IMPATIENCE INSIDERS PROJECT LEAD

OVERVIEW 

If you are someone happy to take initiative, act as a service provider to our insiders, lend your hand to anything/everything with regard to building the organisation and are drawn to the idea of helping bring to life an ambitious new social enterprise, then we hope you will consider applying.

We believe that corporate ‘Insiders’ have been under invested in, under-utilised and often under-estimated in conversations about how we support a just transition. 

You will be the only staff member but have a lot of brilliant people around you to provide support and we hope that with your support and leadership we will grow to a team of 3-4 over the coming 18 months. 

We are looking for a self-starter who will flourish as a facilitator of insider groups, as a recruiter of Insiders, as an advocate and sector-builder for the insider community and as someone who can put the building blocks in place for an organisation that is set to grow and flourish.

To begin with, you will be hosted at non-profit Impatience Ltd who are providing hosting support to Impatience Insiders. 

PERSON SPECIFICATION 

We are looking for someone with at least six years of professional experience who is: 

1. Confident in supporting bold movement building and encouraging people towards action;

2. Able to work delicately in high trust environments; 

3. Able to work collaboratively with partners; 

4. Energised to search and recruit for Insiders from a ‘cold’ start (e.g. building new relationships on Linkedin, etc.); and 

5. Able to help build the ecosystem which we are a part of.

We are definitely looking for an all-rounder and do not have a particular experience set in mind. We expect to get applications from people from a range of backgrounds including those who have worked in large professional services firms, civil society building, community organising, programme management, financial services, social entrepreneurship, consulting or public affairs. 

We will be looking for people who have had to build things from scratch and are used to working with diverse stakeholder groups and holding a strong sense of purpose.

The essentials:

1. You care deeply about the social and environmental challenges the world is facing and can see how industry can play a critical role in impacting these issues;

2. You are a confident project manager - you must have a knack of keeping things organised and on track, being able to write clearly and distil information; 

3. You are a keen researcher who likes learning about new topics and presenting information back in written documents and briefings;

4. You are committed to facilitating and organising in ways that support diversity, equity and inclusion;

5. You have some facilitation experience and are comfortable building trust with individuals as well as holding space for confidential and sensitive conversations in groups. You have experience of supporting people to work through challenges and differing opinions to get to points of agreement and action;

6. You are happy researching and approaching potential partners, Insiders, etc. without warm introductions and building a new community around this work;

7. You are able to work independently with only light-touch support, self-start and manage competing priorities and multiple groups of stakeholders.

Helpful but not essential experience/skills: 

1. A background and experience of working within food systems; this could be through having worked hands-on on farms, in the public sector on agriculture policy, on corporate sustainability strategies, or through a master’s degree; 

2. A background in project management, public affairs, and relationship management;

3. A background in movement building, community organising, facilitation and/or advocacy;

4. Experience in fundraising and partnership building;

5. Experience in sales, recruitment, hospitality and/or training;

6. Experience of working in and pushing for change in large organisations.

You will have a few key aspects to your work: 

1. Own and organise the Insiders group. This will include seeking new members to expand our Insider group, while retaining current members by ensuring meetings and work are relevant, interesting and beneficial for members;

2. Work with partners to turn insider insights into campaigns to influence change within the sector;

3. Help plan and deliver the UK’s first ‘Insider Summit’ where we bring together people doing insider work across a range of industries and forms;

4. Seed and support new insider groups;

5. Help develop the methodology for insider group development;

6. Build relationships with potential funders and pitch for further core or project-related funding; 

7. Project-manage external agencies that are conducting delivery work for each project, from conception through to delivery and dissemination with civil society organisations, government, media and/or investors.

For the right person, this will be an amazing experience that allows them to learn as they lead work and accelerate into a space where their knowledge and insight is directly impacting progress towards transforming the UK food system and other industries. 

We’re flexible about location (within the UK), hours and type of experience, our priority is to find the right person to lead this work who is ready to hit the ground running and has both the track record and skill set to make a success of this. We are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities and so if you are not 100% sure that you meet all the requirements but believe you could excel in this role, we encourage you to apply and use the application cover letter to tell us about your experience and what you hope to bring to this role. 

The Impatience Ltd leadership team can be seen at: impatienceltd. org/our-team. 

This project has Jake Hayman as the lead board sponsor as well as active involvement in oversight and management from Farhana Yamin and Aditi Shah.

The organisation is very much at a start-up stage with our only major funding coming to support this key role and one fellow team member over the next 12 months which is why this is an initial 12-month contract. 

We hope the track record of the leadership team in building multiple successful thriving organisations will give candidates some confidence that this is an organisation that can grow and thrive and provide amazing opportunities to stretch themselves, provide career development and build their skills.