Deputy Director of External Affairs

The Youth Futures Foundation is seeking a senior External Affairs professional to lead a dynamic multi-disciplinary team focused on enhancing its reputation and influence as the What Works Centre for Youth Employment. This newly established role involves overseeing public affairs, stakeholder relations, communications, and marketing to achieve strategic objectives. The successful candidate will report to the Director of Policy and External Affairs and collaborate closely with the CEO and Senior Leadership Team. Strong leadership and management skills are essential, along with the ability to implement practical solutions and foster an adaptive working environment. The position can be based in Birmingham, Leeds, or London, following a hybrid working model.

Youth Futures Foundation is looking for a senior External Affairs professional to lead a busy multi-disciplinary team to drive our reputational, influencing and engagement work as the What Works Centre for Youth Employment.

About the role

• This is a newly created role where you will have responsibility for driving an integrated approach to our audience influencing to deliver our strategic objectives, through collective oversight across our public affairs, stakeholder relations, communications and marketing work.
• The post holder will report to the Director of Policy and External Affairs and work closely with the CEO, wider Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and the Deputy Director of Strategic Development to enable purposeful reputational growth, enhanced brand recognition and the delivery of external impact.
• The post holder will need to be an experienced leader and manager; a people person able to inspire, nurture and support a team of motivated engagement and communications professionals as well as deputising for the Director more widely when required.
• To be successful, the post holder will need to be able to balance big picture thinking with driving practical implementation and outcomes across the team and thriving in ambiguity when needed. The skills and experience to drive and support internal change to foster an optimal operating environment and ability to design and embed future focused ways of working will be important to the success of the role

This role can be based at any of our hubs located in Birmingham, Leeds or London. We currently operate a hybrid model of two-days per week in the office and three-days from home.

For more information, please download our recruitment pack.