The British Council is the UK’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.

The English and Examinations Strategic Business Unit (E&E) is one of three strategic business units in the British Council (the others being Arts and Education & Society) all of which have the remit to build trust for the people of the UK by building relationships through aspects of our language and culture.  E&E achieves this by enabling people across the world to access the life-changing education and work opportunities that are created by learning English or gaining valuable UK qualifications.  Promoting the English language also provides a medium for communication, helping break down barriers of misunderstanding or mistrust between cultures. The British Council’s 2020 vision for English & Examinations is to be the world authority in high-quality English language teaching, learning and assessment, as well as the International distributor of choice for UK professional and school qualifications.

The Purpose of the Director English Europe role is to lead the development and delivery of the English business across Europe and ensure the achievement of required financial, impact and quality targets, in accordance with country, regional and SBU priorities and plans. 

Main opportunities/challenges for this role are:

• The protection and improvement of margins through transformation in our biggest markets Spain, Italy, France and Portugal.
• Lead the transformation of our growth strategy in developing markets e.g. Wider Europe and by expanding our offering through new delivery methods e.g. Online, meeting the global strategy in the realities of the region
• To use customer feedback data to drive necessary business changes and adapt our offer accordingly
• To ensure a sustainable cost base is in place in high-cost countries, through operating model, reward and pricing changes

The role is open to both internal and external candidates and located at the one of the below BC offices: Italy (Rome), Poland (Warsaw), Spain (Madrid) and UK (London). Applicants must be eligible to work in EU. It is a Fixed Term contract- 3 years and it is BC LMFG Pay band level role.

We are looking for a profile that has:

• Experience of multiple country/regional working
• Experience in holding P&L responsibility
• Proven track record of financial and non-financial performance
• Proven track record of talent management and development
• Experience of complex team working environment
• Experience of strategic change management / transformation
• Experience of at least one European language in addition to English
• Business development experience
• Experience in working in complex legislative environments.

If you feel that you are suitable for the role, please click the apply now button.

Closing date: 6 November 2019 (23:59 UK Time)

Valuing diversity is essential to the British Council’s work. We aim to abide by and promote equality legislation by following both the letter and the spirit of it to try and avoid unjustified discrimination, recognizing discrimination as a barrier to equality of opportunity, inclusion and human rights. All staff worldwide are required to ensure their behavior is consistent with our policies.