Description

Closing Date: 23-Apr-2024

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.

We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK. We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.

Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021–22 we reached 650 million people.
Pay Band – 8   circa  £38,820 -    £46,203  plus london weighting
Contract Type – Two year Fixed Term Contract
Location –  UK Manchester Edinburgh London Belfast Cardiff.
Europe -   Czech Republic, Portugal, Italy, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria
Closing date 23.04.2024 at 23.59 uk time
Requirements –Candidates must have the pre-existing (permanent) right to work in location.  Mobility / relocation / visa sponsoring support will not be provided. If you are currently sponsored by the British Council, in a country or regional role, please check with your local/regional HR colleagues if you are able to remain in your current location
What you will receive in return 
32 days annual leave plus statutory public holidays and half day privilege Christmas leave
Non-contractual discretionary annual performance bonus
Extensive and generous family friendly benefits
Extensive range of voluntary benefit options
Outstanding defined benefit career average Civil Service Pension Scheme which includes life cover and pensions for eligible dependants, e.g., Spouse, civil partner, partner, dependent children
Role Purpose
The British Council Global Exams Services develop and deliver innovative and flexible solutions that enable exams boards and testing institutions to support their learners to achieve their full potential. We are the world's most trusted exams services partner, delivering over 4.5 million exams every year for schools, universities, and professional bodies. We work in over 100 countries with over 25,000 staff to deliver exams whenever and wherever our clients need them - at a test centre, at a school, or using our secure online delivery.
Customer success is at the core of all our partnerships. The Global Account Manager will make significant contribution to our account management service, which plays a critical role to streamline communication, coordinate actions, establish touch-points and ensure updates are provided to our clients in the quickest and most effective manner.
This is a 2-year fixed term contract role based in UK, with no line management duties, and will report to Head of Professional, University & English Exams.
This role is to provide excellent Key Account Management for the designated global clients, nurturing the stakeholder relationships with clients over time and proactively identifying opportunities for growth and managing risk.
To develop and implement KAM plans in line with the Global Exams Services’ strategy for the portfolio of accounts in school, professional, university and English exams, and deliver income and surplus growth in line with ambitious global targets by nurturing growth and co-creating value with our key clients.
Main accountablities for this role:
Account & stakeholder management
Proactively develops strong relationships with key School, Professional, University & English clients.
Plans how to establish and maintain nominated account relationships to support the achievement of agreed commercial and impact targets and uses Key Account Management plans to support this.
Participates with Head of School Exams, Head of Professional, University and English Exams and other account managers, in working groups and other teams collaboratively to develop coordinated, account strategies for cultivating, managing and leveraging strategically important relationships to enable achievement of BC commercial and impact targets.
Winning business
Identifies opportunities within the key accounts the role is responsible for to grow our market share.
Manages together with relevant colleagues in the organisation, production and submission of high quality, market responsive proposals, ensuring timely and appropriate input from all necessary internal stakeholders/experts/functional advisors.  Ensures compliance with agreed internal governance/review/sign-off arrangements.
Represents the British Council at client/partner presentations and negotiations, ensuring the commercial/strategic interests and professional reputation of the organisation are protected and promoted.
Market & customer intelligence
Monitors, evaluates and acts on client feedback in order to identify areas where business can be developed, and proposes plans that respond to opportunities or threats appropriately, profitably and in accordance with corporate policies/priorities.
Participates actively in internal and external events, networks and knowledge management systems to ensure market and customer intelligence is shared in a timely and high quality fashion to maximise the effectiveness of British Council’s product/programme development and commercial planning.
Brand/product knowledge & promotion
Proactively participates in internal working group/peer networks to maintain a detailed understanding of both current and prospective products/programmes/services, and uses these insights to inform effective delivery of business development activities.
Identifies opportunities where new promotional/marketing/PR and outreach initiatives could improve the effectiveness of business development activity. Makes evidence-based recommendations to senior management to secure commitment/resources necessary to respond to such opportunities, including analysis of potential R.O.I.
Adopts industry standards, best practices, resources and tools to deliver professional key account management
Commercial planning
Negotiates global contracts in line with the agreed commercial framework, standards, pricing & governance for the business. 
Ensures the British Council commits to and provides sufficient resources and investment to develop and grow the business. 
Collaborates with senior management to develop effective schedules, procedures and systems for the collation, analysis and reporting of timely and informative commercial data, to enable informed and effective business development planning, forecasting and performance monitoring. 
Monitors performance regularly against planned targets and investigates any changes against plan.
Leadership & management
Sets and oversees delivery of the workplan for achieving the account plan objectives for key accounts the role is responsible for coordinating with the account management team, a range of functional teams and regional and country teams to ensure effective delivery and meeting and exceeding the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Time horizons are likely to be quarterly to annual.
May provide formal line management to a small team, which might consist of staff both within and beyond the local office base. 
Prioritises own ongoing learning and continuous improvement and recommends training and development provision to build improved key account management capability within the team.
Role specific knowledge and experience:
Demonstrable experience of successful key account management for a global product or complex service
Demonstrable experience of delivering complex services or global products 
Demonstrable experience of being proactive in coming up with creative solutions and ideas for the benefit of the client and for the organisation
Skilled in analysing markets, identifying opportunities and responding to changes in the external environment to deliver tangible business results
Demonstrable experience of strategic thinking and ability to translate into specific plans to deliver business outcomes
Demonstrable experience of developing, negotiating, and monitoring high-value and complex contracts, holding to account and taking remedial action when necessary. 
Solution-sales experience in Education or other large sectors (e.g. financial services, medical, government sector etc)
A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.
Equality , Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Statement
The British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment.  We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability.  All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.
The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.
We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.
Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.
If you have any problems with your application please email askhr@britishcouncil.org
Please note: Applications to this role can only be considered when made through the Apply section of our careers website. Our ‘ASK HR’ email is only to be used in case of a technical issue encountered when applying through the careers website. Emails with supporting statements and CV/Resumes sent to this email address will not be reviewed and will be deleted.