Head of Finance and Performance

About the Blavatnik School of Government

Our vision is of a world better led, a world better served and a world better governed. We are a global school committed to improving the quality of government and public policymaking worldwide, through three routes: teaching current and future leaders; generating research with impact; and engaging with governments and practitioners.

What we offer you

The School is a collaborative, friendly, and dynamic department based in an award-winning building in Oxford. We host regular events and talks with well-known guest speakers – all of which are open to staff. On the social side, we have regular coffee/cake mornings for staff, a family-friendly Halloween event, and Christmas and summer parties.

As an employer, we genuinely care about our employees’ wellbeing and this is reflected in the range of benefits that we offer including:

• An excellent contributory pension scheme
• 38 days’ annual leave (plus long service leave)
• Family leave schemes and a comprehensive range of childcare services
• Cycle loan scheme and discounted bus travel and Season Ticket travel loans
• Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs
• Opportunities for remote and flexible working

More information about working at the School can be found on our jobs page.

About the role

The Blavatnik School of Government has an opportunity for a commercially-minded and improvement-focused finance professional to join the School from this September.

The Head of Finance and Performance will be a senior finance professional with superb attention to detail and ability to hold and manage risk; a creative, problem-solving approach; and a strong motivation to work with others to continuously improve the ways things are done. You will be responsible for leading the continued development of effective and resilient financial processes, operation of financial controls, reporting and monitoring, and ensuring timely, accurate management information is provided to management and others.

You will also lead on the School’s commercial negotiations for all major research programmes and the commercial aspects of all new initiatives, and you will oversee the development and implementation of a new crosscutting performance and business improvement capability, deploying data, good practice and established frameworks and methods to maximise the impact, effectiveness and efficiency of the School.

You will have significant experience of leading and implementing financial strategy, as well experience of managing key commercial relationships and contract negotiations. You will lead the development and delivery of the School’s financial strategy as the School looks to build on its successful growth to date. You will provide assurance to the Dean, the COO, the School’s Management Board and the Division that the School’s financial projections are robust and well-grounded.

You will have commercial acumen and experience of making risk-based judgements, experience of proactively driving improvement, strong interpersonal skills and demonstrable experience of leading and overseeing high performing and happy teams. Plus, crucially, a strong and demonstrable affinity with the goals and mission of the School of Government.

For an informal conversation about the role, please get in touch with the HR team (recruit@bsg.ox.ac.uk)

How to apply

You will be required to upload a supporting statement, your CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application.

The closing date for applications is 12 noon (UK time) on Monday 8 July 2024

We aim to hold interviews the week commencing 15 July 2024.

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