Be the face of the Behavioural Insights Team in New Zealand

We are searching for a Principal Advisor to drive and deliver an expanding programme of work in New Zealand. This is a new role, created to provide senior support to our growing team, through strong technical Behavioural Science expertise, excellent stakeholder management and business development skills, and experience coaching and leading a small team. If you are looking for a role where you can take ownership of a small business unit and demonstrate your leadership capabilities then this position is for you.

About Us

The Behavioural Insights Team is a social impact company that applies behavioural science to real-world problems. We believe in evidence based approaches to policy, and work predominantly with governments, not-for-profit and philanthropic organisations around the world and in almost every area of policy. While the subject and output of our projects varies considerably, there are common threads: we try to understand the contexts in which people make decisions; we notice small details; we find out what has and hasn’t worked before; we come up with innovative ideas for solving policy problems; and we measure everything we do as robustly as we can. We take pride in our values of social impact, empiricism and humility, fresh thinking, collaboration, and public service.

The Role

You will lead a portfolio of projects as an expert in behavioural science and policy. You will have responsibility for shaping projects and steering teams (both within BIT and within clients’ teams) as they complete literature reviews, quantitative analysis, field work, and randomised controlled trials. You will be required to manage relationships with senior officials across the government in New Zealand, with our Advisory Board, and with the broader APAC team. Naturally you will be the driving energy behind the development of the office and need to focus on building a pipeline of projects. There is a huge opportunity for social impact in New Zealand and you can play a pivotal role in bringing BIT’s values alive in developing the use of Behavioural Insights.

Skills Required

Behavioural Science Expertise

• A deep and credible understanding of behavioural science and direct experience of how it can be applied to help solve complex real-life policy problems;

• Ability to quickly assimilate complex issues across multiple policy areas and distil insights into practical solutions;

• Experience in the design and implementation of rigorous evaluations, including but not limited to randomised controlled trials;

• A Masters or PhD in a relevant subject area (including, but not limited to: behavioural economics, psychology, design thinking, evaluation methods).

Stakeholder Management and Business Development Skills

• Demonstrated ability to prospect and generate new business;

• Excellent program and project management skills;

• Excellent written and verbal communication for a wide range of audiences;

• Interest in working with tangata whenua/Pacific Island communities and an interest in learning Te Reo as a language.

Leadership and Management Experience

• Strong leadership and teamwork skills, with the ability to exercise good judgement in a rapidly changing and ambiguous environment;

• Demonstrated excellence in people management and coaching skills, particularly in small teams;

• Ability to work both at the ‘on-the-ground’ level, handling small details of office management, as well as taking a strategic view of the business;

• 5+ years’ experience developing or delivering policy in government, academia, or for a consulting firm.

Process

We are going to ask you a few short answer questions as a preliminary indicator of your level of suitability for this role. There will be 2 rounds of interviews following this online application.

We will preference applicants who already have the right to live and work in New Zealand, including Australian citizens.