Programme Manager

The Programme Manager is vital to the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. They will be pivotal in leading and shaping the organisational strategy of the Centre and delivering the smooth running of its initiatives aimed at inspiring and accelerating the development of future innovators.

Specific duties
You will need to be comfortable doing the following:

Educational Oversight: Oversee the creation and execution of education programmes, vacation schemes, and activities that align with the Centre's goals of fostering entrepreneurship.

Programme Management: Exceptional ability to oversee and manage multiple programmes, events, and activities efficiently within a highly entrepreneurial environment, ensuring successful execution and tangible results.

Liaison and Coordination: Act as the primary liaison between Christ Church, the student and academic community at the University of Oxford (including other contributing entities), and Blenheim Chalcot, ensuring clear communication and coordination across all entities. Proactively and consistently drive student engagement and foster connections with Oxford entities (societies etc.) to enhance collaboration.

Building Management Responsibilities: Take responsibility for management of the physical premise, 37 St Giles, working directly with facilities management services across Oxford University, and private contractors, as well as collaborating closely with colleagues from Christ Church and Blenheim Chalcot.

Financial Management: Manage the budget and financial planning for the Centre, ensuring efficient and optimal use of resources and alignment with financial objectives.

Operations: Direct the day-to-day operations of the Centre, ensuring smooth administrative processes and alignment with the Centres long-term entrepreneurial vision.

Management Board Representation: Attend and contribute towards the governance within Oxford and executive decision making related to the Centre.

Opportunity
This role is an excellent platform for professionals interested in entrepreneurial education and an opportunity unlikely to be found anywhere else. You will gain hands-on experience in a fast-paced and progressive environment, where you will support and benefit from educating about and contributing towards the next generation of innovators. You will be enrolled onto Blenheim Chalcots Career Development Framework and will benefit from tailored education and mentorship. As a member of the Blenheim Chalcot Pioneer Programme, you will be part of a cohort of high-potential Blenheim Chalcot colleagues and have full access to the entire innovation ecosystem., 10% of our partnerships and ventures are charities. These include the British Asian Trust, BabyZone and Onside Youth Zones. In the same way that we support our ventures, we provide direct hands-on support to these charities, including through active board membership and expert advice.

The ideal candidate will have a passion for entrepreneurship and thrive in fast-moving environments where change and uncertainty are commonplace.

The Ideal Candidate

Programme Management Experience: Proven experience in managing programmes, ideally within academic or entrepreneurial settings, in both short term execution and long term strategic planning. Experience with university-affiliated programmes, particularly in partnership with institutions like the University of Oxford.

Collaboration and Stakeholder Management: Strong ability to work collaboratively with both academic and corporate stakeholders, ensuring alignment and successful delivery of objectives.

Financial and Budgeting Knowledge: Solid understanding of budgeting, financial management, and resource allocation in a programmatic context.

Communication and Liaison Skills: Excellent communication skills to drive marketing initiatives and liaise effectively with diverse teams. You will be a public face of the Centre, and critical to the development of its brand and network.

Technological Proficiency: Proficiency with digital tools and platforms that support programme administration, such as event management systems, financial management tools, and communication and productivity tooling.

Entrepreneurial Mindset: An understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation practices, with experience in an entrepreneurial setting being a strong asset., Honesty and integrity trustworthy.

Resilience - keeps going when the going gets tough, remains optimistic in the face of challenges, open to feedback and willingness to change and experiment.

Teamwork is collaborative and supportive, elevating and developing others to deliver results.

Innovation - restless to improve, challenges how to make things better.

Deliver results - keeps promises, drives to achieve, commitment to high quality work.

Commercial awareness - looks for best value solutions for the business, understand costs / revenues, spends money wisely.

We are looking to hire a high-energy, entrepreneurial and value-adding talent to manage a new Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation open to the entire University of Oxford. The Centre is being led by Christ Church (a constituent college of the University) and Blenheim Chalcot, alongside many other partners from across the University and City of Oxford. It is designed primarily for undergraduate students, with the goal of nurturing early-stage venture development, bridging academic knowledge with practical applications, and cultivating an opportunity-focused approach to any type of workan entrepreneurial mindset.
The successful applicant would join Blenheim Chalcot, a leading global venture builder, while helping deliver the educational programme alongside Christ Church and other University partners., At Blenheim Chalcot, we use our knowledge, expertise and infrastructure to sustain an innovation system that transforms disruptive ideas into innovative businesses. We originate the ideas ourselves, grow them from the ground up and take them through to scaling and ultimately exit.
We typically build enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) products, powered by Generative AI and target industries which are exposed to market, regulatory or technology discontinuities. We have built businesses across the following sectors: Financial Services, Education, Media and Marketing, Public services & Health, and Sports.

Our track record has seen us build more than 60 businesses over the last 25 years. The portfolio has annual revenues of 500m, employs more than 3,000 people, has raised 600m in equity, and secured exists totalling over 1bn.

Blenheim Chalcot has three global locations, London, Mumbai and Austin. Our portfolio companies are headquartered from Scale Space, London, our 200,000 ft collaboration space which was built as a joint venture with Imperial College London. Our Mumbai offices provide unparalleled scaling capability and technical expertise, and our U.S. operation powers the go-to-market activities of the portfolio across North America.

We are excited about the future opportunity that Gen AI technologies present, and believe, given our experience, innovation ecosystem and current market presence, that we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of these opportunities.

Be exposed to the right mix of challenges, within a culture that promotes continuous learning and development and opportunity to work with Gen AI

A fun and open, if a little cricket obsessed, atmosphere

Discretionary bonus

25 days of paid holidays + your birthday off

Life Assurance (4 x annual salary), Pension Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme

Flexible Benefits: Private Medical and Dental, Gym Subsidiaries

Please note we are office based which requires our colleagues to be together in the office [in this case based primarily at The University of Oxford] 5 days a week with flexibility around personal commitments, interests and obligations. Given the nature of the partnership, your employment will require you to adhere to the policies of both Blenheim Chalcot and Christ Church, Oxford. The opportunity to continuously collaborate with the whole portfolio, learn, stay connected, and grow in our community will be provided through regular trips to Blenheim Chalcots Scale Space office in White City.

PROCESS
We have a rigorous recruitment process, which we use for all our roles to ensure we attract the very best talent.