Skip to main content

About King’s College London 

King’s College London is consistently ranked one of the top 7 Universities in the UK, and amongst the top 40 universities in the world, has a turnover exceeding £1.3 Bn, is the fourth oldest university in England, and is based in the heart of London. Kings has over 40,000 students from over 150 countries studying in person and online, and has over 12,000 employees. King’s academics are members of 9 Faculties, based on 5 campuses in central and SE London. Together the King’s community delivers a comprehensive portfolio of outstanding and impactful research and education in close partnership with the vibrant arts and culture ecosystem across London along with other universities and partners across the globe. King's College London offers an intellectually stimulating environment in which to work, where staff are dedicated to the advancement of knowledge and learning in the service of society. We are a multi-Faculty institution, providing high-quality education, research and innovation across the humanities, sciences, medicine, law, dentistry, and social sciences. King’s vision is to make the world a better place through world-leading education, research and service to society. King’s provides world-class education which enables students to become rounded critical thinkers, set up for success and with the character and wisdom to strive for social change. Through enquiry-driven research, King's delivers transformative insights and solutions that have the power to advance and accelerate global progress.

Our Faculties

Our comprehensive range of disciplines are organised into nine Faculties: • Faculty of Arts & Humanities • Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences • Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine • Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences • Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy • Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care • Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience • King’s Business School • The Dickson Poon School of Law

Appointment details

Reports to: Georgina Cannon

Salary

Competitive

Terms

Full-Time Permanent

Closing date for applications:

04 July 2025 12:00

Vacancy ID

117210

A King's Modern Language Centre student smiling in a crowd of fellow students.

Role Purpose

The Director of Advancement Operations is a senior leadership role within the Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement (P&A) Directorate at King’s College London. It has a core responsibility for leading the enabling functions and infrastructure that are essential to the delivery of objectives across philanthropy and alumni engagement. This includes oversight of and overall accountability for teams working across data & insights; donation management; compliance services; and prospect research. The postholder also has responsibility for driving strategy, business and financial planning across the Directorate. They will contribute to the Directorate strategy and be responsible for this being translated into business, financial and workforce plans. They will ensure that a framework is in place to enable all programmes, teams and individuals to have clear objectives and targets, driving a high-performance culture. This will include ensuring that reporting processes are in place to provide management information internally and also to support reporting into university senior leadership. As a member of the P&A Leadership Team, the postholder will work in close collaboration with other senior colleagues within the Directorate to deliver the above responsibilities and also to collectively ensure that wider objectives are being met. This will involve delivering strategic initiatives, over-seeing growth and expansion, managing transformation and change, optimising operational efficiency, and fostering organisational excellence. This post also deputises as needed for the Executive Director and will be required to develop and maintain strong relationships with senior officers across the University and at external partners. They will also be well connected and influential in relevant sector-wider discussions, leading P&A’s response on these issues where required.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Leadership

• Develop, lead and implement an Advancement Operations strategy that effectively provides the infrastructure to enable delivery of P&A’s philanthropic and alumni engagement objectives. To work collaboratively with line reports, LT colleagues and others in doing so. • In line with this strategy and via close working with and appropriate delegation to the Associate Director, provide strategic direction and leadership for core enabling functions, including the following: - Ensure the provision of an efficient and compliant international donation management service that facilitates, processes, accepts and administers £25m+ in donations each year. - Ensure the provision of a suite of systems and software products that effectively enable fundraising and alumni engagement programmes, and that take advantage of new technologies, solutions, AI, and global sector best practice. Work closely with King’s central IT to ensure that P&A has a database that is fit for purpose and evolves to enhance functionality. - Ensure the creation and implementation of an ambitious prospect strategy that provides an effective pipeline of prospective donors capable of donating significant gifts for university priorities and that supports fundraising and campaign targets. - Ensure the provision of focused and insightful business intelligence to inform strategic and operational decision-making across all the P&A programmes. • Have overall accountability for compliance, assurance and risk management for the Directorate. Ensure that a P&A risk register, major incident and business continuity plans, and internal audits are in place and undertaken appropriately. With the Associate Director, ensure expertise is provided in relation to Data Privacy and FOI, influencing University policy and process. • Ensure that due diligence and gift acceptance policies and processes are fit for purpose and working effectively, with the effective creation of papers for the gift acceptance committee (FERG), and ensuring ultimately that risk is accurately assessed and mitigated. • Keep abreast of professional and regulatory developments and, with the Associate Director, act as the expert on all regulatory and statutory matters relating to philanthropy. Use professional networks to support work in this area and contribute to discussions with charity and HE sector peers, leading on responses to regulatory and other types of consultations as necessary. • Facilitate well-structured fundraising partnerships (e.g. with KHP hospital charities), where needed, through developing ways of working frameworks and/or MOUs to ensure collaborative success. • Build and maintain supportive, productive working relationships and partnerships with leaders and staff across King’s, including the Chief Information Officer, Senior Vice President (Operations) and the Chief Financial Officer.

