New ventures manager jobs

About the role

Venture Associates play a key role in delivering our strategy, supporting our portfolio of over 30 organisations to help create a fairer society where all young people thrive. This is a hands-on role suited to someone who has developed a foundation in a structured and analytically rigorous environment, has a demonstrable interest in working in the charity sector or the education sector, and is excited to combine analytical problem-solving with mission-driven work.

You will work across the full investment lifecycle - from portfolio strategy setting, to sourcing and due diligence through to capacity building (such as strategy and business planning support) and grant management. This includes working closely with colleagues, charity partners and our incubations to understand complex challenges, develop clear and structured approaches to solving them, and support the development of mission driven organisations. The role requires both analytical thinking and the ability to build trusted relationships with stakeholders and communicate clearly and effectively with a range of audiences.

You will gain experience across investing, strategy, and capacity building our portfolio organisations -developing core skills in problem-solving, analysis, stakeholder management, and delivering high-quality outputs. Over time, you will work across different programmes and portfolios, building a broad and practical understanding of how to select, fund, and strengthen organisations working to improve the lives of children and young people.

Examples of projects undertaken by Venture Associates include supporting an early years charity to reach more children, working on a fund for schools to improve maths outcomes, and helping an early-stage incubation to launch a competition around ways in which AI could support the education ecosystem.

This is an opportunity to apply and further develop your skills in a context where your work contributes directly to meaningful, long-term change for children and young people across systems that shape their lives, for example education and care systems. You will be supported by a dedicated line manager, with opportunities to build your skills through on-the-job experience, training, and exposure to senior leaders and partners. We see this role as a springboard for your career, whether that is within Purposeful or beyond.

Why apply for this role?

This is an opportunity to do impactful work on complex challenges affecting children and young people — and to do it at an organisation that combines rigour and evidence with a deep commitment to long-term change. You will:

• Gain practical experience and build your skills: gain experience across the full venture lifecycle, building a strong foundation in strategy, investing, and organisational development
• Work on meaningful challenges: apply structured problem-solving to complex issues that contribute to long-term, system-level change
• Develop trusted relationships: work closely with founders, partners, and senior colleagues, building your ability to influence and collaborate effectively
• Build a platform for your career: benefit from dedicated support, broad exposure across programmes and portfolios, and pathways for progression or future opportunities

Job Description

Purpose

Venture Associates play a key role in delivering our strategy, supporting our portfolio of over 30 organisations to help create a fairer society where all young people thrive. Venture Associates work across the full investment lifecycle - from portfolio strategy setting to sourcing and due diligence through to capacity building (such as strategy and business planning support) and grant management, and may also have the opportunity to take on strategic and/or operational roles for our incubations.

Responsibilities and duties

Support the design and refinement of our investment strategy

You will contribute to shaping where and how we deploy funding and support, ensuring our work is grounded in robust analysis and a clear understanding of impact opportunities.

• Conduct structured research into priority sectors, including market dynamics, policy context, key stakeholders, and barriers to change.
• Identify and map high-potential opportunities for intervention, including emerging organisations and unmet needs.
• Work with Venture Partners and Portfolio Leads to synthesise insights into clear recommendations that inform investment priorities and strategic focus areas.

Build pipelines for our investment strategies and conduct due diligence on specific organisations

You will help identify, assess, and prioritise organisations for partnership and investment.

• Proactively source and build a pipeline of organisations aligned with our strategy, through direct research, expert conversations and potentially designing open application processes.
• Conduct initial due diligence assessments, including mission alignment; strategy, business model and financial sustainability, assessment of programme design and evidence of promise, monitoring and evaluation processes, and capacity for partnership and investment.
• Engage with internal and external stakeholders to develop and test hypotheses and understand key risks.
• Produce clear, concise materials (reports, presentations) to support decision-making.

Support the development of our partner organisations

You will work directly with funded organisations as they scale their impact, supporting strategic decision-making and organisational development.

• Working with Venture Partners and Portfolio Leads, build relationships with individual organisations and work closely with them to identify their most significant challenges and design the appropriate support model.
• Support capacity building projects for funded and incubated organisations across a range of topics (e.g. strategy development, business planning, operating and financial model design).
• Break down complex strategic questions into clear, structured workplans and analytical tasks.
• Gather and synthesise inputs from multiple sources, including data analysis, stakeholder interviews, and expert perspectives.
• Develop high-quality outputs (presentations, written documents, models) to communicate insights and recommendations.
• Contribute to board- and leadership-level discussions, ensuring recommendations are clear, evidence-based, and actionable.
• Provide ad hoc problem-solving support to funded organisations on key challenges (e.g. growth strategy, operating model, partnerships).

