Research and information systems manager jobs in birmingham, west midlands

Executive Assistant

Location: Remote (UK), with approximately monthly travel to Stroud

Contract type: 12 months, with aim to make permanent

Salary: £31,000- £35,000 pro rata, depending on experience (plus benefits)

Working pattern: Full time or part time (minimum 4 days/week (0.8 FTE)

Closing date: 6 July 2025

Commencement date: Negotiable, preferably week commencing 18 August 2025

How to apply: Submit your CV and a short covering letter via CharityJob 

Introduction

Iswe is a social impact foundation dedicated to finding ways to put people at the heart of social and political decision-making to solve some of society’s greatest challenges. We are looking for a dedicated and experienced Executive Assistant to play a pivotal role supporting our CEO and leadership team. 

We know that building a team representative of wider society fosters creativity and innovation. We welcome people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences and are committed to being a place where all belong. We therefore particularly welcome applications from candidates who are disabled, Black, Asian or from other minority ethnic backgrounds, who identify within the LGBTQIA+ community, or identify as from a lower or disadvantaged socioeconomic background as these groups are currently under-represented on our staff team.

Role Purpose

The Executive Assistant is an important role within our organisation, working closely with the CEO and leadership team. This is a dynamic, fast-paced position at the heart of a globally significant initiative. The successful candidate will be a key partner to the CEO, helping translate vision into action and ensuring high-level stakeholders receive timely, professional and thoughtful communication. 

We’re seeking an experienced Executive Assistant who is flexible in approach, adaptable to changing priorities, and shares a belief in our vision.

If you believe in the wisdom of everyday people, are values-driven, self-reflective, creative, curious, agile, flexible and enthusiastic, if you want to do work that learns and grows from all the richness each of us brings – where we welcome learning from a diverse array of life experiences, cultures, and backgrounds, if you can bring positivity and accountability to your work, if you strive for brilliance, challenges excite you and if you would speak with authenticity and dedication about our work, we want to hear from you!

Main duties

• Proactively manage the CEO’s diary, inbox and meeting schedule to ensure strategic alignment and use of time

• Draft, edit and manage correspondence, briefing notes, and presentations on behalf of the CEO and leadership team

• Coordinate and support internal and external meetings, including logistics, agenda preparation, taking accurate minutes and tracking decisions and actions that arise

• Support the CEO to track progress on key priorities, ensuring deadlines are met and decisions are followed up

• Provide administrative and organisational support for events, travel and itineraries (UK and international) and other logistics

• Manage the CEO’s social media accounts as directed, posting content and responding to key contacts

• Financial Administration - gather and provide financial information to Finance co-ordinator, gather and co-ordinate receipts etc

• Maintain relationships with senior stakeholders, partners and board members with professionalism and tact

• Assist the CEO and leadership team with additional administration/ organisational tasks at their discretion 

• Assisting with research of projects, e.g. potential partner research 

Essential skills and experience

• A minimum of five years of experience providing high-level administrative support in a busy organisation

• Proficient in workplace software including Google Workspace, Zoom, Slack, Trello and able to learn to navigate new systems quickly 

• Experience of upwardly managing senior leaders with limited time and high responsibility 

• Experience managing external communications with senior stakeholders 

• Highly organised with exceptional attention to detail and the ability to maintain accurate records and produce coherent reports and minutes 

• A proactive, self-starting attitude with the ability to anticipate needs and adapt to changing priorities 

• Excellent time management skills: the ability to prioritise and meet deadlines is key

• Strong written and verbal communication skills

• Excellent interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence

• Confidence to constructively challenge when necessary, including speaking openly about conflicting viewpoints or workload balance

• Discretion in handling confidential or sensitive information

• Self-reflective, open to feedback and committed to personal growth

• Enthusiasm for Iswe’s mission and dedication to its continued success

Desirable skills and experience

• A relevant tertiary qualification is advantageous but not essential for example Certified Administrative Professional (CAP), Exec PA Diploma, Certified Executive Assistant Professional (CEAP) etc 

• Experience of working within the charity or non-profit sector

• Experience of working in a startup environment

Salary, Benefits and Conditions

We are a supportive and purpose-driven team. We offer:

• Flexible working arrangements 

• Generous holiday allowance (35 days plus bank holidays, pro rata)

• Opportunities for professional growth and development

• A supportive, inclusive working culture built on trust and mutual respect

• Opportunities to contribute to globally significant work
   

About Iswe

We believe that many of the crises we face today - health, climate, the cost of living etc - are symptoms of failing governance structures, and that putting people in the driving seat of decision-making will transform our futures for the better. Our current strategy focuses on innovations around citizens’ assemblies (and similar deliberative processes), public services and the relationship between politicians and the communities they serve.

