Director - Digital and Tech Transformation

Focus of the Role

At the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI),  we work at the highest levels of government to help leaders go further and faster to make their citizens’ lives better. Moving the dial on the great global challenges of our time requires engaged, incentivised, focused and motivated leaders.  When political leadership is relentlessly deployed, at the highest levels, incredible things can be achieved.

Using our distinctive expertise and global outlook and guided by the unique insights and perspective of our Executive Chairman Sir Tony Blair, our dedicated experts and embedded teams advise governments all over the world in strategy, policy and delivery, underpinned by technology.

Our new Global Client Solutions team is at the heart of how we capture “what we do” and then deploy the best of the Institute and our networks to global leaders through our country advisory teams.  Our globally and regionally-situated experts provide valuable counsel, technical support, thought partnership, surge capacity, and lead the development and evolution of our solutions, methods, and offers in the service of our partner governments.

As a centre of excellence, Global Client Solutions is comprised of our global and regional experts – functional and sectoral.  Our functional offers include, Strategy: supporting political leaders to identify the barriers to progress, Policy advisory: finding the right solutions, Delivery: making change happen, and then harnessing the transformative power of Technology to support leaders to engage with forward-looking opportunities. Sectorally, we work on the topics at the heart of senior political agendas from economic prosperity, climate change and energy, health and education, to peace and security. We also lead our internal communities of practice bringing our expertise together regardless of  “boxes and lines”.
 

Job Introduction

We are hiring a Director, Technology and Digital Solutions. In this new senior role, you will build on TBI’s two-year incubation of our technology advisory offer to senior political leaders bringing it to full-scale now fully embedded in our government advisory structures. In this role, you will support the leadership of The Tomorrow Partnership, our work with political leaders and governments to bring tech and digital solutions to their biggest challenges, because we believe tomorrow will belong to those who responsibly harness the power of technology for the good of all people, and to leave no one behind. 

Technology and digital solutions are a growing part of our global solutions across each area of our work from government services to health to climate change and energy transition and beyond. You will bring together our growing offers in GovTech, Digital Identity, national Digital Infrastructure (cloud and internet access), and grow a data for decision making offer for pollical leaders.  Working with the Executive Director and our team of distinctive experts, you will ensure we work effectively together to bring technology into our broader global offers and guide our regional tech advisors which support our country-based Heads of Tech leading tech initiatives with political leaders.

Through The Tomorrow Partnership, we broker strategic partnerships between governments and leading tech organisations and innovators to help foster environments that enable tech to deliver practical change in people’s lives. You will work closely with new Partnerships and Innovation teams situated within External Relations to ensure our partnership cultivation and innovation partnerships directly respond to the product requirements and needs of our growing global tech portfolio.

As part of the global client solutions leadership team, you will ensure we effectively and continuously develop, define, and evolve the solutions, tools, and means to support leaders on the topics which matter most. You will ensure areas of our offer effectively coordinate and interact to bring full range of solutions to complex challenges.

Key Responsibilities

• Continue to refine TBI’s unique offer in supporting senior political leaders to engage in meaningful tech and digital transformation working with tech innovators and solution providers
• Maintain relentless focus on developing solutions and offers which respond to global leaders most pressing challenges and top priorities, and delivery impact at scale supporting the Executive Director and other Institute leaders to enhance our offer with focus and rigour
• Lead, line manage a core team of political advisory technologists in digital identity, govtech, and digital infrastructure
• Line manage the regional tech advisors who work hands-on with our Regional Directors, Country Directors and Heads of Tech to support strategy, initiative design and delivery of our tech initiatives
• Grow the central team to ensure we have the right capabilities to support the delivery of tech transformation initiatives as demand grows, such as user experience and data insights, but largely working through regional and country teams
• Provide “dotted-line” leadership for country-based Heads of Tech and lead the TBI community of practice on tech advisory bringing our experts together in this space regardless of where they sit in the organisation
• Develop and guide teams to create sound, and politically savvy briefings for political leaders and our Executive Chairman on complex tech and digital solutions and approaches

Advisory support and expertise:

• Provide hands-on support country teams and heads of tech and our leaders to support the design of tech and digital initiatives from strategy to policy to delivery
• Work with other Directors in Global Client Solutions to ensure seamless support to country teams across our offer areas leading to impact at scale and driving cross-pollination and connected learning
• Provide surge support when needed to our regional and country projects
• Guide and support prioritisation of our efforts

