What we do

Apolitical’s mission is to make government great for citizens everywhere. We are a peer-to-peer learning platform for policymakers, equipping them with the knowledge, skills and contacts they need to solve the hardest challenges facing our societies. 

We are used by over 45,000+ policymakers in 160 countries to start developing the skills they need, find the latest and most interesting policies and opinions from around the world, and attend exclusive events and live online conversations. Both the scale of our platform offerings and the user base are expanding rapidly. Disrupt100 said, “This new approach to solving common problems could potentially impact everyone on the planet.”

Our current revenue comes from innovative foundations, NGOs and governments who sponsor us to create inspiring and engaging bespoke learning offerings - both online and in-person. We call our approach “high-tech to high-touch.” Our partners include the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, The UK Cabinet Office, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, We Mean Business Coalition and Ideas 42. 

We are also gearing up to sell subscriptions for a deeper peer-to-peer learning experience in 2020: Apolitical Plus. This will allow individual public servants as well as government departments to buy access to ongoing learning with international cohorts of public servants across a wide range of topics. 

Partnerships Manager role

We need a partnerships manager to lead our relationship with our existing partners (paying and non paying), by effectively delivering on our commitments with the rest of the team and reporting on work completed. Your manager will be Nitika Agarwal, Apolitical’s COO, who leads on building new partnerships and sales opportunities in the U.K. team. Your roles and responsibilities include:

High-touch account management (70% of your time): 

• Manage important partner relationships to achieve high partner satisfaction scores and lay the groundwork for upselling. Amongst other things, you will need to communicate the impact we are achieving for partners, secure their agreement on how to carry out the work and drive our agendas forward, often with their involvement.
  

• Strategically plan and manage the execution of our big projects. You will figure out how best to sequence and deliver on (often large) projects, including projects that are quite distinct from our previous work, and with multiple components and challenging outcomes.

• Ringlead and coordinate the work (and experiments) done across the company for revenue projects. You will be working closely across the team delivering on all components of projects. You will need to figure out why things may be getting stuck or not having the impact we thought, and troubleshoot competing priorities across teams for the good of the whole company. You will also carry out some work within the contract, and structure and run experiments to deliver even greater impact for new projects. 

• Create opportunities to meet partner’s objectives and also leverage our partnerships for Apolitical’s wider objectives. Partnerships are one component of our priorities at Apolitical. It will be your job to find pragmatic, high-return opportunities to deliver on our partnership agreements while also making them useful for the whole company. You will always have an eye on how our experience with partnership projects can inform the rest of the company and vice versa. 

Market Building and Lead Cultivation  (30%)

We are entering a critical period of building a new set of sales leads and breaking into a new market. We will be building a reputation for ourselves in the government learning and development area by building the right networks and putting out thought leadership. You will be involved in this by working with the COO to: 

• Identify new partnership leads and create opportunities to connect with them.

• Support the writing and pitching of proposals.

• Help build relationships with potential new partners.
  

As the team evolves its revenue strategy and breaks into new markets, the partnerships manager could be critical to experimenting and bringing the product to market. Depending on the person holding the role, there will be opportunities to open new leads and partnerships, and represent Apolitical more widely. 

Your Qualifications

• University education

• Native-level spoken and written English - concise, persuasive writing and delicate client handling is critical to this role  

• 3-5 years experience in relevant professional roles preferred. However, we are open to more experienced professionals who want the hands-on experience of building and growing with a company or a less experienced person who is eager to work on a steep learning curve.

• Demonstrated experience or knowledge of government and/or foundations.

Essential Skills

• Self-aware and adaptable. Our company moves quickly and you will constantly be doing new things. You will not be able to adapt to this role unless you are self-aware and take charge of your own learning. You are able to adapt to different partners’ expectations, needs and communication styles. Team members and partners enjoy working with you. 

• Sound judgement and high emotional intelligence. You have a good instinct for how to respond to situations and handle people - internally and externally - to achieve the best outcome.

• Agile and persuasive communicator, both written and verbal. You are able to understand how to adapt what you say based on who you are talking to, drawing on the most relevant examples and opportunities to achieve your objectives. 

• Highly organised, allowing you to keep track of details. You must be able to handle multiple customers, deadlines and priorities, and not drop the small things that might matter to partners.

• Smart problem-solver. You can break down problems and projects into smaller parts to make them actionable or more understandable. With this knowledge, you can come up with pragmatic ways to achieve your objectives. 

Your Team

Your immediate team will be Nitika Agarwal, COO;  Sean Long, Special Projects, and Lisa Witter, Executive Chairperson, and the team she manages in Berlin. You will work closely alongside other teams at Apolitical such as the growth, product and content teams. Apolitical is currently 29 people. 

Timing: Written applications close on Jan 18th.

Indicative Salary: £32-40k depending on experience

Application: Please note that all applicants must have an existing right to work in the UK.