Programme Director, Technology Frontiers

at  NESTA

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Given the seniority of this role, we are looking for someone with a passion for and deep understanding of emerging technologies, who can come up with ambitious ideas and build credible partnerships and teams to deliver these.

You will be able to navigate the landscape of emerging technologies confidently but you could have built up this experience and these networks running things in a variety of contexts:

• Entrepreneurship - perhaps you’ve built a deep tech startup
• Investment - maybe you’ve led financing of tech related firms
• Consultancy - you could have held a senior role in a tech focused consultancy
• Policy - you’ve might have been instrumental in driving innovation policy and innovation funding mechanisms
• Prizes - you may even have led prize programmes elsewhere
• .. or something else we haven’t thought of!

EXPERIENCE:

The successful candidate will be passionate about innovation and bring a creative mindset to delivering impact through harnessing the power of entrepreneurship and technology.

• A strong track record of leading teams or organisations and of delivering at pace
• Strong track record of coming up with big ideas and scoping new opportunities, and converting these into new projects.
• Experience and contacts in science and technology ‘futures’, academia, industry and government.
• Excellent partner and client relationship management, with experience of collaborating with a diverse range of partners e.g. government, philanthropists, businesses, foundations, including securing significant funding
• Experience securing funding and negotiating complex programme scopes and budgets with ambitious partners and backers to ensure resources and timescales match ambition.
• Natural networker and convener and can manage a multitude of external relationships.
• A skilled communicator and influencer adept at speaking to senior audiences in a range of different organisations.
• Experience and interest in managing and supporting team members to deliver the greatest possible impact through innovation.

We work globally, and our partners in this field currently include UK Government Department of Science Innovation and Technology, ARIA, Department of Business and Trade and UK Space Agency delivering prizes such as :

• the Manchester Prize, delivering cutting edge AI solutions for public good in the fields of energy, environment and infrastructure;
• the Aqualunar Challenge, an international collaboration with the UK and Canadian Space Agencies to drive the creation of innovative technologies to make human habitation in space possible; and
• the Smart Data Discovery Challenge, seeking new ways of mobilising data to empower consumers, unlock innovation and sustainably grow our economy

THE ROLE

This is a senior leadership role within Challenge Works. You will direct an existing multi-million pound programme of prizes, as well as create new ideas, secure partnerships and unlock funding to take these forward.
Our Technology Frontiers work comprises a growing portfolio of challenge prizes using impactful funding mechanisms to drive breakthrough technological innovation, applying cutting edge technologies, new sources of data, regulation or policy to solve challenges in a wide range of fields, drive economic growth and create whole new markets.

We work globally, and our partners in this field currently include UK Government Department of Science Innovation and Technology, ARIA, Department of Business and Trade and UK Space Agency delivering prizes such as :

• the Manchester Prize, delivering cutting edge AI solutions for public good in the fields of energy, environment and infrastructure;
• the Aqualunar Challenge, an international collaboration with the UK and Canadian Space Agencies to drive the creation of innovative technologies to make human habitation in space possible; and
• the Smart Data Discovery Challenge, seeking new ways of mobilising data to empower consumers, unlock innovation and sustainably grow our economy.