Head of Business Growth, ACAS

Deadline 20/4/23

Job ad: Head of Business Growth - Civil Service Jobs - GOV.UK

Essential criteria:
 Business planning: the development and effective implementation of complex
strategic & operational plans that generate income and impact
 New product design/R&D and implementation of new initiatives across a wide
variety of media
 Analyse and translate data and statistics and use them to influence decisions
 Effective financial management skills, including delivering increased capability
within declining budgets
 Proven understanding of the Business Support policy and delivery landscape
 Proven experience of successful design, sale and delivery of a commercial
proposition into the private-sector marketplace
 Experience of stakeholder management and nurturing relationships across
the business community
 Commercial acumen – demonstrated experiencing in driving business KPIs,
staff planning and strategic thinking
 Experience of leading an effective customer focussed culture within the
private or public sector
 Experience of managing performance across multiple service streams through
dispersed teams, c. 11 sites in GB

Personal Statement (1,250 words)

As Senior Project Delivery Manager at the Food Standards Agency (FSA), I co-
ordinate and deliver new initiatives to increase the FSA’s resilience against cyber
security breaches and malicious attack. Bringing a fresh pair of non-technical eyes to
this project, I have identified gaps and interdependencies, bringing stakeholders
together to remove silos and improve collaboration and shared benefits. I have
introduced management reporting to this project, capturing risks, lessons learned
and future priority planning. My engagement with senior stakeholders, both
internally and externally, promotes effective governance, control and assurance. 
With my background in user insight, I define the user journey and implement
standards and processes for delivery. This has brought structure and pace to this
project, ensuring effective implementation.
I negotiate and influence funding, managing user requirements to drive user and
supplier value. Accountable for the business case, and performance of delivery leads
and suppliers across this project, I plan, track and assure the work-streams,
providing direction and facilitating the virtual team whilst removing blockers that
might de-rail the project.
I also matrix-manage and mentor a dispersed multi-disciplinary team, delivering
process improvements and a cohesive team culture whilst cross-skilling the team to
increase its resilience and capacity as well as ensure effective succession-planning.

As Lead User Researcher at the Food Standards Agency (FSA), I was an expert
practitioner, defining and assuring best practice in underpinning the Change
environment with robust horizon-scanning. Addressing the need to standardise user
centred design (UCD) quality and impact across the FSA, I published a user
research strategy and framework to embed a consistent and efficient approach and
delivery at all stages of the project lifecycle. Through this framework, I advocated the
imperative of putting the user at the heart of every project to drive decision-making
and prioritisation, ensuring that our large programmes and projects are
repeatable, open and transparent, data-driven, evidence-based, accessible and
ethically robust. I have set out standards for storing and sharing research data and
information so that research outputs are available to all colleagues and contractors.
The framework continues to set the direction for design strategy, creating optimal
services for users and robust data to underpin continuous improvement. It has
raised the profile of user research principles and skills across the FSA,
increasing good practice and encouraging a wider understanding of UCD tools
and methods so that genuine user needs can be successfully translated into
standard working procedures.

Working with the Central Digital and Data Office I am a cross-government service
assessor for complex strategic digital projects and programmes. As assessment
panel Chair, I provide service development feedback and recommendations to
Senior Responsible Owners based on the government service standard. This is
often in a challenging environment where Senior Responsible Owners have already
invested heavily by the assessment stage, so my credibility and diplomacy are vital
to building trust and effective outcomes. 
Drawing on this experience, I implemented service assessments across the
FSA’s Digital Data and Technology portfolio. I ensured that these assessments
are structured, well-planned and prioritised, offering coaching and support to
project teams when needed. These now form part of our digital project
governance and culture, safeguarding service standards. Working with senior
leaders and engaging a range of volunteers to build their competence in
project assessment, I have ensured that these service assessments are
constructive and transparent. They have increased successful project delivery
and implementation through the application of service standards, enhanced
spend controls throughout the project lifecycle and improved FSA/supplier
relationships.

As Market Analyst, Swansea University, I implemented and managed a programme

of customer insight to identify strategic partnership opportunities, improve business
services and drive efficiency.  I identified the need for qualitative data collection and
analysis expertise across the organisation, collaborating with Computer Science
colleagues to integrate user-centred design principles with thematic analysis and
Human–Computer Interaction to provide a deeper understanding of customer
behaviour in driving market growth.  This helped colleagues better engage with their
target customers, identifying the appropriate resources and evaluation metrics to
help the University meet its Strategic priorities.
With responsibility for planning and designing the Academy for Professional
Learners project, I delivered the market assessment which underpinned the
University’s employer-facing continuous professional development (CPD) training
provision.  CPD provision was aligned with the University’s strategic plan and income
diversification agenda. My assessment of market requirements and geo-
demographic insights provided the focus for product development and ensured the
delivery processes met the needs and expectations of employers in growing their
business.  I delivered an assessment of our key competitors in this market, their
delivery methods, target customers and costs which directed the successful
implementation of the CPD offer.

