Description
We are looking for an experienced Director of IT & Estates to join our fantastic team at Somerset House Trust. As the home of cultural innovators, the Trust connects creativity and the arts with the broader society.
The purpose of this strategic role is to:
- Ensure we conserve and animate our beautiful heritage building as a central part of our charitable purpose
- Translate Somerset House's ambition as the Home of Cultural Innovators into a comprehensive estates and IT strategy, to guide the evolution of the site and its physical and digital infrastructure, then lead on its delivery
- Lead the organisation on sustainability goals and actions
- Continuously improve site operations to address the evolving needs of the organisation and its internal and external customers
You'll be recognised as a collaborative and energising leader who can bring together teams to contribute to the success of the Trust. You will have the courage to challenge established thinking and ways of working, the ability to set goals and direction and the skills to communicate effectively at all levels. You'll be someone who is known for delivering to promise in a relatively small and developing organisation.
Somerset House pursues a 'Step Inside, Think Outside' spirit and is born from the creative community we nurture - the experience and perspectives we host across background, age, race, and stage, and the intersections and crossovers we encourage.
- Experience in leading estates functions at a senior level (facilities, building & capable of overseeing IT) at a large multi-use site, ideally in the heritage, arts & events and/ or customer-facing sectors.
- Demonstrable experience of developing and implementing strategies for building use and enhancement
- Strong leadership and ability to motivate and develop teams, balancing day-to-day and strategic needs
- Continuously improving effectiveness and ways of working to better serve internal and external customers
- Experienced at risk management and mitigation, ensuring robust processes and governance in place
- Experience of leading and delivering transformation and cross-functional projects
- Commercial mindset- evidence of supporting income growth and/or driving savings
- Able to contribute at a strategic level to an executive team outside of own specialism
- Evidence of data-led decision making and embedding it in an organisation
Organisational leadership
- Responsibility for fulfilment of the heritage element of our charitable purpose, and our lease responsibilities to conserve the building.
Lead on sustainability at an organisational level
- Define sustainability vision, plans, policies and lead on cross-functional, alignment & delivery
Develop our estates and infrastructure offer as the Home of Cultural Innovators
- Lead on site strategy, aligned to overall organisational strategy- build alignment on the future vision to optimise how we use the site across the needs of our programme, creative residents, financial and sustainability objectives, backed by a costed and prioritised long term (5-10+ year) plan for the site
Deliver robust estates and IT operations
- Ensure safe, effective and efficient day to day running of the estate, with appropriate processes in place to guarantee legal and policy compliance
For a full list of responsibilities and requirements, please see the job advert.