Strategy, Planning and Performance

• Contribute to the creation and regular review of the P&A strategy as a member of the Leadership Team. • Develop and maintain a framework and process for operationalising the strategy through the development of annual Directorate business, financial and workforce plans, which connect to plans and objectives at team and individual level. • Connected to the above, meet the requirements of the University annual integrated planning process and as required lead on the development of any investment business cases. • Ensure there is a robust and effective process in place for overseeing the effective and prudent use and management of the P&A budget. • Maintain and refine the Directorate’s performance management framework ensuring it provides clear expectations, metrics and targets at department, team and individual levels, and enables a high-performance culture. Work closely with the Director of Philanthropy & Campaign to ensure effective fundraising performance management is in place. • Ensure there are reporting suites and processes in place to support the above, to inform decision-making and to feed into accountability and review mechanisms with university senior leadership. • Contribute to the development and implementation of a Campaign Plan including leading workstreams relating to the operational enablement of campaign objectives. • Lead as required on transformation initiatives designed to scale up operations to deliver an increase in philanthropic revenue and/or engagement.

Team Leadership

• Provide line management for direct reports that is supportive, enabling and transparent in terms of responsibilities and expectations, with appropriate and clear delegation. • Provide strategic leadership for the wider teams of professionals reporting into the post, fostering a collaborative and high performing culture where teams are integrated and supported, with clear goals. • Act as a role model across the Directorate for the P&A core values, supporting a motivational environment where people are developed, encouraged and supported to achieve outstanding results.

Vision 2029

King's Vision builds upon our history of service to society and takes us to our 200th anniversary in 2029

Back to top

applying for a job mobil-743x496

Criteria

Essential

• Ability to lead and inspire a high performing, multi-faceted operations team that enables ambitious objectives in philanthropy and alumni engagement. • Ability to provide overall leadership for and to shape functions delivering business intelligence, gift management, data management and prospect research, drawing on knowledge of sector best practice. • Ability to shape strategy and lead on establishing mechanisms to ensure its translation into business and financial planning at different organisational levels. • Ability to shape and drive a cross-organisational performance monitoring and reporting framework. • Experience of overseeing robust management of a significant organisational budget, allocated across multiple budget-holders. • Considerable knowledge of the regulatory, policy and best practice environment for philanthropy and alumni engagement activity in the UK, and experience of engaging with such issues on a sector-wide basis. • Ability to perform effectively under pressure with good personal organisation, time management and prioritisation skills. • Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, and interpersonal skills that enable development of effective working relationships at all levels.

Desirable

• Knowledge of and adherence to ethics and best practice statements by CASE and other appropriate associations. • Experience of planning and enabling a large-scale comprehensive fundraising campaign. • Proficient user of a complex CRM system, ideally a MS Dynamics product.

Our expectations

There are a number of duties and responsibilities that we ask all employees to be familiar with and adhere to. We ask that the successful candidate: • Positively contributes to an environment at King’s that truly represents Our Principles in Action and where every individual feels safe, secure and supported. In Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement, we have a local expression of these Principles through our P&A Core Values, which we expect every team member to model in their behaviours. • Always complies with the requirements of health and safety regulations to ensure their own wellbeing and that of their colleagues. • Has an understanding of sustainability, including its impact on the University and the work we do, and engages in sustainable practices in the workplace. • Ensures they are working in a safe environment, where they comply with our Health and Safety regulations and ensure confidentiality, only releasing confidential information obtained during the course of employment to those acting in an official capacity. • Complies with King’s protocols on the appropriate use of telephone, email and internet facilities. • Aligns with P&A's hybrid working pattern of a minimum 40% of time on site, recognising need for flexibility to align with key meeting and events that require in-person attendance.

