Chief Executive Officer

This is an exciting opportunity to lead one of the most distinctive and high-performing music, culture and arts organisations in England.

Newham Music is seeking an exceptional Chief Executive to lead the organisation through its next phase of development. The CEO will provide overall strategic, operational and cultural leadership, working closely with the Board of Trustees and senior team to ensure that Newham Music continues to deliver excellent work, strong partnerships, sound governance and long-term organisational resilience.

This is a substantial and visible leadership role. The successful candidate will need to lead confidently across strategy, people, finance, governance, safeguarding, partnerships and external representation. They will also need to combine public and cultural leadership with a clear understanding of organisational performance, financial discipline and delivery.

The incoming CEO will inherit an organisation with strong foundations, a respected reputation and significant reach across schools, communities and the wider cultural sector. They will also take on a live strategic brief. Key priorities will include sustaining trust and quality across the organisation, leading Newham Music’s positioning for the next Arts Council England investment cycle, strengthening long-term resilience, and developing a more diversified income base alongside public investment.

A central part of the role will be to lead Newham Music within a multi-income model. The successful candidate will need to show confidence in managing a mixed financial ecology that includes public grant funding, earned income, fundraising, sponsorship and wider partnership investment. They will be expected not only to protect existing income but to grow and diversify it.

This is a role for a leader who can think strategically, act decisively, build strong relationships and lead with credibility across multiple settings. The right candidate will understand how to balance ambition with judgement, public purpose with financial realism, and artistic and educational values with strong organisational performance.

We recognise that relatively few candidates will have direct senior experience of both the Music Hub model and the Arts Council England NPO framework. We do not require it. What we are looking for is the curiosity and capacity to understand both frameworks quickly, the leadership experience to operate confidently within them, and the credibility to represent Newham Music effectively to ACE, DfE, schools, funders and communities.

If you have senior leadership experience in the charity, arts or publicly funded sector, within a mission-led organisation with a mixed income model and strong governance requirements, you have the foundations for this role. We will provide full briefing on both investment frameworks as part of the recruitment process, and transition support is designed to ensure the incoming CEO is fully equipped from day one.