Regional Director of Arts, SSA at the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. We do this by making a positive contribution to the UK and the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.
 
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. Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Regional Director of Arts, SSA

Location: Abuja or Lagos
Contract Type: 2-year Fixed Term Contract
Pay band: SMP (Senior Management Professional)

Role Purpose

• The SSA Regional Director Arts is the most senior representative of Arts in the region, acts as the voice of Arts in the region and represents our regional and global work in Arts and creative industries externally.
• They lead the development and implementation of complex, high-value, multi-country Arts and Creative Industry programmes funded by British Council grant, other partners or client-funders.
• The Director Arts will have oversight of a wide range of activities delivered as part of the Arts core offers of Cultural Exchange, Creative Economy and Global Challenges.
• They will lead a large, dispersed Arts team and manage senior partner and stakeholder relationships.
• They are an important part of the regional leadership team as well as the Global Arts Leadership Team, and work with and through colleagues globally to influence decision making across the Cultural Engagement Directorate.

Role Specific Knowledge and Experience
The main essential knowledge and experience points that we are looking for you to evidence are:

• Specialist knowledge and understanding of current trends and practices in arts and creative industry in the region 
• Minimum of 6 years experience of leading impactful high value international arts projects
• Experience of business development and partnership development - with a focus on arts and culture partnerships with trusts, foundations and institutional funders
• Demonstrable experience of strategy development and programme building across multiple geographies.

Desirable Experience:

• Understanding and appreciation of current arts trends and practices in the UK
• Previous experience of managing international arts projects in region

Role Specific Skills:

• In depth understanding of the arts and creative industries in the region
• Significant experience of working in/with the arts and/or creative industries at appropriate level 
• Active and up-to-date network of senior level sector contacts in the region
• Experience of collaborating effectively with others to develop solutions to issues where there is not an established framework 
• Experience of leading diverse and dispersed teams and championing inclusion and diversity of thought
• Ability to analyse relevant equality issues and identify opportunities to address these in the portfolio
• Experience of developing governance structures establishing and maintaining effective external and internal programme / project governance structures.

Requirements:

• The role may include occasional travel within the country, region or internationally

Eligibility:

• Candidates for this role must have a natural right to work in this location and would normally already be based in the location.

Application Closing Date
26th June, 2022 by 11:59 PM South Africa time.