Interim Director of Strategy

The opportunity

University of Arts London is one of the leading Art and Design universities with a global community of over 20,000 students. As we embark on a pioneering and exciting new strategic journey (‘Why the World needs Creativity’) and with social purpose as a core value embedded in everything we do, we are seeking an Interim Director of Strategy (shorthand for Director of Strategy, Risk and Planning) to play a critical role in steering UAL through its next phase of growth and development.

Joining us on an 8-month maternity cover, your leadership will be instrumental to achieving our strategic goals. You’ll hold overall responsibility for ensuring UAL is well-placed to deliver its ambitions through informed decision making underpinned by a robust business planning cycle and strong data infrastructure.

The priorities for the period of the maternity cover will be to: 

• Continue the integration of the Strategy, Data and Change teams to foster inclusivity, and high performance
• Improve approaches to performance and change management
• Set up the 24/25 strategic planning process and design an appropriate process for 25/26
• Support UAL with key strategic priorities, such as growth, org design and responding to external trends such as AI.

You will have oversight over three teams (Strategy & Risk, Data & Planning and Strategic Change) to deliver on your departments objectives.

About you

We’re looking for a skilled leader, with a background in strategy consulting/inhouse strategy, with the expertise to develop and implement strategy. You’ll need experience of data analysis and data analytics, as well as an understanding of best practice in change management and experience of overseeing a portfolio of change programmes.

A proven track record of delivering organisation-wide business-planning and experience of organisational risk management, forecasting and planning is essential.

You’ll demonstrate excellent communication and leadership skills, with previous experience of building and leading diverse teams. You’ll also exhibit excellent stakeholder management skills and the ability to rapidly build professional relationships.

We are UAL

UAL offers an extensive range of courses in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts. We are a collegiate University spread across London with six Colleges, four Institutes and five Research Centres. UAL also has two subsidiary companies, delivering specialist activities – UAL Short Courses Ltd, and UAL Arts Temps Ltd.

We are ranked highly across the board. We are ranked first for specialist art and design, second in the world for Art and Design in the 2023 QS World University Rankings (for the fifth year in a row), ranked fifth in sustainability and two of our colleges were rated in the top three fashion schools in the world.

To apply please click the apply button.

Closing date: 22^nd April at 09:00.

If you have any queries about this role or need any reasonable adjustments for your application, please contact Twinkle Brahmbhatt, Senior Resourcing Adviser via email at Socialpurposestaffrecruitment@arts.ac.uk.

Our culture

UAL is committed to creating diverse and inclusive environments for all staff and students to work and learn – a university where we can be ourselves and reach our full potential. We offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements and Staff Support Networks. We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds, including race, disability, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and belief, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, and caring responsibility.

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