Senior Alumni Engagement Manager

The Opportunity

Are you a senior relationship management professional with experience of managing and leading successful teams to deliver innovative and engaging experiences for a wide range of stakeholders?

The University of Leeds has one of the largest alumni constituencies in the UK, with a global community of more than 340,000 alumni in 190 countries. Alumni play a pivotal role in the life of the University and its mission to make a positive global impact, as stakeholders, advocates, ambassadors, supporters and lifelong learning participants.

Alumni of Leeds University Business School are an important part of this community, with a strong affinity to both the University and the Business School. Developing lifelong, mutually-beneficial relationships with its graduates is critical for a world-class Business School and we aim to maximise their experience, knowledge and diversity to enhance our school’s reputation, student experience, research agenda and add value to the experience of alumni themselves as members of a lifelong community.

This new role will enhance the strategic impact of our alumni to both the Business School and the University more widely through creative and collaborative working, and evaluating, and prioritising activity to best effect. Working in a matrix-management environment, you will be based in the Business School, reporting in to the Director of External Engagement (Partnerships and Executive Education) and will also be part of the University’s Advancement Team with professional accountability to the Head of Alumni and Supporter Engagement.

The post holder will therefore work in close partnership both with staff in the Business School (in particular External Engagement, key undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, Executive Education and the marketing and communications team) as well as with Advancement colleagues. You will be responsible for leading and managing the Business School’s alumni relations team, translating the School and University strategies into meaningful action, across two key areas of focus:

• Building our alumni community through a programme of engagement, events and communications that enhance our community engagement, identifying opportunities to maximise the impact within the context of Advancement and Business School strategies.
• Increasing the strategic impact of alumni engagement on research and student experience objectives, particularly through volunteering and advocacy.

Working with the team, you will play a critical role in adding strategic value to the Business School from alumni engagement, and developing how Business School engagement, content and activity can benefit the student and alumni community more widely. You will also be delivering against the strategic needs of the wider University, as we enhance our engagement of alumni and supporters (donors and volunteers). You will therefore have a proven approach to collaborative working and developing successful partnerships across organisations.

Person Specification

You will have significant experience of managing relationships and influencing senior stakeholders, both internally and externally, to deliver value-adding projects and initiatives. You will have experience of developing strategies, and translating these into activity, maximising events, communications and face-to-face relationship building activity to achieve strategic aims. You will be an experienced leader, able to manage and inspire a motivated, high performing, purpose-driven team with a culture of collaboration and a creative approach to opportunities and problem-solving.

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