Internal Engagement:

• Shape and embody a positive culture that drives ambition, innovation and delivery
• Improve internal governance and interfaces with the TBI Tech and Public Policy team working with the Director of strategy and policy advisory and Executive Director Tech & Public policy. Drive the effective coordination of TBI tech policy positions as part of the leadership team.
• Support organisational learning on our tech and digitisation advisory methodologies, tools and offers as part of our broader learning and development agenda.
• Support a true team and “one TBI” culture, and the rest of the organisation to engage in communities of practice agnostic of “boxes and lines”
• Engage across the organisation actioning “One TBI” to support engagement with the various elements of “what we do”. Actively, encourage cross-TBI engagement and intentionally break down emerging regional, sectoral silos

External engagement:

• Represent the Institute at global events and contribute to written thought leadership and publications
• Work with the directors, providing quality assurance and on our technical input and advice
• In collaboration and coordination with the new partnerships team, ensure we drive forward strategic and innovative partnerships space to improve our support to government clients
• Providing quality assurance and on our technical input and advice
• With external relations, advance TBIs participation or leadership of global events

Person Specification

• Extensive experience in government technology and digital transformation either as part of government and/or as an advisor to senior global leaders solve complex challenges with technology
• Who is part technologist, part government advisor with hands-on experience working to design and deliver end-to-end tech transformation initiatives working with tech solution providers, policymakers and funders
• Who is a “T shaped” professional with strong skills in tech transformation and an understanding of strategy, policy, and delivery
• With a strong network of tech innovators dedicated to global change and a track record of collaborating with technology and solution providers to translate their solutions to public sector contexts
• Who has a complete toolkit which enables you to identify creative solutions for complex challenges
• A track-record developing frameworks and toolkits to enable organisations and colleagues to deliver effectively
• Who is a skilled written and verbal communicator and influencer, with documented experience providing strategic counsel to corporate executives and/or senior government officials at ministerial level and above
• With exceptional attention to detail for written deliverables and the proven ability to deliver quality written outputs under tight deadlines
• A thought leader able to represent the Institute on a global scale through written publications and  attendance of exclusive events
• Effective leader, not afraid to be hands-on and pull out all the stops to achieve exceptional results
• Able to function and influence in a matrixed, team-oriented environment to support teams achieve impact at scale under pressure.
• Experience working in multiple geographies across Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa including in lower-resource environments.
• Fluency in English is required with proficiency in an additional language an advantage
• Willingness for international travel approximately 30 percent

We would consider supporting applicants not currently based in or with a right to work in the UK to relocate for this role.

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About The Institute

The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is a mission-driven not for profit organisation. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. We work hard, every day, to make a difference. When governments work well they are able to create economic and social change in a way that promotes fairness, social justice and opportunity. We work relentlessly to support leader and governments with the challenges they face. Giving them practical solutions and actionable insights, that once implemented, can be transformative for their people  

We do this within two connected divisions: 

 Government Advisory 

Our Government Advisory teams work directly with political leaders and governments around the world to implement reforms that improve the lives of their citizens. It works with a variety of partners and its outputs cover a range of disciplines and projects across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and South Asia.

 Policy Futures 

Our Policy Futures work encompasses three broad areas: 

• Renewing the Centre: developing a bold and innovative domestic policy programme to help renew the centre ground of British politics; 
• Tech and Public Policy: exploring the policy challenges and opportunities presented by the technological revolution; and 
• Extremism Policy Unit: creating solutions designed to tackle the threat of extremist ideologies in the UK and around the world. 

As an organisation, the core beliefs we all embrace are: 

• Open and Progressive: you’ll believe in the value of teamwork 
• Bold and Pragmatic: you’ll approach everything you do with integrity and authenticity 
• Optimistic Changemaker: you’ll be focused on results 

TBI believes embracing diversity and inclusion make us a better place to work.  It’s our goal to reflect everyone in society and we actively welcome applications from individuals and groups who are under-represented in the workplace. We celebrate difference be it ethnicity, religion, age, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. We will only ever assess you on your abilities and fit for a role. We’re happy to discuss any adjustments you need to ensure a level playing field during recruitment and, if you\'re successful, discuss any adjustments you might need to thrive in your role.