Director of Strategy & Delivery

We are looking for an outstanding strategist, leader and relationship builder who is deeply motivated to help steer Nesta through an exciting phase of its 2030 strategy, addressing some of the UK’s biggest societal challenges.

About Nesta

We are Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to some of the UK’s biggest challenges. Our three missions are to reduce early childhood inequality, halve obesity, and reduce home carbon emissions by 30%. 

We work as an ‘innovation partner’, collaborating with frontline organisations to design and test new solutions; as a ‘venture builder’, creating and supporting mission-driven startups; and as a ‘system shaper’, driving systemic change at national scale. 

Four years into our 2030 strategy we have begun to get real traction, from lowering carbon emissions by 500k tonnes and saving consumers £300m/year through our Money Saving Boiler Challenge, through to shaping national government policy on retailer targets that could help millions of people reach a healthier weight. We’ve run over 260 projects with partners like Asda and the BBC, spun out 9 new startups and invested in 16 more, and supported our ‘family’ of organisations to thrive, including the Behavioural Insights Team, now a subsidiary of Nesta. 

The role 

At the heart of Nesta’s efforts to achieve our strategy and missions sits (the playfully titled) ‘Mission Control’. This function consists of a Strategy Unit and a Programme Management Office. Reporting into Nesta’s Deputy CEO, the Director of Strategy & Delivery oversees these two teams. They and these teams play a critical role in bringing Nesta’s strategic intent to life across the organisation and helping refresh that strategic intent over time. 

The coming years represent an exciting time for Nesta, with some important strategic choices to be made. Our missions are potentially on the cusp of impact at real scale and we need to execute on that opportunity. At the same time, new technologies and societal challenges in the coming years will present us with choices on whether/how to respond. As Director of Strategy & Delivery you will be at the heart of helping Nesta chart a course through this, working closely with the DCEO, Executive Team and colleagues across Nesta.

You will develop and lead high-performing teams to ensure Nesta’s corporate strategy is brought to life, and that our programmatic work in other parts of the organisation is agile and outcome-focused in its delivery. You will develop and articulate well-supported points of view on Nesta’s overall trajectory and changes that might be needed, including by leading regular Progress Reviews to assess where we stand and what we need to do to improve. You will play a central role in driving future reviews of Nesta’s strategy (on 3-year cycles - next review planned for 2027). And you will make ongoing ad hoc interventions on a day-to-day basis to promote Nesta’s strategic objectives in collaboration with the DCEO and other leaders. 

You will develop a close working relationship with the Deputy CEO, who was until recently Chief Strategy Officer and joined Nesta in 2020 to develop the 2030 strategy, ensuring a joined-up approach to delivering on Nesta’s priorities under their guidance. And you will be the main point of contact for staff across Nesta on corporate strategy, ensuring that our strategic choices are well-connected to the daily reality of Nesta’s work and efforts to drive towards impact at scale.

To thrive in this role you will be naturally strategic in mindset, able to seamlessly zoom in and out from big picture to detail and see shades of grey while remaining clear in perspective and decisive. You will be deeply motivated to maximise Nesta’s social impact, and excited to work in an environment surrounded by intelligent, creative and collaborative colleagues. As well as being an outstanding strategist, you will be able to execute with pace and persistence. You will bring excellent leadership skills, able to lead teams with high expectations and high support, and will be a natural relationship-builder, able to continuously strengthen relationships with senior stakeholders whether agreeing or disagreeing. You will be someone people seek out both for the quality of the work that you do and the way that you work with people.

Your responsibilities 

• Lead and develop ‘Mission Control’, Nesta’s Strategy & Delivery function consisting of a Strategy Unit and Programme Management Office, as a function. Includes line management of Strategy Unit members and the Head of Delivery (who oversees the PMO):

  • Ensure the purpose and scope of Mission Control is well-defined on an ongoing basis, in close collaboration with team leadership and team members, and build awareness and support for that role across Nesta.

  • Develop and continuously refresh a well-prioritised pipeline of high-impact projects and priorities that ladder up to a clear and impactful overall agenda for the function that drives Nesta forward.

  • Recruit, develop and retain great people and support them to perform at their best as part of cohesive, high-performing teams. Help team members to progressively build skills, confidence and experience.

  • Coach Strategy Unit members and sometimes others at Nesta in hypothesis-driven, lean and iterative problem-solving. Including good problem definition and structuring, rigorous prioritisation, high-quality analysis, strong synthesis, and effective stakeholder management. 

  • Work with the Head of Delivery to define and iterate on an approach to agile, outcome-focused ‘delivery’ that helps drive impact. Support them to embed that approach across programmes teams through the least amount of process/admin possible, and to iterate on that approach as needed. 

• Oversee discrete projects owned/led within Mission Control:

  • Define and deliver critical pieces of work to further the delivery of Nesta's strategy. Take ambiguous problems and structure them into discrete projects with clear parameters and deliverables, with a depth/rigour commensurate to the size and importance of the problem. Ensure high-quality, efficient execution.

  • These pieces of work may be identified and initiated directly by the post-holder, or commissioned by the DCEO or Executive Team, and may be delivered by the post-holder themselves, or by one or both of the teams they oversee.