Our people

Through all our work, we aim to make the world a better place.

Back to top

JCMB

About Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement

Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement provides a fundraising and alumni engagement function in support of King’s College London. We are proud to work with colleagues across the university to help them serve society through world-leading education, research and healthcare. Our work also includes a partnership with the Maudsley Charity in support of children’s mental health initiatives between the university’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. We are a committed team that brings together fundraisers working across different channels, alongside colleagues who promote King’s College London’s engagement with its worldwide alumni community. Our work is underpinned and enhanced by a range of dedicated professionals in supporting areas covering proposition development, supporter engagement, supporter operations and business operations. We have an impressive, well-established track record of success in securing support that allows the university and partners to deliver on their missions. This includes our global, award-winning World Questions: King’s Answers campaign, which set the standard in the sector and enabled us to raise substantial funds to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Ambitious and innovative, the team has won awards such as a CASE Platinum Award for Fundraising and a CASE Gold Award for Donor Relations and Stewardship. We are strongly values-driven with a focus on sustaining an excellent and supportive culture, which we see as key to creating a successful team that can support the university and its partners in making a real and positive difference to the world we live in.

About King's

King's College London provides a dynamic habitat for individuals looking to expand their career prospects

Back to top

Please quote the vacancy id: 117210 in all correspondence.

Closing date for applications: 04 July 2025 12:00
Interview date: 23 July 2025
Second interview date: 04 August 2025

Application process

To apply for this post you will need to register on the King’s College London job opportunities page and submit the application form, along with the following: • a concise statement setting out your reasons for applying for the post and highlighting the particular skills and experience which you feel you would bring to the role (two pages maximum) • a curriculum vitae

Contact the team

For an informal discussion or to find out more about the role please contact the King’s Search Team.

Selection process

The selection process will include a longlisting on 16th July and two-stage interview process (July/Aug 2025), with opportunities for informal engagements with key stakeholders.

Equal opportunities

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion are central tenets of King’s Vision 2029 which sets out the roadmap for King’s ambition to provide an exceptional student experience and to be an employer of choice. Integral to this is ensuring equality of opportunity and outcome, recognising, celebrating and improving our diversity and inclusion. As a responsible employer we aim to provide and promote a positive working, learning, and social environment which is free from prejudice, discrimination and any forms of harassment, bullying or victimisation. Our commitment to inclusion means that King’s aims to create an environment where differences are not just respected, but also valued and celebrated. Everyone should be able to bring their whole self to King’s. All King’s students, staff and affiliates are responsible for meeting these commitments to value diversity and create an inclusive environment. King's will support and equip all members of its community to do this, embedding inclusion throughout the university’s policies, procedures, and practices.  

Back to top

A King's Modern Language Centre student smiling in a crowd of fellow students.

Role Purpose

The Director of Advancement Operations is a senior leadership role within the Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement (P&A) Directorate at King’s College London. It has a core responsibility for leading the enabling functions and infrastructure that are essential to the delivery of objectives across philanthropy and alumni engagement. This includes oversight of and overall accountability for teams working across data & insights; donation management; compliance services; and prospect research. The postholder also has responsibility for driving strategy, business and financial planning across the Directorate. They will contribute to the Directorate strategy and be responsible for this being translated into business, financial and workforce plans. They will ensure that a framework is in place to enable all programmes, teams and individuals to have clear objectives and targets, driving a high-performance culture. This will include ensuring that reporting processes are in place to provide management information internally and also to support reporting into university senior leadership. As a member of the P&A Leadership Team, the postholder will work in close collaboration with other senior colleagues within the Directorate to deliver the above responsibilities and also to collectively ensure that wider objectives are being met. This will involve delivering strategic initiatives, over-seeing growth and expansion, managing transformation and change, optimising operational efficiency, and fostering organisational excellence. This post also deputises as needed for the Executive Director and will be required to develop and maintain strong relationships with senior officers across the University and at external partners. They will also be well connected and influential in relevant sector-wider discussions, leading P&A’s response on these issues where required.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Leadership