Support grant management and performance tracking

You will help ensure our portfolio is effectively monitored and supported to deliver impact.

• Collate, review, and analyse data from funded organisations for quarterly and annual reporting.
• Assess performance against agreed milestones, impact metrics, and financial targets.
• Identify risks, challenges, and opportunities by organisation, and across the portfolio, and flag these to the team.
• Support the preparation of internal and external reporting materials (e.g. updates for stakeholders, funders, or boards).
• Contribute to improving our grant management processes, tools, and frameworks over time.

The job description is subject to change and the postholder may be required to undertake tasks not specifically referred to above. Such duties, however, will fall within the scope of the job description.

Who we are looking for

We are looking for people who are motivated by our mission and excited to apply analytical, problem-solving, and relationship-building skills in a collaborative, purpose-driven environment. We recognise that strong candidates may bring a range of experiences and perspectives, and we encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and career paths.

If your experience is not an exact match, but you believe you would thrive in the role, we would still encourage you to apply.

Key requirements

Essential

Behaviours and Ways of Working

• Passionate about creating a fairer society where all young people thrive.
• Motivated by Purposeful’s mission, with a clear and demonstrable commitment to contributing to meaningful, long-term change in support of children and young people.
• Curious and evidence-led, actively seeking out data, insights, and diverse perspectives to inform thinking.
• Takes ownership of your work, following through on commitments and delivering to a consistently high standard.
• Comfortable working in ambiguity, structuring your own work and adapting as priorities evolve.
• Collaborative and relationship-oriented, working effectively with colleagues and external partners.
• Builds open, respectful and trust-based relationships by acting with integrity, reliability, and transparency.
• Balances attention to detail with an understanding of the broader context and strategic goals.
• Open to feedback and committed to continuous learning and development.

Knowledge and Experience

• Experience working in a structured, analytical environment (for example, consulting, corporate strategy, investing, or similar), with exposure to project-based work involving multiple priorities and timelines.
• Strong grounding in core business concepts such as strategy setting, market sizing, business planning, and competitive dynamics.
• Demonstrated ability to build a working understanding of new sectors, topics, or contexts and to apply this to real challenges facing our portfolio organisations.
• Experience contributing to strategy development, due diligence, or complex problem-solving projects involving ambiguity and multiple stakeholders.
• Experience supporting financial analysis, reviewing financial information (for example, annual accounts) and assessing financial risk.

Skills

• Applies structured, analytical thinking to break down complex or ambiguous problems into clear components, hypotheses, and actionable approaches.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analysis skills, including working with imperfect data, identifying key drivers, and drawing sound, defensible insights.
• Synthesises information from multiple sources into clear, well-structured outputs and recommendations.
• Clear, effective and nuanced communicator, both in writing and verbally, with the ability to produce materials suitable for senior audiences.
• Effective influencing skills, and the ability to adapt communication style and medium to the audience and context to achieve the best outcome.
• Effectively engages and manages relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Plans and manages their work effectively, taking ownership of workstreams and delivering high-quality outputs within timelines.
• Uses sound judgement to identify risks, assess trade-offs, and determine when to seek input or escalate.

General

• Right to work in the UK.

Desirable

Knowledge and Experience

• Understanding of the charity and/or education sectors gained, for example, through a previous work experience, pro-bono work, volunteer or trustee role.
• Experience of creating financial models to support budgeting and scenario planning; building income generation strategies.
• Understanding of or experience with programme design, monitoring and evaluation.

We are a registered charity employing over 150 career staff and 300 student staff, delivering a wide range of services and representative functions for UCL students. We have the widest portfolio of services of any student organisation in the country, managing UCL’s extracurricular programmes for sport, music, drama, dance, media, volunteering, academic societies and intercultural engagement; providing a wide range of fantastic social spaces; leading on student democracy and representation across UCL; and offering excellent student support services.

It's an exciting time to join our growing organisation as we lead the delivery of UCL’s groundbreaking new Student Life Strategy. This is enabling us to build more programmes to improve students’ mental and physical wellbeing, promote genuine equity for all, build students’ skills and confidence, develop their international connections and intercultural skills, and make a real contribution to our local community.

We support hybrid working. Excellent benefits including defined benefit pension scheme and generous holiday entitlement. We are proud of high levels of staff engagement and pride ourselves on being a great place to work. We will consider applications to work on a flexible and job share basis wherever possible. The role is full-time and permanent. This role is based at our Bloomsbury campus with flexibility to work from home on a 40/60 basis (40% working from the office).

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