, cross-functional projects from start to completion, ideally including data migration.

•             Experience of carrying out business analysis/process projects, conducting requirements interviews or workshops with stakeholders, analysing current systems usage, and using this insight to inform project planning and management.

•             Experience of working in a large, complex organisation.

•             Experience of working in a fast-paced environment with changing and competing priorities

•             Superb communication skills, both oral and written; outstanding presentation skills

•             Excellent interpersonal skills

•             Strong organisational, planning, and project management skills

•             Practical, collaborative, and creative in approach to problem solving.

•             Team player with an ability to build strong relationships with a variety of stakeholders.

Further information

Candidates will need to complete an online application to be considered for this role. The role is a two-year fixed-term contract.

If have any questions or would like to have an informal, confidential chat about this role, please contact Catherine Zahra, Deputy Director Advancement Operations, c.zahra@imperial.ac.uk.

To apply, please click “Apply Now”.

Closing date: 23^rd May 2024