• Develop, lead and implement an Advancement Operations strategy that effectively provides the infrastructure to enable delivery of P&A’s philanthropic and alumni engagement objectives. To work collaboratively with line reports, LT colleagues and others in doing so. • In line with this strategy and via close working with and appropriate delegation to the Associate Director, provide strategic direction and leadership for core enabling functions, including the following: - Ensure the provision of an efficient and compliant international donation management service that facilitates, processes, accepts and administers £25m+ in donations each year. - Ensure the provision of a suite of systems and software products that effectively enable fundraising and alumni engagement programmes, and that take advantage of new technologies, solutions, AI, and global sector best practice. Work closely with King’s central IT to ensure that P&A has a database that is fit for purpose and evolves to enhance functionality. - Ensure the creation and implementation of an ambitious prospect strategy that provides an effective pipeline of prospective donors capable of donating significant gifts for university priorities and that supports fundraising and campaign targets. - Ensure the provision of focused and insightful business intelligence to inform strategic and operational decision-making across all the P&A programmes. • Have overall accountability for compliance, assurance and risk management for the Directorate. Ensure that a P&A risk register, major incident and business continuity plans, and internal audits are in place and undertaken appropriately. With the Associate Director, ensure expertise is provided in relation to Data Privacy and FOI, influencing University policy and process. • Ensure that due diligence and gift acceptance policies and processes are fit for purpose and working effectively, with the effective creation of papers for the gift acceptance committee (FERG), and ensuring ultimately that risk is accurately assessed and mitigated. • Keep abreast of professional and regulatory developments and, with the Associate Director, act as the expert on all regulatory and statutory matters relating to philanthropy. Use professional networks to support work in this area and contribute to discussions with charity and HE sector peers, leading on responses to regulatory and other types of consultations as necessary. • Facilitate well-structured fundraising partnerships (e.g. with KHP hospital charities), where needed, through developing ways of working frameworks and/or MOUs to ensure collaborative success. • Build and maintain supportive, productive working relationships and partnerships with leaders and staff across King’s, including the Chief Information Officer, Senior Vice President (Operations) and the Chief Financial Officer.

Strategy, Planning and Performance

• Contribute to the creation and regular review of the P&A strategy as a member of the Leadership Team. • Develop and maintain a framework and process for operationalising the strategy through the development of annual Directorate business, financial and workforce plans, which connect to plans and objectives at team and individual level. • Connected to the above, meet the requirements of the University annual integrated planning process and as required lead on the development of any investment business cases. • Ensure there is a robust and effective process in place for overseeing the effective and prudent use and management of the P&A budget. • Maintain and refine the Directorate’s performance management framework ensuring it provides clear expectations, metrics and targets at department, team and individual levels, and enables a high-performance culture. Work closely with the Director of Philanthropy & Campaign to ensure effective fundraising performance management is in place. • Ensure there are reporting suites and processes in place to support the above, to inform decision-making and to feed into accountability and review mechanisms with university senior leadership. • Contribute to the development and implementation of a Campaign Plan including leading workstreams relating to the operational enablement of campaign objectives. • Lead as required on transformation initiatives designed to scale up operations to deliver an increase in philanthropic revenue and/or engagement.

Team Leadership

• Provide line management for direct reports that is supportive, enabling and transparent in terms of responsibilities and expectations, with appropriate and clear delegation. • Provide strategic leadership for the wider teams of professionals reporting into the post, fostering a collaborative and high performing culture where teams are integrated and supported, with clear goals. • Act as a role model across the Directorate for the P&A core values, supporting a motivational environment where people are developed, encouraged and supported to achieve outstanding results.

Vision 2029

King's Vision builds upon our history of service to society and takes us to our 200th anniversary in 2029

Back to top

applying for a job mobil-743x496

Criteria

Essential

• Ability to lead and inspire a high performing, multi-faceted operations team that enables ambitious objectives in philanthropy and alumni engagement. • Ability to provide overall leadership for and to shape functions delivering business intelligence, gift management, data management and prospect research, drawing on knowledge of sector best practice. • Ability to shape strategy and lead on establishing mechanisms to ensure its translation into business and financial planning at different organisational levels. • Ability to shape and drive a cross-organisational performance monitoring and reporting framework. • Experience of overseeing robust management of a significant organisational budget, allocated across multiple budget-holders. • Considerable knowledge of the regulatory, policy and best practice environment for philanthropy and alumni engagement activity in the UK, and experience of engaging with such issues on a sector-wide basis. • Ability to perform effectively under pressure with good personal organisation, time management and prioritisation skills. • Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, and interpersonal skills that enable development of effective working relationships at all levels.

