King's College London

About us

King’s Centre for International Education and Languages a new, cross-cutting Centre designed to widen the educational reach of King’s. It brings together three existing areas: King’s Foundations, Summer Programmes, and King’s Language Centre. This brings together international pathway provision, pre sessional programmes, pre-UG summer courses, UG summer modules, UG language modules, bespoke language programmes for the community and our partners and academic skills provision for all King’s students. 

Each of these areas are well established, respected and recognised within and beyond the King’s community. The Centre is focused on enabling collaboration between the three departments to further advance our work in promoting educational excellence and supporting and enhancing the student experience. The Centre has significant expertise in International Education and makes a significant contribution to the rich and diverse make-up of the King’s student body. 

About the role 

The Finance & Business Operations Manager will be responsible for the financial management and business planning of the Centre for International Education and Languages (CIEL). They will lead and manage the CIEL Central and individual departments business function, including finance, procurement, HR, space, health and safety, business continuity, information and data management.

Working with the CIEL Senior Leadership team, the postholder will support the Heads of Operations to balance the academic, business and financial objectives of the department and to achieve the departmental strategic and operational aims. You will manage and oversee the business operations of CIEL ensuring the consistent, high-quality delivery to stakeholders.  Finance & Business Operations Manager will be accountable for the quality and professionalism of service delivery, ensuring activities are consistent with operational policies and precedents.

The successful candidate will have strong leadership and team management skills with proven experience in managing business change initiatives. You will have a proactive and problem-solving mindset and ability to convert objectives into actionable plans.

The role is primarily based at King’s Strand Campus though you may be required to travel to other campuses on occasion. As part of King’s hybrid working policy, all Professional Services team members can work remotely for 40%-60% of the week if they wish.  Flexibility is required in terms of days on campus to align with key colleagues in CIEL.  There may be times when more time on campus is required, which would be arranged with the line manager. 

This is a full-time permanent position.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Accountancy qualification or similar accreditation and professional experience in operations, project management or business support administration 
2. Highly numerate and literate with strong attention to detail; and adept at understanding, analysing and presenting complex data to a wide-ranging audience 
3. Experience of managing large complex multi-activity budgets and financial reporting systems, and monitoring and acting on financial performance 
4. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to interact with and influence a wide variety of stakeholders, draft policy and process, present confidently in a variety of formats 
5. Experience in working in a large Higher Education institution, research, academic, or other non-profit sector 
6. Experience leading, and managing individuals or teams, including supporting development and workload planning 
7. Understanding of procurement, contracts, risk assessments, Health and Safety 
8. Proficient in MS Office apps (Outlook, Teams, Excel, Word, Power BI, Powerpoint), including to analyse data

Desirable criteria

1. Commitment to continuous improvement and building an efficient and effective operational service 
2. Finance qualification or similar accreditation 
3. Experience in managing business change initiatives 
4. Project Management or similar equivalent qualification or training 

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service