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Form of work
SalaryAbout Us
The Guinness Partnership is one of the leading providers of social housing and care services in England. We build and manage homes and provide housing services to around 160,000 customers nationwide. Of our 68,000 homes, more than 70% are let at a social or affordable rent, while around 10,000 are owned or part-owned by the people who live in them.
Our vision is to deliver great service, provide great homes, to be a great business and to be a great place to work. Because everything we do is about our customers, our communities and our people, any profit we make is re-invested in new and existing homes and improving services.
About the role
We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced, interim Head of External Affairs to provide fixed term cover from April – December 2024. This is a full-time vacancy with two days a week based in Guinness’s central London office.
Reporting into the Director of Strategy and Policy, you will work to implement and shape Guinness’s External Affairs strategy in this crucial election year. Taking responsibility for a small in house team of External Affairs professionals, you will guide their work to help enhance Guinness’s external profile and reputation through strategic stakeholder engagement, horizon scanning and intelligence sharing, and collaboration across the sector to secure positive outcomes for Guinness and social housing.
You’ll be a confident communicator with a strong understanding of influencing. You will be practised at building relationships with our key MPs and local authorities. Your knowledge of housing will help you to produce effective, evidence-based consultation responses and briefings.
Your key responsibilities will include managing environmental and horizon scanning activities, ensuring short, medium and long-term strategic challenges are anticipated and relevant colleagues are engaged and informed. You’ll be expected to represent Guinness at external events and to help influence policy outcomes for social housing. You’ll work with the Director to manage a wide range of relationships with relevant sector bodies and groups, always looking for opportunities to add our voice in areas where we have strong knowledge and expertise.
What we’re looking for
We know that how we do things is just as important as what we do, so you’ll not only be highly self-motivated with the rigour to pursue goals, but you’ll also be a confident collaborator, networker and relationship builder with a willingness to go the extra mile to get the job done. You’ll be an excellent, engaging leader of your team.
You’ll be able to demonstrate:
Essential:
- Strong understanding and experience of influencing and lobbying in the British local and national political system.
- Confident collaborator and networker both with colleagues and with external stakeholders who can build and maintain excellent working relationships.
- Highly self-motivated and will pursue goals with rigour and good judgement.
- Proven ability to ‘hit the ground running’ or previous experience of interim practice.
- Excellent written and oral communications skills for creating impactful, timely reports, letters, briefings, consultation responses and presentations.
- Confidence in delivering strategy and effective influencing.
- Leading and managing a team to deliver results and ensure strong engagement.
- Ability to deliver a varied programme of work with a range of deadlines and audiences.
- Commitment to the Guinness Behaviours.
Desirable:
- Understanding of the role of customer voice in external policy and influencing work.
- Knowledge of housing policy, particularly those areas most relevant to social landlords.
- Experience of undertaking or managing research projects that enhance business understanding of key issues.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the key responsibilities of the role and/or to ensure you meet the essential criteria, please review the attached role profile.
The Guinness Partnership is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all colleagues, and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships.