Our team has decades of experience in democratic innovation. Projects include Global Assembly for COP26, Good Help and The Future Armenian. Iswe is a fast-growing foundation, dedicated to empowering citizens to play a leading role in the decision-making that affects their lives. 

Our work is founded on strong values, including openness, transparency and humility. We believe that when ‘I’ (an individual) becomes ‘we’ (part of the collective), the results are transformational. We are actively working to build a healthy culture, rooted in care and characterised by being self-organising and self-reflective. We are committed to addressing the dynamics of oppression in ourselves and our work.

Director of Development (Part time)

£70K FTE, 2 year fixed-term contract, 1 day per week 

We are looking for a senior philanthropy professional with a strong interest in music and a proven track record in growing and building high level funding relationships, to work part time to build and engage a committed network of major individual donors to fund the long-term sustainability of La Nuova Musica (LNM) and fulfilment of its creative vision. 

Welcome from the CEO

La Nuova Musica is a leading ensemble in its chosen field of music from the 17th and 18th centuries with a focus on the voice. This is a unique opportunity to shape future opportunities for LNM. You will be joining us at a pivotal time as the orchestra builds on its current success with a board that is fully engaged and eager to establish a professional, strategic approach to philanthropy. LNM deeply values the role of philanthropy, particularly as public funding is highly constrained.

You will have the full backing of the CEO, the Board and the Artistic Director who are ready to work closely with you to build and steward transformative philanthropic relationships that align with our artistic and strategic ambitions.

You will also have access to an influential network and be introduced to and collaborate with our most senior philanthropic supporters. While the number of supporters is currently small, they are among the most respected and well-connected individuals in the arts. 

We believe that this is a rare opportunity to make a lasting impact and, while our philanthropic foundations are still developing, they are promising. The Board understands that meaningful, long-term philanthropic growth requires time, trust, and strategic investment—and they are committed to supporting you on that journey.

About La Nuova Musica

La Nuova Musica is an early music ensemble led by its founder and Artistic Director, David Bates, and known for spirited performances that receive widespread acclaim from audiences and five-star reviews from the press. 

“If anyone can be relied on to make Baroque music sound newly hatched, it’s the aptly named La Nuova Musica. They dust out the tiniest corners of phrasing and embellish the music so that it sounds more dizzy with life than you’ve ever heard before”. The Times

LNM appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall, St Martin in the Fields, the London Handel Festival as well as festivals around the UK. They made their BBC Proms debut in 2022 with a performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas described as “a superbly evocative night” in The Times and “a musical tour de force” in Opera Today. In 2024 they appeared for the first time at the Grange Festival in a series of performances of Monteverdi’s opera, The Coronation of Poppea, hailed by Opera Today as “truly a five-star production, and easily one of the best interpretations of Monteverdi or a Baroque opera I have seen.'

LNM has also appeared in concert halls and festivals across Europe including the Handel Festival Halle, La Seine Musicale Paris, the Göttingen International Handel Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, and the Steffani Festival in Hanover.

Their reputation is enhanced by a series of award-winning recordings for Pentatone and Harmonia Mundi. Their latest recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas was selected as one of two opera recordings for the prestigious Abbiata award in Italy, alongside a recording of Katya Kabanova conducted by Simon Rattle with the LSO.  It was one of Gramophone’s recordings of the year and BBC R3’s CD Review chose it as their Recording of the Week. “the way it zings off the page bristling with dramatic life and energy from the first bars, and with a range of voices and imaginative instrumental accompaniment, fills it with incident and colour”.BBC Radio 3.

An earlier release, Handel’s Unsung Heroes, was selected by BBC Music Magazine as their Recording of the Month and awarded 5 stars as “a stunning collection of Handel opera numbers. For originality, risk-taking and erudition, it towers above its predecessors. The project is a heroic achievement for all involved.” 

La Nuova Musica’s strategic goals

We are bursting with ideas and feel we have so much more that we want to achieve. We perform regularly at the Wigmore Hall in London and are in the process of establishing a presence in Salisbury (David Bates’ hometown) and in Oxford, where we are working with an excellent chamber choir of young amateur singers, Schola Cantorum.  By giving the same concert in all these cities, we make best use of our artistic and financial resources at the same time as broadening our reach.

