Business Engagement Lead

Purpose:  The Satellite Applications Catapult works with and helps to grow businesses of all sizes across the UK space sector. The Business Engagement Lead is the first point of contact for businesses wishing to get involved with the Catapult. We are looking for a talented individual to join our National Capabilities and Clusters Team and be responsible for coordinating, supporting and managing all space sector business engagements with the Catapult, facilitating access to technical and market expertise as required to secure success for their ventures. An exciting challenge is for you co-run with our Marketing team the Catapult’s monthly networking event “Satuccino” for our vibrant community, alongside technical webinars and business support sessions. Another important aspect of the role will include tracking and monitoring the success of the organisations supported by the Catapult and developing impact case studies to highlight their growth.

 As a Business Engagement Lead, you will play a pivotal role in identifying the unique support needs of space and non-space start-ups, SME, and large organisations exploring how SAC can support them. Your primary responsibility will be the coordination of businesses enquiries and assessments through our range of innovation programmes, working across the organisation to ensure that suitable businesses can navigate support options and end up talking to the right team. This role requires a blend of analytical skills to diagnose business challenges, strategic thinking to help shape effective solutions, and excellent project management abilities to oversee the successful execution of support initiatives. You will serve as a trusted advisor, working closely with business owners to ensure the seamless integration of support measures, while continuously monitoring progress and adapting strategies as needed. You will have the opportunity to shape new support services and programmes to meet the needs of our customers and respond to changes in the landscape to ensure we are at the cutting edge. This is a role that will allow significant personal development through exposure to design, business strategy and innovation within real life business support.

 Skills & Experience required:

•  Experience of working within an innovation and business support environment.

• Effective team player with excellent interpersonal and communication skills.

• Ability to coordinate and work alongside senior staff, technical experts and business support providers.

• Experience of working in an organised manner in a dynamic environment.

• Experience of working with and influencing a variety of external stakeholders.

• Excellent planning, coordination, and organisation skills.

• Ability to provide inspiration and encouragement to businesses where needed but also to give frank advice where appropriate.

• Comfortable developing content and presenting to external parties.

• Experience of reporting against delivery milestones

• Organised with an attention to detail

• Enjoy solving problems and developing solutions

• Confident user of Microsoft products

• Experience of organising events, workshops and webinars.

Success factors: You know you have been successful when…

• You have achieved the KPIs for Catapult business engagement.

• You have built new relationships between the Catapult and businesses from both space and non-space sector

• You have high engagement levels with organisations attending networking events, workshops, conferences, SME supply chain events.

• You have supported businesses through the lifecycle of the Catapult Innovation Services Programmes

• You have showcased the work of the team through quarterly reviews reports and engaging case studies.

• You have supported connections between Harwell and other clusters

• You have developed the co-space and created a vibrant community

The purpose of your new team:

The National Capabilities and Clusters Team’s vision is to create a thriving and connected UK space ecosystem by growing productive UK Space clusters and a vibrant space community, working collaboratively to build national capabilities, delivering UK strategic priorities and growing the economy.

Together we deliver this by:

•  Supporting local leadership teams to develop sustainable growth strategies and become part of a productive cluster network recognised internationally.

• Connecting stakeholder communities and build bridges between industry, government, and academia enhancing knowledge exchange and collaborative opportunities

• Stimulating the growth of national capabilities through improved innovation services, infrastructure interventions and business scale up support programmes.

About us & how we work: 

We strive to create a high trust, high performance, and inclusive environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work – this helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture. Our shared values are critical to this: 

• We care - for our people, our partners, and our planet. 

• We connect - and engage with people and ideas. 

• We learn - and grow, as people and as an industry. 

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams; our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual, providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us. 

This job description set outs the skills and experience we think are needed to be able to perform in this job. However, if you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.

Important notice for applicants: We use tools to detect plagiarism and the use of AI or chatbots for applicant answers. If plagiarism, AI use (such as ChatGPT) or similar software are found to have been used in your application you will not be considered for this or future roles within the Satellite Applications Catapult.

At Satellite Applications Catapult, we're committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workforce. We welcome candidates from all corners of the globe, but due to legal and logistical considerations, we want to be transparent about the potential visa-related challenges that could arise. Our ability to offer sponsorship will depend on the level of interest for our roles and salary level. Unfortunately we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role at this time.

If you need any additional support during the application process, please do reach out and connect. We also invite you to share feedback via Applied.