The Role's Purpose
This role will support the Plexal proposition, Growth Partnership. This role will support start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs with a 1-to-1 growth support programme where they will be embedded in a small number of high potential companies.
Plexal is driving a new category of intervention in support of the UK Government's number one mission of economic growth. You can read more about the Growth Partnership here:
As an Innovation Associate, you could also work collaboratively with the Innovation Services team to deliver other cross-competency projects. This may include working on programme delivery, research activity, or innovation consulting.
You'll get the opportunity to engage with a diverse array of stakeholders, including startups, scaleups, corporations, government, non-profit organisations, investors and academia.
The role is fast paced, varied and complex and will require a highly organised approach, managing multiple tasks simultaneously and across a broad range of stakeholder relationships.
*What You'll Do*
* Engaging with SMEs to understand their needs, challenges, and interventions that will support their growth
* Identify, create and implement effective growth plan and strategy for the SME
* Managing and delivering bespoke support to SMEs, in line with their growth needs. This could be to help secure investment, drive sales acquisitions, improve brand and awareness, drive marketing strategy, improve product management or work on team organisation and culture, as examples.
* Undertaking quantitative analysis, market research and data collection to stay informed about key technology trends, emerging startups and innovation/growth themes and develop acute market awareness
* Supporting the design and delivery of innovation programmes and related content at Plexal to engage SME's, clients, and the wider ecosystem
* Continuously monitoring the start-up and innovation landscape, seeking out opportunities to engage with promising innovators and entrepreneurs
* Proactively managing regular interaction, communication and collaboration with external stakeholders
* Support administrative aspects of innovation project management, such as maintaining project documentation and handling financial queries.
* May require business travel across Plexal sites.
* Ability to manage and influence through both face-to-face and virtual team environments.
* You may be asked to undergo Security Clearance (min. requirement: British Citizen or min. of 5-year residency in country, no significant gaps out of UK). Pre-existing SC welcomed.
Essential
Your Skills
* Highly organised with an understanding of barriers to startup growth and innovation practices
* Effective customer and stakeholder engagement
* Understanding of business strategy
* Effective planning and prioritisation skills with the ability to keep track of multiple tasks and deliverables
* Analytical, with the ability to think critically and to understand, interpret and articulate complex concepts and requirements
* Competent at producing high-quality deliverables and presentations for external audiences
* Excellent Project Management, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint skills
* Financial acumen
* Higher Education degree, or relevant professional certifications, or equivalent knowledge gained via work experience.
Essential
Your Experience
* 2 years' experience working in an innovative environment such as a startup. incubator, accelerator, VC, or consultancy.
* Experience with working with multiple stakeholders, such as startups and corporate clients, but also understanding the practicalities of working in a growing company
* Experience in facilitating and delivering external workshops or events to a high standard, both virtually and in-person.
Desirable
* Experience and understanding of innovation processes such as lean startup
* Experience in innovation programme delivery
* Experinece in startup mentorship
*Who You Are*
* Comfortable dealing with ambiguity and operating in constantly changing environment
* Energised by the challenges and opportunities presented working for a high-growth company.
* Excellent communicator with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to interact with diverse stakeholder groups
* Team player and motivated self-starter who can take initiative with workload and tasks
* Passionate interest in digital and emerging technologies with a drive to continually learn
Why us?
Plexal's Values:
Mission
: We inherit the mission of UK government and deliver it in an agile and creative fashion.
Collaboration
: We believe in the power of working together.
Equality
: We strengthen ourselves as a team by embracing the different.
Care
: People are at the heart of what we do; we care about our customers, members and colleagues.
As a start-up, we thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment dedicated to empowering innovators. We embrace individuals who leverage technology and creativity to tackle our greatest challenges head-on. We strongly advocate for maintaining a harmonious work-life balance, our goal is to ensure every member of our team can authentically be themselves and live their best lives. We firmly believe that innovation and creativity flourish when we cultivate a diverse workforce, comprising highly skilled individuals with a wide range of perspectives to contribute.
In Return We Will Offer You:
* Salary: £35, ,000 depending on skills and experience
* Annual bonus scheme
* A generous pension scheme (with a company contribution of up to 10%)
* Private healthcare, life assurance and critical illness cover
* 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
* Volunteering day
Plexal is an equal opportunities employer and we actively encourage applicants from individuals from all backgrounds. We are a Disability Committed employer and are willing to make reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.
*About Us*
Plexal is the innovation company solving society's challenges through collaboration with government, startups and industry. The business is closing the gap between organisations – small and large, local and global, private and public – and working towards a common goal: using science and technology to deliver national security and prosperity. It was founded in 2017 as the innovation centre at Here East and is owned by clients of specialist real estate investment advisory company Delancey.
Providing bespoke consultancy services and state-of-the-art workspaces for over 1,000 innovators, Plexal sources the right partners from our ecosystem of 15,000 connections. It supports entrepreneurs, startups and scaleups building emerging technologies and operates across multiple sectors including cyber, healthcare, intelligence and defence, government, public safety, financial services and telecoms.
Expanding on its existing presence in London and Manchester, Plexal acquired a majority shareholding in Hub8 – the Cheltenham network of co-working spaces for cyber-tech, digital and creative startups and SMEs. This is part of an ongoing mission to build the UK's most connected cyber ecosystem, with GCHQ's more than 70-year heritage in Cheltenham.
Plexal delivers projects for key government departments and global tech companies including the National Cyber Security Centre, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Amazon Web Services and IBM. The NCSC For Startups alumni of over 60 companies has collectively raised over £430m and created over 700 jobs, while 72 cyber startups that have gone through Plexal's LORCA accelerators have collectively raised over £300m, generated more than £68m in revenue and hired over 800 people.