As Business Change Project Manager at the Office for National Statistics, I led the
roll-out and readiness planning of the Electronic Data Collection Programme, a high-
profile transformation of business surveys from paper onto a new digital platform
delivering annual cost savings in excess of £2 million. To accommodate a complex
timetable of multiple non-negotiable business priorities, I convened a series of
internal stakeholder workshops where I assessed critical resource pressures,
ensuring that everyone could articulate their priorities. I set up and chaired a monthly
roll-out delivery group formed of key internal stakeholders to define business
readiness for project roll-out and provide accountability to the Programme Board.
Addressing concern from senior statisticians that this transformation programme
might undermine ONS data credibility, I delivered a year-long pilot survey, regularly
consulting with stakeholders to secure their confidence, whilst investigating the
potential impact of digitalisation on seasonality, user behaviour and data capture.
This pilot identified that businesses returned faster, more complete survey responses
which reduced ONS operational overheads by approximately 30% over 12 months.
I also developed a performance measurement framework, addressing business
pressures on the horizon to ensure that these did not de-rail the roll-out plan. I
created a set of KPIs to track and analyse cost per transaction, digital take-up,
completion rate and user satisfaction. I incorporated these into a continuous
improvement plan to enable the project to accommodate changes in business,
commercial or user demand. The Programme Board praised me for delivering roll-
out plan ahead of schedule despite internal and external risk-aversion.

As Head of User Insight at ONS, I was instrumental in setting up the user research
function and leading it to high levels of delivery and performance. I led a new multi-
disciplinary team of experienced web analysts, content designers and procured user
researchers via a research agency to consolidate and deliver commercial insight
across the business. I created a three-year Commercial Insight strategy and plan
which provided an understanding of the changing digital landscape, informed ONS
strategic direction and articulated the team purpose and goals. 
Recognising an urgent need across ONS to define our online users and how to
engage them, I delivered research-driven user personas, capturing essential
information about our online audience.  Identifying specific behaviours, motivators
and search goals, I highlighted barriers to accessing our online services and user
expectations for future digital services. I engaged with senior statisticians,
Programme Boards and senior management team colleagues, adapting my
approach according to their appetite for this complex new insight.  I also initiated and
chaired a cross-ONS User Insight Group to share best practice and a cohesive
approach to user research. Embedding a culture of user engagement within product
design, I increased collaboration by persuading ONS colleagues to use a common
language, informed by user engagement and insight, to appreciate user needs and
create more user-focused products and services. In the first year in my role, I
increased user satisfaction scores from 85% to 94% and take-up of our web-based
services increased by 25%. 
Serving on the Board of Trustees of Goleudy, a Wales-based charity which
addresses social exclusion, I monitored project evaluation, measuring both
qualitative soft outcomes of our client-centred services and the quantifiable financial
and administrative hard outcomes. I assisted the Chief Executive in designing
meaningful measurement and evaluation mechanisms, ensuring that we had a clear
vision of where the charity wanted to be positioned in a continuingly challenging
funding climate, putting the client at the centre of future grant funding submissions
whilst successfully meeting both client aspirations and the Statutory Funding Body’s
requirements.
In a voluntary capacity I held a non-Executive Director post on the board of the
Cardiganshire-based Mwldan Theatre Group. This gave me exposure to three very
different business sectors: Arts, Charity and Commercial. I worked to resolve
tensions between the artistic, technological and commercial demands of running a
complex arts venue to maximise audience take-up and viability in a highly
competitive environment and deteriorating funding climate. I led the implementation
of Mwldan’s corporate branding.

As DVLA Customer Insight Team Manager, I was instrumental in moving the

organisation towards segmentation according to specific user behaviours,
perceptions and experience instead of merely in terms of transactions, such as car
tax or driver licence renewal. This led to a culture-shift towards outward-looking
customer-orientation. I did this through leading primary quantitative and qualitative
user insight projects, continually evaluating the user experience and by championing
the importance of re-using insight to maximise efficiencies.  Embedding customer
research early in the product development cycle, I identified significant issues and
opportunities for minimising operational costs further down the line.  
I ensured that my team of user researchers, business analysts and I were up-skilled
and professionally accredited to provide a credible ‘voice of the customer’.
Empowering my team to excel, I led them to win the Civil Service Diversity Award in
recognition of our engagement with socially-excluded customers.  I brought user
research in-house, delivering a more complex but cost-efficient workload and was
personally responsible for saving £720,000 per year in outsourcing costs. I
established an internal customer feedback mechanism, ensuring we continually
improved performance.  
Successfully integrating my team into the DVLA’s Change agenda, with its emphasis
on commercial insight and evidence, I put user research at the heart of new strategy
and policy development. My team’s role in supporting digital engagement was cited
in a 2014 Ministerial Review of DVLA as ‘invaluable in understanding user
preferences and service feedback’. 
 
As Royal Mail Key Account Manager, I Proactively managing strategically important
clients worth between £70 and £80 million per annum in revenue, I had a track
record of excellent client relationship management evidenced by positive client
feedback and by account growth of 5% minimum each year against a target of 3%.