We also aim to deliver new strands of activity. One is relaxed concerts for anyone who needs an informal setting to enjoy our performances. The other offers high quality professional experience to singers and players from the modern instrument world in understanding baroque and early classical music. This is important for several reasons, not least to build and strengthen the UK pool of musicians for the future to preserve this repertoire. 

We receive no public funding and are only able to continue thanks to the support of generous individuals who love what we do and want us to do more. As is the case in our sector, ticket sales do not cover the cost of performances. We also need to pay our administrative team for any activity to take place at all. We currently operate thanks to a small but highly experienced and committed team who work remotely, at significantly reduced rates, because of their belief in David Bates and La Nuova Musica. To achieve our vision, we need to secure ongoing funding for core running costs (approximately £120k per year) as well as additional funding for specific artistic projects and other activity (approximately £120k per year, though this will vary from year to year).

Thanks to the fantastic support of generous individuals, LNM can engage with some ambitious projects such as Handel’s Giustino, our first co-production with the Royal Ballet and Opera which takes place in October 2025. We have successfully raised the money required for this and can now put in place some important and ambitious projects for the next three years. 

These include:

·Promoting two concerts each year in St Martin in the Fields, which entails risk on a larger scale than the Wigmore Hall where we are engaged (paid) to perform. (£15k p.a.)

·Developing further our work in Salisbury with two annual concerts which feed off our regular series in the Wigmore Hall and St Martin in the Fields. (£12k p.a.)

·Developing our relationships in Oxford along the lines of Salisbury (see above) (12k p.a.) 

·Developing a relaxed concert strand where performances are specially prepared and delivered to suit anyone who needs an informal setting to enjoy our performances.  (10k per run of events)

·Grow existing strands of work which provide experience for amateur singers, young professional singers and players in informed baroque and early classical performances. (15k per run of events)

·Recording some of our best work to act as a calling card with promoters and the public. (£40- 50k per recording)

·Build on our existing work to make and keep early music relevant, thus protecting its cultural heritage, by commissioning new work for the ensemble which combines the sounds and techniques of early music with that of living composers. (£15-20k per commission)

The Role

Role Dimensions

·To deliver excellence in supporter stewardship, building commitment and increasing funding and support from current LNM major individual supporters

·To research and lead a prospect pipeline for new five and six figure multi-year commitments

·To design and execute special high-level events for prospect/donor cultivation and development

·To develop and write compelling propositions for key trusts and foundations

·To ensure all fundraising is conducted as per the Codes of Fundraising Practice and other regulatory guidelines

Essential Experience and Skills

oProven delivery performance at a significant giving level, both individually and leading others to achieve (including Trustees and senior leadership)

oAbility to build long term HNW relationships, alongside several personal skills including being persuasive, receptive, inquisitive, dynamic, politically savvy and inspirational

oProven experience of building and leading excellent donor stewardship programmes at a senior level, including high level implementation of special events, and proposition development for trust and foundations

oUnderstanding and knowledge of key fundraising regulations with experience of implementing process and systems required to deliver best practice.

Reporting Structures 

The Director of Development is a member of the senior management team and will report to the CEO John Summers, whilst working closely with the Artistic Director, David Bates, and Finance Director, Val Hawkin.

The entire team work remotely and meet up on-line and in person when required.

The Director of Development line manages a part time administrator (Job Description available on request)

The Training Coordinator plays a key role in supporting delivery of training for the Award network.
Working closely with internal teams and external partners, the Coordinator ensures training content is
relevant, accessible, and effectively delivered across various platforms.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist in the development, scheduling, and coordination of the organisation’s training offer to our various operators.
• Coordinate logistics for instructor-led online workshops including setting the schedule, identifying and preparing trainers and Foundation Representatives.
• Ensuring learning related operational procedures are understood and implemented across training.
• Provide administrative support to our Global Training Panel, including communications,
• scheduling, and tracking participation.
• Assist in sharing and promoting training content through established communication channels.
• Collect and compile feedback from training participants to support continuous improvement.
• Upload and maintain training content on the delivery platform in collaboration with the Digital Programmes team.
• Help track and report on training participation, outcomes, and budget utilisation as required.
• Maintain records of training sessions, attendance, and evaluation results.
• Use translation software to maintain and update translated materials as required.
• Use course creation software to maintain, update and create content as required.
• Coordinate training for our Global Training Panel and Operator trainers through the Trainer
• Development pathway.
• Assist with coordinating executive training programmes.
• Build effective working relationships with staff, volunteers, and partners to support a culture of learning and capacity development.
• Contribute to the ongoing improvement of training processes and documentation.
• Perform other related duties as needed to support the success of training initiatives and the broader goals of the organisation.