Desirable

• Knowledge of and adherence to ethics and best practice statements by CASE and other appropriate associations. • Experience of planning and enabling a large-scale comprehensive fundraising campaign. • Proficient user of a complex CRM system, ideally a MS Dynamics product.

Our expectations

There are a number of duties and responsibilities that we ask all employees to be familiar with and adhere to. We ask that the successful candidate: • Positively contributes to an environment at King’s that truly represents Our Principles in Action and where every individual feels safe, secure and supported. In Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement, we have a local expression of these Principles through our P&A Core Values, which we expect every team member to model in their behaviours. • Always complies with the requirements of health and safety regulations to ensure their own wellbeing and that of their colleagues. • Has an understanding of sustainability, including its impact on the University and the work we do, and engages in sustainable practices in the workplace. • Ensures they are working in a safe environment, where they comply with our Health and Safety regulations and ensure confidentiality, only releasing confidential information obtained during the course of employment to those acting in an official capacity. • Complies with King’s protocols on the appropriate use of telephone, email and internet facilities. • Aligns with P&A's hybrid working pattern of a minimum 40% of time on site, recognising need for flexibility to align with key meeting and events that require in-person attendance.

Our people

Through all our work, we aim to make the world a better place.

Back to top

JCMB

About Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement

Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement provides a fundraising and alumni engagement function in support of King’s College London. We are proud to work with colleagues across the university to help them serve society through world-leading education, research and healthcare. Our work also includes a partnership with the Maudsley Charity in support of children’s mental health initiatives between the university’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. We are a committed team that brings together fundraisers working across different channels, alongside colleagues who promote King’s College London’s engagement with its worldwide alumni community. Our work is underpinned and enhanced by a range of dedicated professionals in supporting areas covering proposition development, supporter engagement, supporter operations and business operations. We have an impressive, well-established track record of success in securing support that allows the university and partners to deliver on their missions. This includes our global, award-winning World Questions: King’s Answers campaign, which set the standard in the sector and enabled us to raise substantial funds to help tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. Ambitious and innovative, the team has won awards such as a CASE Platinum Award for Fundraising and a CASE Gold Award for Donor Relations and Stewardship. We are strongly values-driven with a focus on sustaining an excellent and supportive culture, which we see as key to creating a successful team that can support the university and its partners in making a real and positive difference to the world we live in.

About King's

King's College London provides a dynamic habitat for individuals looking to expand their career prospects

Back to top

Please quote the vacancy id: 117210 in all correspondence.

Closing date for applications: 04 July 2025 12:00
Interview date: 23 July 2025
Second interview date: 04 August 2025

Application process

To apply for this post you will need to register on the King’s College London job opportunities page and submit the application form, along with the following: • a concise statement setting out your reasons for applying for the post and highlighting the particular skills and experience which you feel you would bring to the role (two pages maximum) • a curriculum vitae

Contact the team

For an informal discussion or to find out more about the role please contact the King’s Search Team.

Selection process

The selection process will include a longlisting on 16th July and two-stage interview process (July/Aug 2025), with opportunities for informal engagements with key stakeholders.

Equal opportunities

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion are central tenets of King’s Vision 2029 which sets out the roadmap for King’s ambition to provide an exceptional student experience and to be an employer of choice. Integral to this is ensuring equality of opportunity and outcome, recognising, celebrating and improving our diversity and inclusion. As a responsible employer we aim to provide and promote a positive working, learning, and social environment which is free from prejudice, discrimination and any forms of harassment, bullying or victimisation. Our commitment to inclusion means that King’s aims to create an environment where differences are not just respected, but also valued and celebrated. Everyone should be able to bring their whole self to King’s. All King’s students, staff and affiliates are responsible for meeting these commitments to value diversity and create an inclusive environment. King's will support and equip all members of its community to do this, embedding inclusion throughout the university’s policies, procedures, and practices.  

Back to top