• Oversee long-term ‘briefs’ that are owned by Mission Control:

  • Ensure that Nesta has an effective, right-sized approach to impact measurement, with effective ‘routines’ where the Board, Executive Team and Mission Leadership can interrogate progress, identify potential improvements, and confidently communicate progress internally and externally.

  • Own and continually refine organisation-wide routines for reviewing progress against Nesta’s strategy, including ‘Mission Reviews’ (periodic step-back reviews of progress against each mission) and ‘Strategy Progress Reviews’ (periodic step-back reviews of progress against the strategy as a whole, with the Senior Leaders Group)

• Play an important personal leadership role in the definition and delivery of Nesta’s strategy:

  • Adopt an internal thought leadership role on strategy, becoming a ‘go to’ for the Deputy CEO and other leaders for perspectives on how best to ensure Nesta delivers on its strategic intent

  • Take effective delivery of Nesta’s strategy as a personal priority, and actively diagnose potential issues or improvements and seek to active them, working with the DCEO and Executive Team

  • Represent Mission Control’s work with the Executive Team, formally and informally

  • Keep a ‘finger on the pulse’ of the organisation, its people and culture, and the work happening ‘on the ground’, to inform strategic decision-making

  • Lead ‘set piece’ strategic reviews, including periodic reviews of overall organisational performance with the Executive Team and Senior Leaders Group

• Develop excellent working relationships with the DCEO and Nesta’s wider leadership team: 

  • Collaborate closely with the DCEO, seeking problem-solving support and guidance as needed, while also supporting their priorities and ‘managing up’ by giving well-synthesised updates, and selectively bringing them into the work of Mission Control to ensure steers can be given and good engagement and alignment is achieved on the most important projects/topics/initiatives.

  • Maintain positive working relationships with Nesta’s Executive Team and wider Senior Leaders Group (Head of and above), including through presenting at Executive Team meetings, running Strategy Progress Reviews and commissioning and delivering on discrete pieces of work.

The person 

We’re looking for an experienced and highly capable strategist who buys into Nesta’s strategy and approach, is driven, resilient and persistent in execution, highly self-starting and adaptive in nature, and motivated to draw on strategic analysis and effective delivery management to build an organisation that is reliably able to achieve social impact at scale. 

Essential:

• Strategy experience - You have several years or more of experience leading work on strategy delivery and/or strategy creation at the organisational/ top-team level in a rigorous environment, gained either through management consultancy or through an internal strategy role. You are able to apply your experience and knowledge of strategy thoughtfully to Nesta’s specific context and lead others to do the same.

• Team-building and leadership - You have led others successfully, helping them prioritise work, coaching them as needed on a day-to-day basis and ensuring high quality, coordinated outputs in service of shared goals. You know how to get the most out of your team and help each individual to thrive. You take responsibility for your work and that of your team, and for your leadership of others. You have a great track record of developing people and demonstrated good judgement in recruiting and retaining high-performing staff.

• Ownership - You own outcomes as well as process in your work, not only ensuring high quality processes but doing everything you can to ensure they lead to positive outcomes, even when beyond your direct control. You are able to manage up, down and across simultaneously, to parse what needs to be surfaced to your manager and other leaders and what does not on an ongoing basis. You make the most of opportunities for interaction with key stakeholders, maintaining forward momentum at all times and bringing others along with your agenda. You are able to maintain this approach under time pressure and to role model effective prioritisation, stakeholder management and resilience during crunch periods

• Problem-solving - You are immersed in strategic problem-solving tools and methods to the point they are second nature, and are able to flexibly apply them in different settings with reliably successful outcomes. You have a demonstrated ability to lead and coach others to do the same. You can tailor your approach to small or large pieces of work, and know when to dig deep and when not to. You are very comfortable with ambiguity and working with limited information. 

• Analytical skills - You have exceptional analytical skills, both quantitative and qualitative, that you have demonstrated you can deploy with purpose. This includes competence with spreadsheets (to conduct basic modelling and analysis when needed, e.g. of budgets) and PowerPoint/Google Slides (for communicating ideas effectively and structuring options).

• Outstanding communication skills - Experience delivering high quality written and verbal outputs at the most senior levels of an organisation and a demonstrated ability to synthesise complex issues into simple, clear and concise messages. Demonstrated ability to oversee others’ delivery of communications materials and outputs and to coach others on their written and verbal presentation. 

• Self-starting - You are highly self-starting in your approach to your work, and routinely display persistence and resilience under ambiguity and working across a set of complex, rapidly-evolving priorities. 

• Rapid learning - You pick things up quickly and adopt an ever-curious mindset to learn and grow.

• Impact motivation - You have a demonstrated interest in and passion for achieving social goals, and are excited to deploy your skills to address some of the UK’s biggest social challenges.

Desirable:

• Delivery management - prior experience leading or designing a delivery management function

• Additional knowledge or experience - a grounding in one or more of the following: Nesta’s mission areas (early years education, health, sustainability); Nesta’s methods (behavioural science, data science, venture building etc.); emerging technology (e.g. generative AI, quantum computing); the (social) innovation sector

What we offer

Salary: £88,800 - £109,500 plus array of benefits, including private medical insurance, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more  

Location: This role is based in Blackfriars, London, hybrid working arrangement with a minimum of two days in the office

Term:  Permanent

Hours: This is a full-time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do. 

Making an application 

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 8:00am on the 10th of November 2025.

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results. 

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop. 

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful. 

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.   

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.