Overview

We’re looking for a Head of Policy and Influencing (Impact on Urban Health) to help us achieve our ambition to improve urban health in the UK and beyond.

Policy and Influencing is a fast-developing function at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation, established to turbo-charge our influence on decision-making to improve urban health and health inequity. Working across the organisation - in particular with colleagues leading our urban health programmes - the Policy and Influencing function uses the insight generated by our programmes to build our networks, raise the profile of the issues we work on and influence policy development.

We are looking for an experienced policy and public affairs professional to lead the development of strategy for influencing on our Impact on Urban Health programmes, and our external engagement in Westminster. With responsibility for our overarching influencing activity on issues relating to urban health and health equity, you will work with a small team of Policy and Influencing Managers to develop clear and impactful strategies for each of our programmes.

The Head of Policy and Influencing will also take responsibility for the organisation’s Parliamentary and Government engagement across all our issue areas, supporting colleagues to build our stakeholder networks and influence decision making. You’ll work closely with the Policy and Influencing Managers to ensure colleagues are well briefed and supported in their stakeholder engagement.

We are looking for someone who enjoys testing new ways of working as we explore how we can best achieve impact, whether acting alone or with our partner organisations: this is a rare opportunity to work in a genuinely innovative organisation that is able to test new approaches and is willing to take risks. You will provide senior advice to Programme team colleagues and help broker investment partnerships with a particular influencing focus, taking the lead on investment partnerships with a particular influencing focus.

You’ll be excited by the opportunity to work at an organisation that prioritises diversity, equity and inclusion in all we do, whether in term of the impact we seek to have in the external world on health equity, but also in the ways we work. As Head of Policy and Influencing, this will testing and learning different routes to ensuring our policy and influencing activity is as equitable and inclusive as possible and supporting our cross-organisational work on diversity, equity and inclusion.

You will be a team player, who enjoys working in a matrix across multiple teams within the organisation, deputising for the Policy and Influencing Director where appropriate. There is a strong external facing focus to this role, and the Head of Policy and Influencing will relish the challenge of building our policy and influencing networks and skilled at spotting opportunities for collaboration with other organisations from all sectors.

About us

At Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, our mission is clear – to build the foundations of a healthier society.

As part of our team, you will work alongside talented people from a mix of personal and professional backgrounds. We are a Living Wage employer and support flexible working, part-time roles, and job shares. Though our ambitions are serious, this is a friendly place to work with lots of opportunities to meet and socialise with colleagues. We believe there is immense power in diversity and aim to recruit and nurture talent who think and act differently.

There is more information about working with us on our website, where you can read about:

•     how we approach recruitment

•     our team, culture, and values

•     the benefits of working with us

•     and our approach to diversity, equity & inclusion, health & wellbeing, and learning & development

Job description

The team:

The Policy and Influencing Team uses the insight we generate through our programmes to influence decisions made about health equity and urban health. We work closely with colleagues across the organisation, especially in the Programme Team and Communications Team to develop influencing strategies, build our stakeholder networks and raise the profile of our work. The Policy and Influencing Team also works closely with our partner organisations to develop exciting partnerships to influence, with a focus on influencing decisions made in Parliament, Government and other organisations involved in policy development.

Key responsibilities:

-     Developing and delivering our parliamentary and government engagement strategies across all our issue areas

-     Provide strategic oversight of Programmatic influencing strategies developed by Policy and Influencing Managers, ensuring a coherent and complementary approach across all programmes

-     Lead on our cross-programme urban health influencing strategy

-     Providing high level strategic advice to Programme Directors and Portfolio Managers on programmatic influencing strategies and the development of influencing partnerships

-     Developing and maintaining a broad range of stakeholder relationships with a view to creating opportunities for us to partner on our influencing work and acting as a spokesperson for our work at external events

-     Supporting senior leadership with stakeholder engagement

-     Oversight for budgets for our Programmatic policy and influencing work

-     Deputising for the Policy and Influencing Director as required

-     Line management of the Policy and Influencing Associate role as required

-     Bringing a diversity, equity and inclusion lens to all our policy and influencing activity, and supporting cross-organisational work on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Person specification

What we’re looking for

Skills and experience:

 -     Significant experience working in public affairs and policy in a UK setting, with demonstrable impact on policy making in Westminster Parliament and/or the devolved administrations.

-     Experience leading teams to deliver against impactful influencing strategies.

-     Experience working across a broad policy brief, and the ability to develop expertise and familiarity with different policy areas quickly.

-     Experience developing and managing budgets.

Knowledge and qualifications:

 -     In depth understanding of the UK political environment and operation of Government.

-     Expertise in public policy, ideally in issues relating to health equity or social justice.

Abilities and attributes:

-     Excellent interpersonal and networking skills at all levels.

-     Enjoys working in places with a clear and ambitious mission, a matrix structure and ways of working that challenge the norm.